Just ordered pushbuttons and controls, few questions

[the3eyedblindman]

Before I start building CP or wiring things, I have a few questions. Ok, When I had Mame on this computer, I would always have to configure each game to the computer keys I wanted. How do you set mame up so each game you play you use the same controls and you dont have to reconfigure each game? Another question is once you have your ipac wired up to your control panel and everything configured to the right keys, will I not have to get my keyboard out? like when im configuring a game and i have to punch the key I want for that button, will I have to use the keyboard or just press the pushbutton? Just questions I want answered before I get started, thanks.

[Oddfeld]

Ok, When I had Mame on this computer, I would always have to configure each game to the computer keys I wanted. How do you set mame up so each game you play you use the same controls and you dont have to reconfigure each game?

You can configure global controls for everything, then you can configure specific controls for each game (if you want to remap controls for a particular game to differ from the global defaults you've set). IIRC it's in the tab menu as 'configure controls (general)' and 'configure controls (this game)'

Another question is once you have your ipac wired up to your control panel and everything configured to the right keys, will I not have to get my keyboard out? like when im configuring a game and i have to punch the key I want for that button, will I have to use the keyboard or just press the pushbutton?

The IPAC simulates a keyboard so hitting the pushbutton will be seen by the computer as if you'd pressed a key on the keyboard. So no, you don't really need a keyboard connected at all (although it can be handy for conifguring stuff in windows, editing ini files, that sort of thing). You can use the shift-key function of the IPAC to hit all the admin keys you need to configure games from within MAME (TAB, Tilde, etc).