Looking for step by step for good easy IPac4 use

[struby]

I am going to complete my control panel, which is a 4 player one, i will have either 6 buttons and a joystick for all 4 players or the 3 and 4 players might just have 4 buttons, and I will pry have a trackball, but I don't think that is an issue for this situation, i'll just have to get a mouse hack together for that, so anyway, I use Mame 32, windows xp, and it will be set up on my current desktop pc  and I will pry get a laptop, so here's what i'm looking for:

An easy step by step from someone who will know the easiest and fastest way to interface the IPAC4, and get it set up to play in mame, meaning button configs and all, I don't want to wire things wrong and have to reconfig all of mame32 button stuffs if not necessary, so i have buttons, wires, and quick disconnects, can someone get me a step by step to playing games in mame assuming i have all necessary equipment?

Thanks a ton in advance.

[ahofle]

The defaults of the IPAC coincide with MAME defaults.  Just connect the P1 button1 wire to the P1B1 input on the IPAC, etc.  Run all the grounds to the ground terminal.  Plug in the IPAC and you should be able to start MAMEing.

[struby]

ok that sounds easy, mame will just recognize the ipac and i can go into mame and select the ipac interface as the controls, reset all my games to default, and they should work as they would in the arcade?
also, what is the button pattern typically?  1  2  3
                                                                    4  5  6    or is it different, and what is it for marvel vs capcom, if not the typical setup?

[ahofle]

MAME won't know you have an IPAC.  The IPAC appears to be a keyboard to your computer, and MAME is already setup by default to accept keyboard input (left, up, down, ctrl, alt, space, etc).  You should be able to plug in the IPAC and start playing without mapping anything (assuming you correctly wired everything). 

I also have my buttons aligned as you mentioned, and I believe most games with that many buttons do too:
1 2 3
4 5 6

[struby]

ok excellent thanks for the help, now if I only have one keyboard slot, what do i do, how do i use my keyboard for computer and setup stuff and then have mame use the ipac

[CheffoJeffo]

From the I-Pac FAQ:

You can use a normal keyboard connected to the pass-thru connector. But if everything is set up properly with the PC booting into an emulation front-end menu, and each game is configured correctly, you can do everything with the standard controls on the cabinet.
The PC will pass the keyboard self-test with or without the aux keyboard. Key-codes from the auxiliary keyboard are fully "interleaved" with the codes from the I-PAC so both can be used at the same time and the 3 LEDS on the auxiliary keyboard are functional.
Being interrupt-triggered, the pass-through keyboard connector does not "steal" any CPU cycles whatsoever from the interface while the keyboard is idle so there is no impact on performance at all.,

http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac5.html

[struby]

alright sorry I didn't find that when I looked I bought it a while ago and I didn't even remember who makes it

[FrizzleFried]

FYI:  There are no MAMEed games that use more than 4 buttons for P3 and P4 from my understanding....

[struby]

well I might just do 4 for those players, if I did 6 it would be more for looks and...equality or something I dunno, maybe I'll just do 4, but thanks.

[miles2912]

Just a heads up.. player 2's button 5 and 6 are usually not mapped in mame by default so make sure you map it.  Also, some fighter games do not use the standard button layout so go into the service menu (F2) and make sure you are all set up.  Do the mappings in mame and don't mess with the ipac that much. 

Don

[struby]

ok, does anyone know where i can get button mappings for games as they are in the arcade, like a listing of what button one did in the game, or does mame already have that, I'm just wondering how much control tinkering i'm in for or if it will all pretty much set itself up by default mame settings