Complicated question about the Mini-Pac

[Avrus]

I'm starting up my first cabinet project and I'm still in the 'planning phase'.

I was set on the Ipac2 and an Opti-Pac but the value of the Mini-Pac has stopped me in my tracks.  I've read the FAQ over several times, but I have a unique set of questions that doesn't seem to get a clear answer.

First question -- Since the recent revision of MAME it now supports multiple 'mouse' interfaces.  Does that mean I can use one Opti-Pac board for two trackballs and use both trackballs in a game, eg:rampart.

Second question -- Since the Mini-Pac incorporates basically an Ipac and Opti-Pac and a wiring harness, that means you can hook up both a trackball as well as two joysticks and the x number of buttons to one single Mini-Pac, correct? 

Third question -- Here's the deal breaker.  If the above is the case, and there's a concurrent keystroke restriction in USB of 16 keys, are you able to use two Mini-Pacs to support 4 joysticks, x number of buttons and 2 trackballs?  Is the 16 concurrent keystrokes across the whole USB bus or just each USB device?  That is, you'd be limited to 16 keystrokes per Mini-Pac.

I realize those are a lot of questions, but again there doesn't seem to be a clearly defined answer to any of them.

Thanks in advance, sarcasm is greatly appreciated.

[Tiger-Heli]

First question -- Since the recent revision of MAME it now supports multiple 'mouse' interfaces.  Does that mean I can use one Opti-Pac board for two trackballs and use both trackballs in a game, eg:rampart.

I believe so - it depends on how MAME sees the Opti-Pac (as one mouse or two separate ones).  I don't know for sure - You can do it with two Mini-Pac's.

Second question -- Since the Mini-Pac incorporates basically an Ipac and Opti-Pac and a wiring harness, that means you can hook up both a trackball as well as two joysticks and the x number of buttons to one single Mini-Pac, correct?

And a spinner - and I would consider it an I-Pac and half an Opti-Pac (only one trackball and spinner) and the wiring harness is additional. 

Third question -- Here's the deal breaker.  If the above is the case, and there's a concurrent keystroke restriction in USB of 16 keys, are you able to use two Mini-Pacs to support 4 joysticks, x number of buttons and 2 trackballs?  Is the 16 concurrent keystrokes across the whole USB bus or just each USB device?  That is, you'd be limited to 16 keystrokes per Mini-Pac.

16 per device, not per bus (and that is debatable, not a hard and fast rule, depending how the device is configured).  That would be a lot of traffic on the USB bus - I don't know if it would have noticeable lag or not, but it would work fine.  You would want to re-program the 2nd Mini-Pac (with the first unplugged) so it sent different keystrokes than the first one.  Also, I don't think you can specify USB ID's on the mini-pacs, so you might have problems with trackball 1 becoming trackball 2 on re-boot unless you plug each one into a different pair of motherboard USB ports.  Also, with the latest MAME (0.117u1), they might be seen as separate keyboards, so you could actually avoid re-programming one and just map MAME to Keyboard 2 - Left Ctrl, but I suspect you might also have keyboard inputs swapping positions if you plugged them both into the same motherboard pair.

[tomsurfnj]

I used a minipac for my control panel. I had to swap two wires on the harness for my trackball to work correctly. The wiring harness is nice but I think they used .250 ends instead of .187. I just crimped the end after they were in to make a good connection. I also had to extend some of the wires on the harness to reach my buttons. I tried to replicate a slickstik with the asteroid layout. My spinner is usb and does not go through the minipac. I have it 90% finished and tested.

I hope some of this helps

Tomsurfnj

[Avrus]

16 per device, not per bus (and that is debatable, not a hard and fast rule, depending how the device is configured).  That would be a lot of traffic on the USB bus - I don't know if it would have noticeable lag or not, but it would work fine.  You would want to re-program the 2nd Mini-Pac (with the first unplugged) so it sent different keystrokes than the first one.  Also, I don't think you can specify USB ID's on the mini-pacs, so you might have problems with trackball 1 becoming trackball 2 on re-boot unless you plug each one into a different pair of motherboard USB ports.  Also, with the latest MAME (0.117u1), they might be seen as separate keyboards, so you could actually avoid re-programming one and just map MAME to Keyboard 2 - Left Ctrl, but I suspect you might also have keyboard inputs swapping positions if you plugged them both into the same motherboard pair.

Bleh.  Well I'm back to my original layout idea then which is 1 Ipac2 and an OptiPac and I'm just guessing as to whether the two trackballs will work.  I'm surprised with all the 4 player control panel designs no one has referenced how they got 2 trackballs to work.

The stuff I read say that the MameAnalog+ stuff was built into MAME a few revisions ago but ... again looking for definitive answers before I pull the trigger on a pile of equipment.
 

[Avrus]

I sent an email off to Andy to get an answer from 'the source' as it were.  I'll post the response here and maybe it can be incorporated into the FAQ.   

[AndyWarne]

I have answered by email but the major points here:
I think either the Opti-PAC or Mini-PAC solution is fine. The Opti-PAC fully supports two trackballs in Mame. I have just amended the website info which incorrectly stated that you need Analog+.
The Mini-PAC would also work. Traffic on the USB bus is not an issue at all, its tiny. There will be no lag.
The issue of the trackballs possibly getting swapped over is a good one to raise, but I don't think it would happen because I believe that DirectInput would keep the devices identified correctly by the port they are plugged into. I cannot guarantee this though as I have never tested that this is the case. Its not especially difficult to swap them over in Mame if that were to happen.

The Mini-PAC harness is designed to be used with the add-on extension wire pack for larger panels where a couple of the switches on the end might be too far away.

Andy

 

[Avrus]

I have answered by email but the major points here:
I think either the Opti-PAC or Mini-PAC solution is fine. The Opti-PAC fully supports two trackballs in Mame. I have just amended the website info which incorrectly stated that you need Analog+.
The Mini-PAC would also work. Traffic on the USB bus is not an issue at all, its tiny. There will be no lag.
The issue of the trackballs possibly getting swapped over is a good one to raise, but I don't think it would happen because I believe that DirectInput would keep the devices identified correctly by the port they are plugged into. I cannot guarantee this though as I have never tested that this is the case. Its not especially difficult to swap them over in Mame if that were to happen.

The Mini-PAC harness is designed to be used with the add-on extension wire pack for larger panels where a couple of the switches on the end might be too far away.

Andy

 

And thanks for responding to my email inquiry so fast Andy.  As a Canadian I've found it very difficult getting responses out of suppliers, and both you and Rick at Starburst responded very quickly. Edit: Oh and how could I forget Rick @ Nieman displays, responded almost immediately.  Although the supplier never ended up getting back to me, your turn around in emails was fantastic.

In the scenario above, would each Mini-PAC support 2 joysticks + 1 trackball + 1 spinner?  If so, the value of the Mini-PAC (not even factoring in the harness) is incredible.

[miles2912]

If your CP is going to have 2 trackballs then you might want to consider an opti-pac and the i-pac.  If you have 1 TB and 1 spinner then the mini-pac is a great deal.  I ran my TB to the mini-pac and my spinner is usb so I am only using one function.  4 joysticks share 2 inputs and a few of my buttons overlap.  Everything has been going strong for well over a year now.  The pre-made wires that come with it make it even nicer.

You can see the mini-pac all ready to go  ....

[Avrus]

If your CP is going to have 2 trackballs then you might want to consider an opti-pac and the i-pac.  If you have 1 TB and 1 spinner then the mini-pac is a great deal.  I ran my TB to the mini-pac and my spinner is usb so I am only using one function.  4 joysticks share 2 inputs and a few of my buttons overlap.  Everything has been going strong for well over a year now.  The pre-made wires that come with it make it even nicer.

You can see the mini-pac all ready to go  ....

I'm going to have a bit of a frankenpanel.  4 sticks + 1 dedicated 4 way, 3 trackballs, two spinners.

[Tiger-Heli]

The issue of the trackballs possibly getting swapped over is a good one to raise, but I don't think it would happen because I believe that DirectInput would keep the devices identified correctly by the port they are plugged into. I cannot guarantee this though as I have never tested that this is the case. Its not especially difficult to swap them over in Mame if that were to happen.

This has been mentioned a lot in the past on here.  I believe if you plug the mini-pac's into the same pair of USB ports (or a hub plugged into a single USB port), they can swap positions.  If you plug the mini-PAC's into different pairs of USB ports, (like a front panel and a rear panel motherboard connector) they will not.

(But I always only plug stuff in as I need it, so can't verify for certain myself).

[Avrus]

The issue of the trackballs possibly getting swapped over is a good one to raise, but I don't think it would happen because I believe that DirectInput would keep the devices identified correctly by the port they are plugged into. I cannot guarantee this though as I have never tested that this is the case. Its not especially difficult to swap them over in Mame if that were to happen.

This has been mentioned a lot in the past on here.  I believe if you plug the mini-pac's into the same pair of USB ports (or a hub plugged into a single USB port), they can swap positions.  If you plug the mini-PAC's into different pairs of USB ports, (like a front panel and a rear panel motherboard connector) they will not.

(But I always only plug stuff in as I need it, so can't verify for certain myself).

The idea is to have 3 trackballs for games like Rampart, various sports games, etc.

I'll be posting my project soon because it sounds like I'm doing some stuff that hasn't been done before.

[Paladin]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but doesn't the Mini-Pac only allow one spinner/trackball to be active at a time?  This is to prevent someone messing up your game by spinning the trackball when you're playing a game with the spinner.  A quote from the Mini-Pac page on Ultimarc:
<b>The active control is auto-selected when one control is moved after a 10 second idle period.</b>

Seems to me that this would not work for your plans of using multiple spinners/trackballs at the same time in a game like Rampart.

[Tiger-Heli]

Both the Mini-Pac and Opti-Pac do not allow the spinner and trackball to be active at the same time, however, both trackballs, or all 4-spinners (Opti-Pac) can be active, and I think there is a jumper setting on newer boards to disable this feature (not positive though).

This feature is much less useful, now that MAME maps mice individually as you could have the spinner and trackball as separate USB mice and without a sysmouse, only one of them would be used in a game.

[u_rebelscum]

First question -- Since the recent revision of MAME it now supports multiple 'mouse' interfaces.  Does that mean I can use one Opti-Pac board for two trackballs and use both trackballs in a game, eg:rampart.

I believe so - it depends on how MAME sees the Opti-Pac (as one mouse or two separate ones).  I don't know for sure - You can do it with two Mini-Pac's.

Yes, but mame has seen optipac as two mice (default) since around 0.105.

The only difference with 0.117u1 is mame now sees it as one mouse by default, but as two with the -multimouse option.

If you want three TBs, one optipac and one minipac = three mice (default for 0.105-0.117, but you need -multimouse with 0.117u1).

[Avrus]

First question -- Since the recent revision of MAME it now supports multiple 'mouse' interfaces.  Does that mean I can use one Opti-Pac board for two trackballs and use both trackballs in a game, eg:rampart.

I believe so - it depends on how MAME sees the Opti-Pac (as one mouse or two separate ones).  I don't know for sure - You can do it with two Mini-Pac's.

Yes, but mame has seen optipac as two mice (default) since around 0.105.

The only difference with 0.117u1 is mame now sees it as one mouse by default, but as two with the -multimouse option.

If you want three TBs, one optipac and one minipac = three mice (default for 0.105-0.117, but you need -multimouse with 0.117u1).

And that's what I eventually figured.  So I ended up going 3 mini-PACS for 3 balls, 2 spinners and 4 joysticks.

Forging new ground!