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LED-Wiz USB LED and Output Control Device now available. *Blinky lights*
mahuti:
To clarify what I said earlier.
On MANY games, I have no idea how many buttons were REALLY used, I only see what mame has available, perhaps it says there are 3 buttons. Through trial and error I can figure out that I only need to configure 2 buttons and that 1 button doesn't seem to do anything.
Controls.dat already has the info that button 3 really never ever does anything. A combination of your current MAME configuration files and controls.dat is CURRENTLY the best solution. Mame displays irrelevant control information, where the controls.dat file does not. Basically, your game CFG file should always be called first. Then controls.dat, then MAME.
mahuti:
--- Quote from: SirPoonga on January 24, 2006, 01:17:21 pm ---I'm discussing it because if MikeQ found a way to determine what a game actually uses, accurately, from just the info mame gives I can update the controls.dat project and set49way.
--- End quote ---
Wouldn't that be $weet!!
MikeQ would be my ultrahero.
MikeQ:
--- Quote from: SirPoonga on January 24, 2006, 01:12:02 pm ---
--- Quote from: RandyT on January 24, 2006, 01:07:58 pm ---IMHO, this is the proper way to approach things. It doesn't matter how many buttons a game has. What matters are the ones in use.
--- End quote ---
True, which is why the controls.dat project exists. How do you tell if mame doesn't use a button isn't used for the game?
PORT_BIT( 0x08, IP_ACTIVE_LOW, IPT_BUTTON4 )
Where in that bit of information does it say it isn't used in the game?
--- End quote ---
That bit is the LED on my panel. :) When I start a game and see that it doesn't do anything, I go into the input menu and hit delete on the button.
I'll look into this some more. I'm sure there is a way to tell that the button doesn't have an event associated with it. I've never bothered because it hasn't been a problem. Once nice feature of having the lighting code in MAME is that when I hit delete, the LED goes off and I don't worry about it anymore. It has only happened on a couple games. I think most games that don't use the extra buttons must already have them set to n/a because I've not seen this issue much.
mahuti:
The only thing that I really worry about is having a button or function that SEEMS dead because it is only used in more advanced levels of play.
Like the up/down function in Discs of Tron. Based on my regular gameplay, I wouldn't be able to tell that the up/down function is ever used because I suck so bad. If I got better though, and had demapped that function, I would never know that it's a valid button.
RandyT:
--- Quote from: SirPoonga on January 24, 2006, 01:12:02 pm ---
--- Quote from: RandyT on January 24, 2006, 01:07:58 pm ---IMHO, this is the proper way to approach things. It doesn't matter how many buttons a game has. What matters are the ones in use.
--- End quote ---
True, which is why the controls.dat project exists. How do you tell if mame doesn't use a button isn't used for the game?
PORT_BIT( 0x08, IP_ACTIVE_LOW, IPT_BUTTON4 )
Where in that bit of information does it say it isn't used in the game?
--- End quote ---
So what you are saying is that MAME has buttons defined for games that are never used.
It took a while, but I get it now. So at worst case, you might end up with controls that are lit, because they were part pf the original hardware, but not actually used. Would this be a big issue for anything other than the "multi-game" style units like the Neo, or is MAME a lot less reliable?
Then there is another issue. Even if controls.dat correctly identifies the control, what if that control doesn't actually exist on the panel? I would think there would need to be a substitution file someplace to account for this.
Forgive me if this has been covered. I'm a little late to this game :)
RandyT