Has anyone done dual USB Tornado spinners?

[soslo]

How did it work out. I will be hooking up my dual spinners today or tomorrow and if I run into trouble, it'd be nice to have an answer waiting for me  

Currently I am running windows 98. I'll switch to another OS if I need to.

Other odd controls:

dual LS-30 joys
happ 3" trackball (connected via PS2 port)

[jerryjanis]

If regular Mame gives you problems, don't forget to try Mame: Analog+ - it's got several features just for that purpose.

http://www.urebelscum.speedhost.com/

It supports multiple mice/spinners/trackballs.  Tt also includes options that let you remap each individual mouse axis to different players, among other things.

[Donger]

What games require dual spinners?  (On a related note, what games require dual trakballs?)

[jerryjanis]

Here are some, these don't include driving games like Super Sprint, Off-Road, Demolition Derby, , or lightgun games that work well with a trackball (etc.):

Multiplayer Spinner games (# of spinners):
----------------------------------
Blasteroids (2)
Off the Wall (3 I think)

Multiplayer Paddle games (# of paddles):
----------------------------------------------------
Warlords (4)
Tournament Table (4)

Multiplayer Trackball games (# of trackballs):
--------------------------------------------------------
Gridiron Fight (2)
Rambo III (2)
Extra Bases (2)
Pound for Pound (2)
Blades of Steel (2)
Combat School (2)
Major League (2)
Goalie Ghost (2)
Ataxx (2)
Marble Madness (2)
SDI Strategic Defense Initiative (2)
Arcade Classics (2)
Spiker (2)
Cabal (2)
Basketball (2)
Atari Baseball (2)
Boot Camp (2)
Sonic the Hedgehog (3)
Rampart (3)
Atari Football (4)
Atari Soccer (4)

[dpdelcollo]

Wow! how did you come up with that list?  awesome!

Be sure to let us know how the dual USB spinners work, Im interested to hear the success story.

[soslo]

I can't even get one of the usb tornado spinners to work...is there a setting somewhere that I need to change?

mame or analog mame

[eightbit]

With Dual spinners wouldn't you just hook both to the same usb device so that windows would see each spinner as one axis? This would really simplify configuration.

Dual trackballs- Marble Madness, Track and Field, I think theres a couple more.

[soslo]

trust me - its not working with the default settings  

The odd thing is that windows is picking up *one* of the spinners as a mouse, but not the other one.

Currently I have a trackball and the two spinners hooked up, and it no likey.

how does everyone else get usb spinners to work?

[OSCAR]

Make sure you have enabled mouse input in MAME.  By default, mouse input in not enabled.  If you are using the Windows compile of MAME, edit the mame.ini such that 'mouse = 1'.  MAME32 has a checkbox to enable mouse support.

[jerryjanis]

Wow! how did you come up with that list?  awesome!

A program called "sortinfo" will organize Mame's "listinfo" data into a really easy to sort list of games which you can sort by input type/number of inputs/etc.  It's not always right, but it's a good start.  I also used searches on Klov.  Lastly, I played them all to make sure they work right (the trackball games, anyway).

The odd thing is that windows is picking up *one* of the spinners as a mouse, but not the other one.

Currently I have a trackball and the two spinners hooked up, and it no likey.

In Windows 98, if I plug in 2 or 3 or 10 mice (HID mouse devices) into the computer at one time, they will all control the Windows mouse cursor.  Therefore, assuming that the Tornado spinners work like generic mice, and both spinners work properly, I would expect that both spinners and the trackball would all control the Windows mouse cursor at the same time.

Can you plug the spinners in one at a time and make sure that they both work (in other words, to test to see if they can control the mouse cursor in Windows without both of them plugged in)?  If both spinners work with one plugged in at a time AND 2 will not work at the same time, then I think you need to email XArcade and find out why they don't both work.

I can't even get one of the usb tornado spinners to work...is there a setting somewhere that I need to change?

Like Oscar said, you will need to enable mouse input in Mame.
"mame.exe -mouse warlords".  You will probably not get 2 of them working in Mame without Mame:Analog+.

[southpaw13]

I got a trackball running through a USB Opti-Pac, I have a Tornado USB spinner hooked up, and a analog joystick.  I'm running Win 2000 and Mame recognized everything the first time.  But, I think that I would have probably used the USB Opti-Pac if I wanted to hook up two spinners.  It is made for that purpose.

[u_rebelscum]

The odd thing is that windows is picking up *one* of the spinners as a mouse, but not the other one.

Are you saying in the windows desktop?  If windows doesn't see the second spinner, mame won't either.

If you're having problems in windows, try unplugging the spinners one at a time, and plugging them back in one at a time, looking for the pointer-&-hourglass cursor each time.  Try different USB ports in different plug in orders with different spinners.  Try having only one spinner in, and then switch spinners.

Is one spinner never working and the other always under all conditions? (one spinner is "bad")  
Is it one USB port always not working, even if plugged in first and only one used? (bad USB port)

[soslo]

Thanks for all of the replies. When I get home tonight I'll try out:

1. enabling mouse input with MAME
2. doing the spinners one at a time
3. using analogmame

I'll post the results, thanks

[SirPoonga]

Also make sure you are testing the spinners in windows BEFORE mame like uRebel said.

[SirPoonga]

With Dual spinners wouldn't you just hook both to the same usb device so that windows would see each spinner as one axis? This would really simplify configuration.

Yes, but since the tornados come with a usb cord that isn't going to happen.

With Oscars you can do that.  You will need analog mame to split the axis those.

[Raider]

I use two USB Tornado spinners. In fact I also have a usb trackball and two usb lightguns hooked up and I have no probs with MAMEanalog+. Only one of my spinners works from the desktop and the other doesn't. So I wouldn't be too concerned with that yet.

In addition to the suggestions above. Use MAMEanalog+ and add "switchmice 1" to each games ini file that you desire to use dual spinners. Then load up each game, hit the tab key, and there should be a new option there called "mouse controls", from here you need to set the axis for what player. For example 4x and 4y may be your first spinner and will need to be set as such for player 1.

You'll need to toy around to get 'em set proper but it should work.

Also of note if you ever have the misfortune to encounter it. I had some probs with Happs USB boards re-enumerating on my machine. Basically the controller would just quit working. I purchased a self powered hub to attach my happ usb controllers to, and that rectified the problem

[soslo]

Raider - thanks for the great info - I will try this out tonight!

[soslo]

Raider - your info really helped. I got both spinners working using analog mame and the "switchmice 1" setting. As was mentioned above by other ppl, I had to enable the mouse input in the .ini file by changing the 0 to a 1.

I tested this out using Championship Spring and Off Road - good times! They both run very nicely. The Tornado spinners are awesome...very much like the Off Road steering wheels that spin forever!

[Raider]

GREAT! Glad it worked out! And yep, spin for DAYS! lol!