LED-Wiz USB LED and Output Control Device now available. *Blinky lights*

[Tiger-Heli]

I'm not well versed in all the different mame mods out there.

[MikeQ]

Oh boy,

What have I gotten myself into.  I think I might just crawl back under my rock.

I'm looking for a hosting service got any recommendations?  Any requirements you'll need that I should make sure they provide?

Later,

Mike

[SirPoonga]

-skip_bad_dumps - Eliminates the "GAME has known problems, ROMX is best available" messages. SirPoonga

-skip_disclaimer - Eliminates the "The game does not support screen flipping in cocktail mode" type messages. SirPoonga.

-artworkfilledges - SirPoonga - Shows the bezel artwork, but only in the portion that gets "Letterboxed" like when running a vertical game on a horizontal monitor.

These all have been obsoleted someway or another.  There hasn't been a new noname out for sometime, right?
The input system and art system changed enough that these hacks will need to be redone from scratch with current mame code.

That's the problem if you start making your own mame.  mame will change and you will have to redo everything.

[seanp]

My dll is just so that you talk to the LED-WIZ.  In order to have the functionality that I have, you will need my version of Mame.

Sorry - should have read the past couple pages a little more closely.  I'm using Mame32, and wouldn't mind using your custom version, but I understand the reluctance to take on support of something that could get out of hand quickly.  I'm pretty low-maintenance, but there are some people that demand a lot from free software and those who support it.

If you do decide to go public with it, you should get Randy to sponsor you - at least get a referral bonus or something.  I can imagine a pre-built way to run control lights would drive a lot of traffic to his site!

[MikeQ]

Well, regardless of whether I release my MAME to the public or not, I will still need to update to new versions for my own use.

[MikeQ]

Sorry - should have read the past couple pages a little more closely.

[MikeQ]

Beta LEDWiz Client Driver available for download

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=48495.0

[tetsujin]

So does the LEDWIZ use the HID report format for LED control or did you roll your own protocol?

[RandyT]

So does the LEDWIZ use the HID report format for LED control or did you roll your own protocol?

Rolled own.  Mine does what needs to be done specific to my firmware and is probably more efficient.

RandyT

[mahuti]

I built a crappy application to run the led-wiz based on gamename. It's not fancy enough to read your config file or whatever, but for many people, it may be enough for now. I'll post it after I add a few more things. It WILL be tonight, however, since I have to get it done for my own ledwiz to work.

Here's how it works.
1. Pass gamename to it via commandline.
2. it reads an ini file of gamenames & led-wiz commands  (ie. xevious=LWZ-RGB:1,48,10,0)
3. copies that to the clipboard for the led-wiz.

So. If you are a rom-glutton... you would have to make an ini file with thousands of lines. If you are like me and have less than 100 roms that you are interested in playing, it won't take you too long to configure the basics. There is also a default setting you can configure.

Anyway, stay tuned.

[KillerArcades]

So, RandyT, I've just finished reading this entire thread (whew!), and I'm hot on this whole LED concept as well.

My question is, what's it take for an average joe to get something similar to MikeQ's setup running?

Do I need to come up with my own app like he did to run it with the latest version of MAME since his only works with his build of MAME32? or, can I just use the clipboard and your stitching/scripting code to create my own animation loops, and get MAME to control which lights light up for which game to indicate proper controls? How hard is to that to do without MikeQ's app and version of MAME? (and I'm not a programmer, but I can hack existing code fairly well).

[RandyT]

So, RandyT, I've just finished reading this entire thread (whew!), and I'm hot on this whole LED concept as well.

My question is, what's it take for an average joe to get something similar to MikeQ's setup running?

Do I need to come up with my own app like he did to run it with the latest version of MAME since his only works with his build of MAME32? or, can I just use the clipboard and your stitching/scripting code to create my own animation loops, and get MAME to control which lights light up for which game to indicate proper controls? How hard is to that to do without MikeQ's app and version of MAME? (and I'm not a programmer, but I can hack existing code fairly well).

Keep an eye on what Mahuti is doing.  It looks like he already has something that will allow you to associate a sequence to a game in order to identify controls.

RandyT

[SirPoonga]

I built a crappy application to run the led-wiz based on gamename. It's not fancy enough to read your config file or whatever, but for many people, it may be enough for now. I'll post it after I add a few more things. It WILL be tonight, however, since I have to get it done for my own ledwiz to work.

Here's how it works.
1. Pass gamename to it via commandline.
2. it reads an ini file of gamenames & led-wiz commands  (ie. xevious=LWZ-RGB:1,48,10,0)
3. copies that to the clipboard for the led-wiz.

So. If you are a rom-glutton... you would have to make an ini file with thousands of lines. If you are like me and have less than 100 roms that you are interested in playing, it won't take you too long to configure the basics. There is also a default setting you can configure.

Anyway, stay tuned.

That is like one step away from what I was planning on doing, just add controls.dat info...  set49way creates the ini file with all the rom names based off listxml and controls.dat.

[Buddabing]

Mike,

You might consider incorporating gl.tter's LSE (Light Signal Engine) code into your custom version of MAME.

Alternatively, if you make your DLL conform to what gl.tter expects, you could just supply that and BuddaMAME will drive the board. You wouldn't need to maintain your own build.

[KillerArcades]

so, mahuti, will your method require the user to individually define the LED settings for each game, or will there be a way to that info from MAME directly?

and MikeQ, is there any reason that I shouldn't just use your version of MAME32 with MAMEWAH? how old is your version relative to mame0103b, etc?

[SirPoonga]

so, mahuti, will your method require the user to individually define the LED settings for each game, or will there be a way to that info from MAME directly?

So. If you are a rom-glutton... you would have to make an ini file with thousands of lines. If you are like me and have less than 100 roms that you are interested in playing, it won't take you too long to configure the basics. There is also a default setting you can configure.

[mahuti]

You'll need a custom version of mame if you want to have lighting events triggered by mame itself (for things like QBert knockers, or flashing buttons that might activate when you are about to die)

If all you want to do is have different lighting configurations based on the game you choose in your frontend, then you can use my little app. It's not very elegant, but it works.

Sounds like what you would like is "zero configuration" with the last method, though. MAME is not the proper place to get the info... it's very inaccurate (in most cases) on proper game controls, so we'd have to get the info from the controls.dat project. An elegant solution would be for me to include code that reads your CFG files and displays the buttons you have mapped for the game based on the controls.dat file. It would still require configuration of different LWA files, though. Basically what SirPoonga said. I'll probably go ahead and add support for this over the course of the next few days, basically to save me from having to write tons of code myself. That's not a promise though. Even if I get that done, I'd rather see SirPoonga's version happen.

If SirPoonga decides to add support to his set49way... then it'll be pretty slick.

[MikeQ]

Mike,

You might consider incorporating gl.tter's LSE (Light Signal Engine) code into your custom version of MAME.

Alternatively, if you make your DLL conform to what gl.tter expects, you could just supply that and BuddaMAME will drive the board. You wouldn't need to maintain your own build.

Is this gl.tter thing available?

My DLL just talks to the LEDwiz.  It doesn't and shouldn't do anything else.  It is an API for using an LEDwiz.  Applications should conform to the API.   It exists purely as an abstraction of the hardware so users don't need to know how to communicate with the device.


edit:  (warning... sort of a rant)

I should also mention that the real reason I started working on my own version of MAME was to add hardware acceleration of 3D graphics (using D3D/OpenGL or a custom driver if necessary) to the later 3D games.  I get a lot of people suggesting I should make my stuff external to MAME so that I don't need to support a custom version of MAME.  I get suggestions that I should do this or that.  I get a lot of people just asking questions.  This takes up time and frankly, the suggestions are all so someone else can get some benefit from my work.  I never intended on releasing this stuff to the public and have been developing the setup that I wanted.  The LEDWiz project has become a distraction from my original plans.  If people can use what I have, I don't mind releasing it.   

People have to understand though that writing large scale software takes a lot of time.  It is a lot of work and it is work that I don't get paid for.  For me it is doubly like work because I write software for a living.   It also takes a lot of time to dive into the MAME code and figure out how things work.  I enjoy this when I'm doing it for me at my own pace.  When I suddenly feel like I'm on someone else schedule working on someone else's agenda, it isn't fun anymore.

If the MAME software community could come together and create a single custom version of MAME that we all put our modifications into, this would be something I could really get behind.  This way, we don't have a bunch of different MAME's floating around, all of which have some nice feature but no one of them having all the features I want.  I would be willing to listen to input and support the thing like it was a product, but everyone else who contributes to this version of MAME would have to make an equal commitment.  I guess what I'm suggesting is a MAMEdev type of team for extra features.  This would be beneficial too because when one person is too busy to add some feature, someone else on the team could do it with help/guidance from the owner of the feature.  Everyone on the team would learn from each other.   It would also reduce the amount of request we all would get to " add bob's feature, its cool".  It would be beneficial because the team might be able to generate financial resources to purchase tools, source code control softare, hosting space, etc.  These are all real expenses that are incurred by making a free product available to the public.  My biggest hesitation on releasing something is my fear that I will become inundated with requests, suggestions, etc and that I will have to abandon this forum for sanity sake.

If people aren't interested in something like this, then people will have to just accept what what they get and when they get it.   "If it doesn't do what you want, don't use it."

[JoyMonkey]

Is this gl.tter thing available?

AFAIK gl.tter's LED engine is included in the BuddaMAME source, available here:
http://cpmaker.mameprojects.com

It's a nice system silimar to AdvanceMame's scripting system that allows you to link actions to specific memory addresses; for example, you could make all your buttons blink when the ghosts in Pac-Man turn blue.

[MikeQ]

You'll need a custom version of mame if you want to have lighting events triggered by mame itself (for things like QBert knockers, or flashing buttons that might activate when you are about to die)

If all you want to do is have different lighting configurations based on the game you choose in your frontend, then you can use my little app. It's not very elegant, but it works.

Sounds like what you would like is "zero configuration" with the last method, though. MAME is not the proper place to get the info... it's very inaccurate (in most cases) on proper game controls, so we'd have to get the info from the controls.dat project. An elegant solution would be for me to include code that reads your CFG files and displays the buttons you have mapped for the game based on the controls.dat file. It would still require configuration of different LWA files, though. Basically what SirPoonga said. I'll probably go ahead and add support for this over the course of the next few days, basically to save me from having to write tons of code myself. That's not a promise though. Even if I get that done, I'd rather see SirPoonga's version happen.

If SirPoonga decides to add support to his set49way... then it'll be pretty slick.

It works for me.  I havent found a game yet that lights the wrong LEDs.

[MikeQ]

so, mahuti, will your method require the user to individually define the LED settings for each game, or will there be a way to that info from MAME directly?

and MikeQ, is there any reason that I shouldn't just use your version of MAME32 with MAMEWAH? how old is your version relative to mame0103b, etc?

Mine can be built as MAME or MAME32 and is version .102.  I haven't released anything yet but if/when I do, it will be the latest version and I'll update to each version of mame when they are released.

[KillerArcades]

so, mahuti, will your method require the user to individually define the LED settings for each game, or will there be a way to that info from MAME directly?

So. If you are a rom-glutton... you would have to make an ini file with thousands of lines. If you are like me and have less than 100 roms that you are interested in playing, it won't take you too long to configure the basics. There is also a default setting you can configure.

Ah, thanks, I guessed I missed that.

[KillerArcades]

Mine can be built as MAME or MAME32 and is version .102.  I haven't released anything yet but if/when I do, it will be the latest version and I'll update to each version of mame when they are released.

Suhweet. Well, I can definitely say that I'd be willing to throw several coins in your coffer if you were to ever share this with the rest of us. Let me know once you have something ready and just tell me your paypal addy - I won't even consider it a purchase, so I won't pester you too much for support either. ..... probably.....

[SirPoonga]

It works for me.  I havent found a game yet that lights the wrong LEDs.

Are you just indicating buttons or controls?

If buttons there are many games that mame will report too many buttons for because all the games in the driver use a single macro since the button locations are the same as all the games used the same hardware.

Also there are other reasons.  Just curious, try bigevglf.  There is only 1 button, club select.  BUT it has two defined because in cocktail mode the second button is player 2's club select.

[mahuti]

It works for me.  I havent found a game yet that lights the wrong LEDs.

All Neo-Geo games HAVE 4 buttons. Metal Slug only USES 3. I'd be stunned if Mame could actually determine that based on my past experiences.

Additionally, a lot of games were made on generic hardware with support for 2, 3, of 4 or more buttons when the game didn't necessarily use that many. Plus, MAME may support a joystick hack for a game that used just buttons for the directions. If you had LEDs to light your joystick, it would be technically incorrect for the joystick to light on a game like Phoenix, even though Mmame supports use of the joystick. I guess it all depends on what you consider "wrong."

[SirPoonga]

It works for me.  I havent found a game yet that lights the wrong LEDs.

All Neo-Geo games HAVE 4 buttons. Metal Slug only USES 3. I'd be stunned if Mame could actually determine that based on my past experiences.

right, but the control panel is going to have 4 buttons as it is a neogeo machine with a metal slug cart   So that isn't wrong.

Additionally, a lot of games were made on generic hardware with support for 2, 3, of 4 or more buttons when the game didn't necessarily use that many. Plus, MAME may support a joystick hack for a game that used just buttons for the directions. If you had LEDs to light your joystick, it would be technically incorrect for the joystick to light on a game like Phoenix, even though Mmame supports use of the joystick. I guess it all depends on what you consider "wrong."

Like discs of tron.  You might wonder why your trackball is being lit

[MikeQ]

It works for me.  I havent found a game yet that lights the wrong LEDs.

Are you just indicating buttons or controls?

If buttons there are many games that mame will report too many buttons for because all the games in the driver use a single macro since the button locations are the same as all the games used the same hardware.

Also there are other reasons.  Just curious, try bigevglf.  There is only 1 button, club select.  BUT it has two defined because in cocktail mode the second button is player 2's club select.

I can tell if a game is cocktail or not and ignore the extra controls.  I had this problem early on but fixed it.  I've tested hunreds of games and have yet to find one that reports incorrectly.  I even corretly identify the number of coin slots a game has.  Some games only have 1 coin slot mapping.  On those games, I don't illuminate the second coin acceptor on my door.

[MikeQ]

It works for me.  I havent found a game yet that lights the wrong LEDs.

All Neo-Geo games HAVE 4 buttons. Metal Slug only USES 3. I'd be stunned if Mame could actually determine that based on my past experiences.

right, but the control panel is going to have 4 buttons as it is a neogeo machine with a metal slug cart   So that isn't wrong.

Additionally, a lot of games were made on generic hardware with support for 2, 3, of 4 or more buttons when the game didn't necessarily use that many. Plus, MAME may support a joystick hack for a game that used just buttons for the directions. If you had LEDs to light your joystick, it would be technically incorrect for the joystick to light on a game like Phoenix, even though Mmame supports use of the joystick. I guess it all depends on what you consider "wrong."

Like discs of tron.  You might wonder why your trackball is being lit

I light the controls you actually use to play the game.  It will light whatever mame has them mapped to.

For Afterburner, I found that I like to play it with the trackball so I mapped the analog joystick to the trackball in mame.  When I play Afterburner, the trackball illuminates.  This is how I want it to work.

Also, some games do have extra buttons that the game doesn't use.  For those, you go into the input menu select the unused button and press "delete".  The buttons then show up as n/a and they don't get lit.  Sometimes they are already set to n/a so it works without doing anything.

[SirPoonga]

I can tell if a game is cocktail or not and ignore the extra controls.  I had this problem early on but fixed it.  I've tested hunreds of games and have yet to find one that reports incorrectly.  I even corretly identify the number of coin slots a game has.  Some games only have 1 coin slot mapping.  On those games, I don't illuminate the second coin acceptor on my door.

But did oyu try that game?  I pick that one specifically because it is different.  The extra butotn is mapped to player 1, not player 2.

[RandyT]

I light the controls you actually use to play the game.  It will light whatever mame has them mapped to.

For Afterburner, I found that I like to play it with the trackball so I mapped the analog joystick to the trackball in mame.  When I play Afterburner, the trackball illuminates.  This is how I want it to work.

Also, some games do have extra buttons that the game doesn't use.  For those, you go into the input menu select the unused button and press "delete".  The buttons then show up as n/a and they don't get lit.  Sometimes they are already set to n/a so it works without doing anything.

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.

Like Mike says, if a game is set up to work on your control panel, the lights can never be wrong.

RandyT

[mahuti]

That's a pretty important clarifcation.

Still, what about control hacks? I guess you could set them to na/. Ultimately, what you're saying is that, with configuration, nothing shows up wrong.

I'm not trying to naysay what you've done here, it's amazing- no doubt, only to point out that out of the box, taking info from MAME is less accurate than taking info that has been researched and incorporated into the controls.dat project.

Your method is much easier to impliment for a user than adding an extra app that uses controls.dat for the lighting. It just requires the user to do some MAME configuration to cover up the button duplicates and control hacks.

[SirPoonga]

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.

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?

[mahuti]

I don't even know why we're discussing this. There's no doubt that taking info out of a custom build of MAME that works with lighting and displays stuff based on your personal configuration would be best. It is inaccurate to say that Mame is always right, however, right out of the box.

What SirP said.

[JoyMonkey]

At the end of the day it comes down to one thing. Blinky lights = cool. 

[SirPoonga]

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.

[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]

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.

Wouldn't that be $weet!!

MikeQ would be my ultrahero.

[MikeQ]

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.

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?

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]

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.

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?

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