Opti-PAC Independent Mouse Devices Problem

[zero_koop]

I'm using the Opti-PAC to wire up 1 trackball and 2 spinners.  I am running Windows XP and using GameEX as my interface to play MAME games.  Everything was working fine until suddenly my computer seems to recognize both of my spinners as the same device.  So I cannot play any 2-player spinner games because they both control Player 1.  While running MAME, when I configure the controls (by hitting TAB in game) it recognizes both of my spinners as the same device.  In other words if I spin either spinner it will say "mouse 1 x-axis".  How do I get my computer to recognize these as separate devices again?  Thanks.

Side note: I only recently installed Xpadder so I can connect gamepads.  I don't think the spinner problems started when I installed this, but I guess it's possible and I can't confirm that.

[zero_koop]

I tried deleting the default.cfg file to reset my mame controls but that didn't work.  I also tried deleting the .cfg file for the specific game I was testing this problem on and that didn't work either.  Windows XP recognizes 3 separate mouse devices (presumably my trackball and 2 spinners) so it must be a problem with MAME, or maybe with GameEx if that's possible.  Any guesses?

[zero_koop]

Bump... anyone have a clue as to what I could try to do? 

[BobA]

Try to run the game just from mame to eliminate the frontend.

[zero_koop]

I've finally figured out the source of my problem, but I don't know how to fix it.  The version of the mame.exe that comes when you download MAME does not allow direct input which means I can't use Xpadder and my 2 gamepads for controllers.  However a long time ago (so I don't remember exactly how I did this) I recompiled my own mame.exe to allow direct input.  This makes the controllers work, but it also makes MAME recognize both of my spinners as 1 device.

So, I either need to figure out how to create a version of mame.exe that allows for both situations, or I need to configure my frontend to use the different versions of mame.exe based on the game I'm playing (I don't want to go this route if I can avoid it).  By the way I'm using MAME version 0144.