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Author Topic: does anyone have a list of mame-outputs (led/lamps/solenoid etc) per game  (Read 16627 times)

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Howard_Casto

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Re: does anyone have a list of mame-outputs (led/lamps/solenoid etc) per game
« Reply #40 on: February 18, 2010, 08:25:41 pm »
Ok I think I figured out the best way to do this.  I added some code into my little sorter app that allows me to check for a list of known constants and adds to a counter for said constant whenever one is found.  Right now it just looks for "led" "lamp" "digit" "knocker" and "motor" but we can add more as need.  Any unknown constants that are found are simply tacked on at the end in the "misc outputs" field.  I stripped away the spaces (except for "misc") so as-is it'll be harder to read, but the intention is that you load it into your database program of choice.  As for the starting digit, we'll have to guess at that, but seeing as how it's always 0 or 1 I think it'll be ok.

This is probably all I'm going to do with this list for this week as I want to work on the site again.  Seeing as how mamehooker is the next thing I'm working on though, it shouldn't be long before we have this squared away.

Howard_Casto

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Re: does anyone have a list of mame-outputs (led/lamps/solenoid etc) per game
« Reply #41 on: February 18, 2010, 08:40:05 pm »
Just some observations based on what the list shows:

1.  There needs to be better standardization amoung the output names in mame drivers.  Most are pretty clean, but the main offender is the solenoid.  In sidewinder they are properly named, but in qbert and other classics they are "knockers" and in others "kickers".  In one of the games they are even referred to as "kickbacks". 

2.  The question arises if using a good description of the given output in mame is a good idea.  Right now the list is farily standardized, but you have no way of knowing what is what, other than what kind of output it is.  On the otherhand, look at sea_wolf for an example of how it'd look if it weren't done that way. 

3.  Because the output system is so closely tied to the artwork system, there are several outputs we can ignore.....  "overlay" and "backlight" are purely artwork releated, and wouldn't be useful for anything else.  Also game systems notorious for garbage on the screen have a "blank" output, which Im guessing blanks out the garbage, I dunno. 

4.  As a whole, not many games are using the output system for anything interesting.  Most are neogeo counters, start lights, and artwork garbage.

Howard_Casto

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Re: does anyone have a list of mame-outputs (led/lamps/solenoid etc) per game
« Reply #42 on: February 18, 2010, 09:14:09 pm »
hmm... upon inspecting the list, it appears that my app might have missed a few.  It didn't get gollyghost, for example.

Now I setup the mame launch with "-seconds_to_run" set to 1, which should be enough in theory, but apparently some games don't init their lights tilll a little bit later.  Now I can run it again with a longer length, but damn....  it took around 4 hours for it to run this time. 

I wouldn't have an volunteers out there would I?  I can set you up, all you have to do is run the app and walk away.  You need a full romset though.

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Re: does anyone have a list of mame-outputs (led/lamps/solenoid etc) per game
« Reply #43 on: February 19, 2010, 08:35:19 am »
hmm... upon inspecting the list, it appears that my app might have missed a few.  It didn't get gollyghost, for example.

Now I setup the mame launch with "-seconds_to_run" set to 1, which should be enough in theory, but apparently some games don't init their lights tilll a little bit later.  Now I can run it again with a longer length, but damn....  it took around 4 hours for it to run this time.  

I wouldn't have an volunteers out there would I?  I can set you up, all you have to do is run the app and walk away.  You need a full romset though.

I think you'll still miss games that only fire the output during specific game actions - like Spy Hunter. Although you would think all outputs would fire an initial value at game start - but maybe not  ::)

4.  As a whole, not many games are using the output system for anything interesting.  Most are neogeo counters, start lights, and artwork garbage.

Actually, I think the "start lights" are visually useful. I've had quite a few LEDBlinky users ask why they don't work for all games.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2010, 08:39:35 am by arzoo »
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Howard_Casto

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Re: does anyone have a list of mame-outputs (led/lamps/solenoid etc) per game
« Reply #44 on: February 19, 2010, 04:07:39 pm »
Yeah I've found even more bad news.  Some of the outputs are setup rather sloppily.  I was interested to see so many "knockers" on classic games until I noticed they were all gottleb.c, the driver that qbert comes from.  So that output is hooked up for all those games.  The only ones that actually use it are qbert, it's clones, and it's sequels.  


In theory all outputs are supposed to fire at startup because the emulated pcb sets everything to low (off) when it loads.  But some of the outputs are left over from the keyboard led/artwork days and they just aren't setup as good as they should be.  I initially thought that the games bootup was the issue (some games have a "countdown" before the pcb starts playing the game) but upon further inspection you are right, some games like spyhunter just don't set any leds when they boot.  

*edit* 

I take that back about spyhunter.  Just ran it to get the ini and the lights activate as soon as the attract mode starts playing.  Again, it's a bootup thing.  I think setting the "-seconds_to_run" flag to something nice and meaty like 30 seconds should fix most of them.  Not gonna do that yet though, as I don't have the chds to get those included.  I also wanna put in some code that skips over games that already have an ini file and a way to skip games based on version added, so that I can run this every mame version and keep the database up to date. 
« Last Edit: February 19, 2010, 04:12:03 pm by Howard_Casto »

Howard_Casto

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Re: does anyone have a list of mame-outputs (led/lamps/solenoid etc) per game
« Reply #45 on: February 21, 2010, 04:21:10 pm »
Well I'm downloading the chds specifically for this project..... Damn that's a lot of gigs!  I'm downloading a .134 set which I don't think even includes the laserdisc games at it's 100 gigs.  100!  I might have to delete these when I'm done or at least move them off to my cab exclusively.  Needless to say, it will be a while before I can get the list updated.  At least we have a general one for the time being.

monkeychunkuk

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Re: does anyone have a list of mame-outputs (led/lamps/solenoid etc) per game
« Reply #46 on: December 18, 2014, 06:42:50 pm »
hmmm i wonder if thiers a new update of this?

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Re: does anyone have a list of mame-outputs (led/lamps/solenoid etc) per game
« Reply #47 on: December 18, 2014, 10:14:53 pm »
hmmm i wonder if thiers a new update of this?
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There hasn't  been  an update to the site linked in his signature since summer.