USB vs. PS/2 Trackball

[drunkatuw]

A while back, people we're discussing how they were having problems with their trackballs in games such as golden tee where you really spin the trackball hard.  Suggestions to fix this included changing the mouses sampling rate and turning off mouse acceleration.  One thing I noticed is that you cannot change the sampling rate of a USB trackball, it's stuck at 125.  Unless there is a registry hack or something to adjust this, it seems to me that a PS/2 option would be better.

After reading a thread today about 4 player games, I came across games I've never played such as shuuz and shuffleshot.  Unfortunately, with shuffleshot, I can't even get the "puck" all the way across the board.  I've got my y axis speed up to 85 in mame!

So I'm wondering for those people that are pleased with their trackball, do you have it hooked up via USB or PS/2?

Right now I have a Minipac, so mine is hooked up via USB and I'm not happy at all with my trackball.

Just thought I'd take a poll before I spend the $8 for a PS/2 mouse hack from oscar (once he opens back up)

Thanks!

[drunkatuw]

I guess I'm the only one not happy with their trackball.  Maybe I'll try hacking a mouse and see where that takes me.

[RandyT]

I guess I'm the only one not happy with their trackball.  Maybe I'll try hacking a mouse and see where that takes me.

I don't know which trackball you are using, but if it's an Imperial/Betson

AND

You don't have a "backspin" problem

AND

in Windows it takes a lot of spins just to get the cursor across the screen

then these might just be what you need.



RandyT

[drunkatuw]

I've never seen those before Randy, but unfortunately, I have a Happs Golden Tee trackball, and I do have the backspin problem, and the trackball works fine in windows.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think it will help me.

[RandyT]

I've never seen those before Randy, but unfortunately, I have a Happs Golden Tee trackball, and I do have the backspin problem, and the trackball works fine in windows.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think it will help me.

Not a good sign.  The backspin likely indicates that whatever is counting pulses, might not be doing it fast enough for the number of apertures on the encoder wheels.

That mouse hack might just be the solution if there are already a small number of apertures in your encoder wheels.  If not, you might be able to swap them for the low-res plastic ones that Betson sells.

Good Luck,
RandyT

[Tiger-Heli]

I've got my y axis speed up to 85 in mame!

You may be thinking the Y-Axis speed goes 0-100.  I'm pretty sure it goes 0-255, so 85 is actually fairly low.

You might try playing more with these settings and seeing if it helps.

[ErikRuud]

I have the Betson/Imperial hooked up as a PS/2.

It works fine for Shuffleshot, Shuuz and World Class Bowling.

The thing that made it work for me and several others was to install the Microsoft Intellimouse driver and turn off acceleration.  It works perfectly now and I have the sensitivity set at about 20% in MAME.

[drunkatuw]

Can I install the Microsoft Intellimouse driver for a USB trackball?  Right now it just shows up as an HID-complient mouse.

Edit:  I'm using a mini-pac for my interface just as a reminder.

[ErikRuud]

I use an Itellimouse Trackball Explorer at work that hooks by USB, so it should work.

[drunkatuw]

I tried to manually install the Intellimouse drivers and I get an error:
"The specified location does not contain information about your hardware"

 

Looks like a PS/2 mouse hack is looking better all the time.

[drunkatuw]

I received Oscar's USB mouse hack and Happs trackball harness in the mail yesterday.  Installed it today and everything works perfectly!  No matter how hard I spin the trackball, I never get the backwards spin.  I'm so happy now...I'm off to play PC GTG now!  Thanks for an excellent product Oscar and very quick shipping!

[PaulG]

I really wish Andy would have addressed this by now.  I was one of those who started all those threads where I was pulling my hair out tring to get my Happs Trackball to work with my Minipac.  Oscar then let me try his hack and harness and the problems were solved.  I didn't post any of this, just quietly e-mailed Andy that the MiniPac was not working properly with the red boards and he needed to check compatibility.