4 USB Tornado Spinners to work in Mame

[Rhetro]

Hello gentlemen,

My question has to do with getting 4 USB Tornado Spinners to work in Mame on a Windows 7 system (64). Windows has given each spinner a different device id, but I'm not sure if this can be configured in Mame. I'm now starting to think that I need non-usb optical spinners hooked into an i-pac or Opti-pac sort of rig. I was messing around with this ages ago when AnalogmameXP was out. But that was ages ago -like 12 years ago if not more.

Anyone know how to do this?

Thanks in advance

[Hoopz]

It's been awhile since I was active here so I'm not as up to date as I used to be but this may work. If not, perhaps asking in the Software sub will help.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,108767.0.html

[Rhetro]

Thanks Hoopz!

I'll try there..

[DarthMarino]

As long as you set MAME to allow multiple mice, they should all show up separately.

[PL1]

With 4 spinners, you might run up against the Windows limit of 8(?) mouse axes.

If all 4 Tornado spinners are run as masters, pretty sure they would show up in Windows as 4 devices with 2 axes each, total of 8 axes.
- If you also have a mouse connected to your system, Windows won't be able to handle that many inputs.

You can get around that by running 2 of the spinners as masters on the X-axis and two as slaves on the Y-axis.
- This configuration shows up in Windows as 2 devices with 2 axes each, total of 4 axes.

As DarthMarino mentioned, you will need to set "multimouse    1" (enabled) in mame.ini to keep the spinners separate.

To keep Windows from changing device order on reboot, follow Hoopz's advice about ControllerRemap.
- There are also some newer apps that perform the same function as ControllerRemap, but I don't remember the names off the top of my head.   


Scott

[Rhetro]

Thanks! You guys rock.

I was afraid that I was going to have to ditch my 4 Tornadoes and replace with 4 non-USB spinners.
But this is definitely my situation: 4 USB Spinners and a USB trackball.

You can get around that by running 2 of the spinners as masters on the X-axis and two as slaves on the Y-axis.
- This configuration shows up in Windows as 2 devices with 2 axes each, total of 4 axes.

So I take it that all the configuration is handled inside the Mame environment and nothing has to be tweaked inside the Windows device manager?

[DarthMarino]

Correct. In MAME it will show up as Mouse 1 X, Mouse 1 Y, Mouse 2 X and Mouse 2 Y or whatever numbers Windows assigns to each device. Keep in mind those assignments could change when you restart Windows or plug/unplug a mouse unit so you may need to remap.

[PL1]

4 USB Spinners and a USB trackball.

So 6 optical axes plus two more if you plug in a wireless keyboard with trackpad -- that should work.

So I take it that all the configuration is handled inside the Mame environment and nothing has to be tweaked inside the Windows device manager?

The software part is in MAME and whichever app you use to prevent Windows device renumbering.

Ignore my earlier comments about wiring your Tornado spinners as master/slave -- I must have been thinking about a different spinner.   

According to the review here,

The Tornado spinner basically acts as a single-axis mouse, and is recognized as such by Windows when plugged into the computer.

To verify that everything is going to work, hook up the four spinners and the trackball and try using all five controls to move the cursor around in Windows.

If all five move the cursor, everything will work in MAME.   

If not, look at the spinner properties in Windows Control Panel.
- A generic mouse driver may be sending data for X and Y axes, even though the Tornado can only control one axis.
- If you can't find a single-axis mouse driver for the spinners, that leaves you no choice but to change hardware -- either dropping the trackball or getting different spinners that can be wired as master/slave.   


Scott

[Howard_Casto]

Ok I'll bite..... what in the world are you building that needs four spinners and a trackball? 

[Rhetro]

Success!

As far as getting them to work independently -the original goal. I always knew they every spinner and the trackball could control the cursor. Thanks PL, it looks like I won't have to overhaul my spinners.

I tried it out with Sprint 4 and every spinner got a car!

I also downloaded the ControllerRemap as the Windows reassign sounds like it would be a pain to keep dealing with. Thanks for putting in the time for that, Darth.

You guys have been great, thanks again. I'm sure I'll have plenty of more questions.

 

Ok I'll bite..... what in the world are you building that needs four spinners and a trackball? 

Ok Howard, since you asked