SpinTrak MAME problem

[fleskebacon]

I have a SpinTrak USB and MAME 0.153. The problem is, when I turn sensitivity up to like 50 and spin the spinner really fast, it doesn't respond correctly. It just shakes the spaceship in Tempest or the VAUS in Arkanoid, and it doesn't move in the correct direction until I reduce speed on the spinner.

If I adjust the mouse sensitivity i MAME down to like 10, the problem disappears, but then the game doesn't play the way it's supposed to. I think.

I've tried virtually all mouse sensitivity settings in Windows, and the Windows mouse pointer never behaves this way, so I reckon it's a MAME problem.

Is there any way to resolve this, or am I stuck with either shaky controls or too low sensitivity for my liking?

Edit: I think sensitivity 35 is the highest I can go before the problem arises.

[yotsuya]

I drop mine down to 10 for Tempest, maybe even 6.

[BadMouth]

I have a SpinTrak USB and MAME 0.153. The problem is, when I turn sensitivity up to like 50 and spin the spinner really fast, it doesn't respond correctly. It just shakes the spaceship in Tempest or the VAUS in Arkanoid, and it doesn't move in the correct direction until I reduce speed on the spinner.

If I adjust the mouse sensitivity i MAME down to like 10, the problem disappears, but then the game doesn't play the way it's supposed to. I think.

I've tried virtually all mouse sensitivity settings in Windows, and the Windows mouse pointer never behaves this way, so I reckon it's a MAME problem.

Is there any way to resolve this, or am I stuck with either shaky controls or too low sensitivity for my liking?

Edit: I think sensitivity 35 is the highest I can go before the problem arises.

Not sure if this will help, but...

If multi-mouse is enabled in mame.ini, MAME will get the raw data directly from each mouse connected to the system and the windows settings will have no effect on it.  If multimouse is not enabled in mame.ini, then it will get the input from the "system mouse" after windows has made adjustments.
(at least for the last version of MAME I messed around with this stuff in)

Make sure you don't also have the spinner mapped to x-axis INC and x-axis DEC.
Those are for when buttons are substituted for the analog input.
Weird things can happen when you map the spinner to both the x-axis and those other inputs.

The only other solution I see is changing spinners.
The original resolution of the spinners on these games was way lower than a Spintrak, so I can't imagine that the game originally behaved as you want it to.

[fleskebacon]

Thanks. Will try this out.

I've been reading a bit about USB polling rates, but I'm hoping not to have to go down that road...

[dkersten]

I set my spintrak last night to about 24 or 25 in tempest and it was still pretty darn sensitive.. I can spin the whole way around with about a quarter turn.. no need for more sensitivity.  On optical devices like this if you set the sensitivity too high it will start to back up or bounce around.. it is like when you film a wagon wheel or propeller spinning and it starts to look like it is going backwards.. An optical spinner or trackball works the same way, if the number of times it flashes through the wheel per second is slightly ahead or behind the number of times it can poll the data per second, it will read it going slower, faster, or even backwards.. Even on low sensitivity, if you spun it fast enough it would go backwards or jerk around back and forth.. By setting that sensitivity too high you are making it so that threshold is much lower. 

Even if it worked, a setting of 50 would make mine turn all the way around in Tempest with about a 1/8" adjustment of the spinner.. WAY too sensitive.

If 25 isn't working well, check it in windows.. My mouse goes from the far left to the far right of my screen in about a quarter turn of the spinner.  Perhaps your windows mouse sensitivity is set way low or something.. ?

[fleskebacon]

Hm. After a closer look, it doesn't seem like the Windows mouse sensitivity settings does anything to the sensitivity in MAME.. Is MAME getting raw data from the mouse, like someone mentioned earlier, and sets its sensitivity regardless of the Windows settings? Enabling or disabling multimouse makes no difference.

I've never acutally played Tempest or Arkanoid on an original machine, so I have no idea on how sensitive the spinner is "supposed" to be. Anyone have any idea on this? How many turns would it take to spin all the way around in Tempest, or for the VAUS to move from one side to the other?

When using sensitivity 25 in Tempest, one full turn on the spinner spins all the way around in the game. And it bounces around quite a bit when I spin fast.

Are you using an alternative mouse driver or anything?

Edit: Found a thread on sensitivity, will check it out, adjust accordingly and see if things still bounce around. Seems like I have been setting the sensitivity WAAAAY too high.

[yotsuya]

The other thing to consider is that a Tempest spinner and an Arkanoid spinner are two different beasts. What might work on Tempest might not for Arkanoid.

[BadMouth]

To reiterate

Make sure you don't also have the spinner mapped to x-axis INC and x-axis DEC.
Those are for when buttons are substituted for the analog input.
Weird things can happen when you map the spinner to both the x-axis and those other inputs.

[fleskebacon]

To reiterate

Make sure you don't also have the spinner mapped to x-axis INC and x-axis DEC.
Those are for when buttons are substituted for the analog input.
Weird things can happen when you map the spinner to both the x-axis and those other inputs.

Yep, taken that into consideration as well. I've actually set all the controls that I don't use to "none".

I went so far to install the hack to set the USB mouse polling rate to 500 Hz. Still the same issues, so don't bother!

But when I set the sensitivity lower, to resemble what the original games are like, everything works reasonably good.

I read that Tempest should move 5 squares in the first level on one full turn of the spinner, which means sensitivity 6 or 7 for me. Works like a charm, no bouncing or backwards movement no matter how fast I spin!

And the VAUS in Arkanoid is supposed to move across the entire playfield with a 120-130 degree turn on the spinner, which means around 35 for me. I think this results in a bit more than 130 degrees, closer to 150, but I can't go any higher on the sensitivity, or the bouncing is back. The only thing that's still a pain is entering high scores in Arkanoid. I need to turn the spinner really slowly to advance letters. But apart from that, I'm reasonably happy. (And for all I know, this could be the same on the original machines as well?)

This is all probably one of the compromises one has to live with when running an emulator where the hardware isn't matching the hardware that the games were originally designed for...