Control Panel and Games

[kuehnau]

So I have been working on my MAME cabinet and I got around to wiring up my controls tonight. I am using goldleaf push buttons and black E-Stiks. I chose the E-Stiks because they were supposed to be easy to install. I spent maybe a good two hours wiring up all the controls.

I got everything up and running and... Well... I don't know if I am a fan of the E-Stiks, they just feel off, I had a zippy joystick before and it didn't feel nearly as weird in my hands. Further, I keep feeling like the more intense a game gets, that perhaps the nut and washer under the panel are going to come loose. As a matter of fact, I already had one issue where the left on the player 1 joystick wasn't working right, like it wasn't making good contact. So I had to shut everything down, remove the panel, make sure everything was tight and then start it up again, sure enough, now the left was working again.

Another thing I am quickly learning is, 4-way games don't really play well with 8-way joysticks. Of course the E-Stik allows for changing between 4 and 8 way via a dial under it, but it feels kind of a pain in the ass having to shut everything down and changing the control scheme just because of that. And yes, I do shut the cabinet down, because I tried while it was on and hit some contacts and got a jolt. Nothing bad, but I didn't care for it either.

It seems to me, it'd just work better to have a dedicated 4-way cabinet and a 8-way cabinet. I guess in the future that's what I'll think about.

I do have a quick question, I power the entire thing on and off by unplugging it, it's never been an issue before. MAME is running a 2-player version of TMNT: Turtles in Time, the first time I played, it was fine, when I shut it down and tried again later, it started to boot up, but then kept giving me an error about some bad ram. Is there like a folder or save file or something for that? Because I've no idea how to fix that. If anyone can throw me an idea what I can do to fix that, I'd appreciate it.

[Drnick]

it will probably be nvram, look in the nvram folder under mame and delete the relevant file.   Do not power down by just pulling the plug, install an additional button to  do a nice clean shutdown.  Or if you must pull the plug make sure you are not running a game at the time.   

As for the 4 way issue, if you are normally the only one playing then just set 1 joystick to 8 way and the other to 4 way, use the joystick that is best for your needs at the time. Or set the joysticks to 4 way and only play 4 way games. When bored of 4 way games swap them back to 8 way.  I got Magsticks so I could swap from the top, but am seriously thinking about swapping them out for some servosticks or similar.

[kuehnau]

I guess I have a question for those of you out there that might know it.

I basically got a knock off of the I-Pac, called the Wiz or something. I'll have to look for the paper work. Anyways instead of having a spot where you can like attach a wire it's got pins, and the wiring harness that it came with has crimp connectors on one end with rubber shielding that pulls over them, the other end is like, well it looks almost like jumper pins or something.

Anyways, right now the wiring is just a massive mess, but at some point, I'd like to clean it up really nice and everything, that most likely means I cannot just use the harnesses I got as is, instead, possibly wanting to not only do my own, but cut them to length, ect.

Does anyone know how you do that with the set up I have? It looks like the I-Pac just as some screws you wrap the end of the wire around, my board uses pins. Is there a kit or something I can get for that?