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current status of gentoo linux / advmame
MotorHedJr:
Hi fellas,
Good news! I've gotten FB to work and it seems perfect (sound is flawless!) Ran games w/ F11 test... See attached...
This is what I did:
1) upgraded to kernel 2.6.15.1
2) recompiled w/ matroxFB options (I've got a G400)
3) changed device-video option to fb (AdvMAME.rc and AdvMENU.rc)
Sorry for all the newbie type hysteria but I'm psyched!!! ;D
Now mind you the shots are w/ my crappy test bench VGA monitor -- but I'll set video modes later when I switch the PC to my cab... My test bench setup has been broken the past week, but now it works again (however -- mouse, X, and therefore joystick calibration -- not working)... But at least now I have motivation to pursue the FBsplash -- progress bar research.
Thanks for your help guys -- I'll send you any info on my setup if you wish...
Regards,
MH Jr.
Major Rock Hardy:
greetings from the bowels of kernel code. No, I'm not talking about corn s**ts... ;D
thought I'd let you know I was able to fix my issues with the analog ranges with the GPwiz49 boards under linux. I had to modify some kernel code but all in all a slick and not too scary fix. I will try something similar for the A-PAC. Stay tuned.
Rock
screaming:
MRH: Keep up the great work!
MotorHedJr:
Major Rock,
--- Quote ---this PM thread really should be in our Software forum thread, since we're solving problems that others may encounter too. I wonder if you'd feel like copying the pertinent parts into our "current status of gentoo linux / advancemame" thread? And of course post fbsplash updates there too!
--- End quote ---
Sure, no problem (although rather lengthy -- buts lots of good info)
--- Quote ---Congratulations!
so far you are the only one I know of who has successfully gotten analog controls working under advancemame w/ SVGAlib in linux. Trust me I've been looking. And you did it with a new kernel, so that might disprove my theory that my problems were with the kernel drivers. I would like to know,
1) do a uname -r and let me know what it says...
2) can you PM me your advmame.rc file?
once again, thank you and congratulations - there is hope!
Rock
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Meant to put this in the post but I was too longwinded about my own troubles!!!
I've got this device (AKI) to work in my Gentoo 2.12.6-r6 build:
http://www.dave.bit2000.com/
So far I've only tried it w/ Outrun and Chase HQ but it works great. It should definitely work w/ a SW yoke. I think I saw somewhere a 49-way interface as well.
Regards,
MH
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---It is interesting to me that you are using a different kernel release than I am. I am very suspicious that my kernel joystick code is the problem. I know for a fact I'm going to have to write a custom driver for my gpwiz49 boards, but I expected my A-PAC to work right out of the box w/ the kernel drivers and it didn't. Oh well, I have done C programming in the past - what's a little more? Perhaps I should have gone with the AKI instead of A-PAC. Don't know why I didn't. The AKI has 5 axes and the A-PAC only 4.
have you tried the jscal program mentioned here:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Joystick_Setup
? If so, do you get similar results as advj for the position values?
Rock
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Right now I am calibrating the wheel/petals via the Control Center-> Peripherals->Joystick utility in KDE.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---interesting. But you use svgalib advancemame, launched from the console - not in X, correct? If so, does calibrating under KDE stick when you leave X and return to the console? There seems to be a scarcity of info on calibrating joysticks under linux.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---BTW -- I'm thinking of changing my kernel version as well to something newer as there appears to issues w/ the Matrox Framebuffer support -- what Gentoo kernel version are you using?
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---are you planning to use framebuffer? I thought (once again) that you were using svgalib, which does not use framebuffer. I would be interested to see how far you get with your videocard using framebuffer however. That's how I started, but I ended up going to svgalib - the whole thing was documented in:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=46747.0
I'm using a gentoo-sources 2.6.14-r2 kernel - however if you do upgrade, don't blow away your old kernels. Save them in /boot so you can always fall back on them. Saving your .config files is a good idea too.
keep me posted.
Rock
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Yes, it sticks... So far that's the only way I can make it work, and I have to do that everytime after a re-boot...
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---cool! I hope I don't have to use KDE to get this analog control working. I am going through the kernel code.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---No, I have gotten SVGAlib to work perfectly, after studying your post... However, like I mentioned, I would really like to get a nice bootsplash screen w/ a progress bar working as the final touch to my cab... It seems that in order to use fbsplash, you need to compile FB in your kernel (which killed everything in my setup). Someone has done this w/ a Matrox card however... (but they used FB for advMAME -- I'd rather not do that if possible):
http://symlink.dk/nostalgia/arcade/software/bootsplash/
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---cool link - that would be something I'd like to do as well... however I'm pretty far away from "final touches"!
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Can SVGAlib exist in conjunction w/ matroxfb? That's the issue I'm researching now... It (matroxfb) destroys xstart (& KDE). Removing it and re-compiling seems to bring everything back (except SVGAlib -- which means AdvMAME is broken), but like I mentioned I think that particular anomaly is a kernel issue. I'll see what I can find out...
Any opinions?
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---hmmm... that seems weird. When you say it destroys things - does that mean that when you emerge it, the emerge process deletes the other programs? Did you mean to say startx instead of xstart? If so, that's really weird. When I was playing around w/ framebuffer stuff for my P.O.S. Radeon 7000 VE card, I could go into X from one console, switch to another virtual console (CTRL+ALT+F2 for instance), log in, and run advmame using fb from that console. And having X running was my only saving grace when Super Mario Bros. would give me the black screen of death!
Rock
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---MotorHedJr-
I don't remember even trying any mouse things when I was screwing around w/ fb. This is because fb worked so poorly for me that I spent the entire time just trying to get the video working. I don't think I ever tried mouse games.
It sounds like you were using the raw driver for your analog joystick? I thought you were using event joysticks...
It is still unclear to me how the advmame software uses raw as opposed to event. I am bogged down studying the USB HID joystick driver which is not much fun. All this pain just to play some games
As for your mouse - I'm not sure what is going wrong. I definitely had problems with advmame when a ps/2 mouse was plugged in but a usb mouse was fine. I assume you have gone into the kernel config and turned on USB mouse support (may be the same as the HID driver) in the kernel under device drivers->input devices? Based on my experience trying event drivers for everything - you should see a /dev/input/eventN (N being the number of the device recognized) for everything - that is, keyboard, mice (yes plural), joysticks. If you aren't, I would focus my attention there. Event mice work flawlessly for me. I have effectively 3 mice hooked up and I can play marble madness and my two trackballs work great for the 2 different marbles while the regular USB scroll mouse doesnt contribute to either. I did have to do some input mapping to get this to work, but I think you are familiar w/ this. One thing that may help point you in the right direction is to do this (as root)
unplug your USB mouse(s)
# tail -f /var/log/messages
now, plug in a USB mouse. You should see it recognized and some kind of kernel output. Look for error messages. Hit CTRL+C to exit this program.
thanks for the fbsplash links. I really hope I will be able to accomplish a splash screen but still use SVGAlib.
Rock
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---I could never get the event driver to work. I'll have to check my kernel, but I believe in the last compile, I complied it as a module and maybe that made the difference...
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---It's not supposed to make a difference, but I remember having ALSA (sound) as a module worked, whereas hard-compiled into the kernel did not. You should try some scientific experiments where you change one variable at a time and then you'll know!
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---BTW, what do you use as a USB X/y axis encoder for your spinner/trackballs? Previously, I used the Hagstom Electronics ME4:
http://www.hagstromelectronics.com/products/trackball.html Great product -- but for PS/2...
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Hmm... when you said x/y I immediately thought analog joystick encoder - the answer in that case would be an Ultimarc A-PAC (still not working correctly under linux). However, when you said trackballs - that's optical. I don't want to get bogged down in details here but an optical control reports relative movement - i.e. you moved 2 tics to the left, then 3 tics up, from your last position. Whereas an analog control gives an absolute measurement any time its driver reports - i.e. you are right now exactly at coordinates -14796 (horizontal), 21369 (vertical). That's why when you run out of mousepad while moving your mouse, you can pick it up, put it at the other side and keep it going in the same direction - you can't do that with an analog stick, which is why calibration is so necessary (and frustrating in my case!). Anyway, to answer your question, for my trackballs (no spinner(s) yet), I use an Ultimarc Opti-PAC.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Also, I notice a remarkable difference in using the USB mouse vs. the ps/2... using the advm utility it seems that my PC polls for the USB mouse about 10x more/second than the PS/2... Fascinating...
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---I know for a fact (due to my slowdown issue) that the USB driver is very different than the ps/2 in Linux. However I believe the difference is that the USB driver is actually interrupt driven, meaning the processor can go off and handle more important things most of the time, like emulation, and the mouse driver will only notify it when things are going on - but the PS/2 driver is a polling driver, meaning every so many compute cycles (arguably too often in my case), the processor polls to find out if the mouse has moved - whether it has or not. Just a guess on my part though.
--- End quote ---
BTW-- Be sure to go into your udev rules and change permissions for the event driver. I had to do this -- otherwise the RAW driver will take precedence over it...
-MH Jr.
MotorHedJr:
Hello Rock, and all,
Apparently the joystick calibration utility in AdvMAMEis not available outside of DOS. So I'm trying to use the jscalibration utility as described in:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Joystick_Setup
When I attempt to launch the utility, I get the following error:
Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
So I try:
#startx
and I get the following error:
Fatal server error:
Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices
I'm using the matrox framebuffer complied in kernel (2.12.6.3). This incompatiblity is an X issue -- so I'm looking at xorg threads in various places.
Anyone using fb have this startx issue?
Thanks.
-MH Jr.
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