LED-WIZ New-be question

[slsimon]

Hello to all on the forum.  Well its time for me to work on updating the Arcade machine.  I noticed GGG has some new products out that I am very interested in looking into.  I have read over most of the forums here concerning the LED-Wiz and wow, there are some amazing things you can do with it, that is if one can figure out how to go about doing it.  Anyway I have a couple questions concerning the hardware before I work on obtaining the funding to purchase.  If someone could answer these question that would be awesome. 

Let me say that  I have a 4 player control panel.  I have 6 buttons per player, a trackball with 2 buttons,  player 1-4 start buttons, player 1-4 coin buttons, 4 admin buttons and since the control panel is quite large, I have a PC Power-On and Reset button on the back of the control panel on both sides of the cab.  This would make for a total of 42 pushbuttons.

This is the hardware that I plan on purchasing from GGG. 
1.  42 Electric Ice pushbuttons with RGB drive and 2' cable
2.  RGB Trackball Electric Ice upgrade kit to replace my Ultimarc 2.25" ball
3.  Randy suggested a quantity of 4 Led-Wiz controllers

Ok, now you know what I am working with onto the questions...

1.  I am currently using Mame32 as a FE.  Mainly due to simplicity on the configs and easy to jump back to Windows applications.  From reading I don't think this FE supports Led-Wiz.  Can you suggest a FE that will allow for easy config of the Led-Wiz hardware?  I would prefer a FE that will allow me to multi-task easy to Windows XP. 

2.  I am no programmer and from reading through this forum, the coding for the Led-Wiz can be pretty difficult depending on what is needed to be accomplished.  I like the easy GUI that Randy has created with his hardware, but I don't think it supports mulitple Led-Wiz devices.  Please correct me if I am incorrect here. 

3.  I know there have been specific applications and add-ons for specific FE's.  Can somone list what Led-Wiz external applications work with what FE? 

4.  I have been looking at PowerMame32.  Looks almost identical to Mame32 but with led-wiz support.  I also know that PM32 is no longer being developed, which is to bad.  How far along is PM32's support for led-wiz?  Will it allow for game specific button light control, as well as user specific animation control of the buttons? 

Before one answer's questions 4, here is what I would like to accomplish with the led-wiz controllers, to start with anyway.  I would like player 1 through player 4 buttons to have a specific color per player, (player 1 buttons red, player 2 blue, player 3 green, player 4 yellow).  At the sametime to make things more interesting, I would like to have the player buttons cycle throuh a number of colors every so many seconds or minutes, while at the sametime no player buttons will cycle through the same color.  Once a game starts, I am wondering if it would be possible then to allow for only the game specific buttons to be lit up a specific color and those that are not used to be another color.  Sounds like alot of work going on here but I am thinking the request is reasonable for this controller. 

Now that you know what I would like to accomplish, please any suggestions would be great.  Can this be done and how easy would it be? 

5.  I also noticed that there are possibly multiple config files that may need to be modifed in order for the FE game specific buttons to be able to light up per game.  Can someone list what files per FE that supports Led-Wiz that I would need to look at as well as what add-on and or external application that I need to dowload to config Led-Wiz hardware to specific button layout/color and timing controls?

I have been reading over Randy's instructions for specific commands for the multiple led-wiz support, wow, way over my head.  I am going to pulling on my hair before this is all done and over with. 

Well, any suggestion with the above questions would be awesome.  Hopefully I am not breaking any forum rules here and I know some of these questions may have been answered already, but thought I would ask them and get all the questions/answere's together before I spend hundreds of dollars on the hardware. 

Thanks for looking and reviewing my questions.  Thanks,

[Green Giant]

Good god you have alot of questions.

Now to start with, you say you need 42 pushbuttons.  You could save yourself alot of money by just upgrading the player buttons and the trackball buttons.  Start, coin, and admin are not as necessary.

1.  You want MALA.  Hands down no questions asked.  The front end is easy as hell to setup and has the best ledwiz support around.  The coding for the ledwiz is not ingrained in Mala itself, but mala allows for plugins to be created by other people.

2.  Two ledwiz plugins have been written for mala.  The one you will want is ledblinky.  I use it on mine and it works great.  It integrates with the controls.ini file and a special colors.ini file that has the original colors of the pushbuttons for nearly every arcade game around.  It reads your game config files in mame and lights up the buttons used and the colors they were.  It also speaks the action of the button before starting the game.

The ledblinky supports multiple ledwiz's.  The initial setup can be tedious for the ledblinky, but once the setup has completed, it will auto change the colors with mame's controls.  For example, I was playing Mortal Kombat with the default 3 bottom buttons and 2 on top.  I reset the controls for MK in mame to use the four left buttons and the seventh button.  When I exited to mala it was lit with the new setup.

4.  There are attract modes that light all the buttons in random orders and sequences when the screensaver is active.  You will have to look it up to see what else it can do.

Here is an example on my cab, scroll down a bit for the videos.  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=67770.0

Just about all those things you asked under question 4 can be done.  Some differences are when you pause on a game in the frontend selection menu, it lights the buttons to the actual colors for a predetermined time.

5.  Most of this has already been answered above.  You just tell it the controls.ini file, mame.xml file, and colors.ini file.  The software does the rest.  It can also light special setups for different emulators, but there is no color change per game since the original console controls were all the same for every game.

But yeah, using the 6 per player and 3 for the trackball would use only 26 electric ice buttons and one trackball along with 3 ledwiz's.  That alone will cost you $335 instead of the $483 you are thinking about spending.  If money is no option then all the more for you.

[slsimon]

Good god you have alot of questions.

Now to start with, you say you need 42 pushbuttons.  You could save yourself alot of money by just upgrading the player buttons and the trackball buttons.  Start, coin, and admin are not as necessary.

1.  You want MALA.  Hands down no questions asked.  The front end is easy as hell to setup and has the best ledwiz support around.  The coding for the ledwiz is not ingrained in Mala itself, but mala allows for plugins to be created by other people.

2.  Two ledwiz plugins have been written for mala.  The one you will want is ledblinky.  I use it on mine and it works great.  It integrates with the controls.ini file and a special colors.ini file that has the original colors of the pushbuttons for nearly every arcade game around.  It reads your game config files in mame and lights up the buttons used and the colors they were.  It also speaks the action of the button before starting the game.

The ledblinky supports multiple ledwiz's.  The initial setup can be tedious for the ledblinky, but once the setup has completed, it will auto change the colors with mame's controls.  For example, I was playing Mortal Kombat with the default 3 bottom buttons and 2 on top.  I reset the controls for MK in mame to use the four left buttons and the seventh button.  When I exited to mala it was lit with the new setup.

4.  There are attract modes that light all the buttons in random orders and sequences when the screensaver is active.  You will have to look it up to see what else it can do.

Here is an example on my cab, scroll down a bit for the videos.  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=67770.0

Just about all those things you asked under question 4 can be done.  Some differences are when you pause on a game in the frontend selection menu, it lights the buttons to the actual colors for a predetermined time.

5.  Most of this has already been answered above.  You just tell it the controls.ini file, mame.xml file, and colors.ini file.  The software does the rest.  It can also light special setups for different emulators, but there is no color change per game since the original console controls were all the same for every game.

But yeah, using the 6 per player and 3 for the trackball would use only 26 electric ice buttons and one trackball along with 3 ledwiz's.  That alone will cost you $335 instead of the $483 you are thinking about spending.  If money is no option then all the more for you.

Thanks Green Giant for your very thorough reply.  Well it looks like I will be looking into switching over to Mala for my FE.  Here are a couple more questions for you if you don't mind.  Does Mala support the fairly new EmuMovies that are being created to replace the current snap pics of the games?  By the way, I found a really nice site that can be utilized for the latest Mame related topics/downloads.  Look at xxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.  Does Mala support Dual Act Labs lightgunes which I currently own? 

My arcade cabinet is currently at a relatives shop for artwork to be air-brushed on the cab so I have sometime to get all the hardware from GGG and software together.  I think I am going to go ahead and replace all my current buttons with GGG's Electric Ice buttons as well as purchase 4 Led-Wiz controllers with the Electric Ice trackball upgrade kit.  I actually have been looking at SlikStiks illuminated custom joysticks as well.  They really compliment the CP if you ask me. 

RandyT, if you happen to stumble accross this thread, I am going to suggest that you look into developing your own illuminated style joysticks to compliment your current hardware list.  If you had these available on your site, I would not hesitate to order all my hardware from your page. 

Money is not that much of a problem for me at the moment.  I do not have any hardcore hobby's that require alot of money to complete, so I am pretty sure my wife would not have much say in spending a couple hundred here and there to continue this hobby and perform the updates when needed to the cab.  I can't wait to get the cab back from my relative.  I will post some pic's once I get all working to my satisfaction.  Thanks,

Link to rom site removed by moderator.

[arzoo]

My arcade cabinet is currently at a relatives shop for artwork to be air-brushed on the cab so...

Wish I had a relative to air-bursh my cab!   

RandyT, if you happen to stumble accross this thread, I am going to suggest that you look into developing your own illuminated style joysticks to compliment your current hardware list.  If you had these available on your site, I would not hesitate to order all my hardware from your page. 

Ditto that!

[headkaze]

1.  You want MALA.  Hands down no questions asked.  The front end is easy as hell to setup and has the best ledwiz support around.  The coding for the ledwiz is not ingrained in Mala itself, but mala allows for plugins to be created by other people.

I don't know about "Hands down no questions asked"

There are other FE's with LEDWiz support besides Mala; namely GameEx and Atomic FE. Mala is still a very popular FE, so it's up to you to find the one that suits your needs. But don't write one off over the other because someone says so. Sometimes it feels like religious nuts are posting in threads trying to get you to convert to their FE.

I would have loved to have had my side art air brushed too. Would be expensive to pay for I imagine.

[SGT]

Sometimes it feels like religious nuts are posting in threads trying to get you to convert to their FE.

Well count me in as one of the religious nuts because after reading his post I believe Mala is his best choice.  Also you need to read that post.  He ASKED for FE opinions and was given one.  No need to get offended if your FE hasn't been recommended yet.  Any FE's users can give their opinions here.

[headkaze]

Sometimes it feels like religious nuts are posting in threads trying to get you to convert to their FE.

Well count me in as one of the religious nuts because after reading his post I believe Mala is his best choice.  Also you need to read that post.  He ASKED for FE opinions and was given one.  No need to get offended if your FE hasn't been recommended yet.  Any FE's users can give their opinions here.

I'm not offended by anything he said. I was just saying there are other FE's with LEDWiz support. I wouldn't recommend any front end hands down no questions asked because there is no perfect solution in this case. Reading over the thread, both arzoo's LEDBlinky for Mala and my LEDWiz plugin for GameEx support most the features he's after. Including colors.ini support, LED's that stay lit etc. I'd rather just say to try them all rather than flog my own wares in these threads, so forgive me for not getting into details about it.

[SGT]

I understand what you are saying, but if its GG's opinion that Mala is the best FE for this user, its certainly within his right to say so.  Its not like he's closely associated with a FE like you are.

[headkaze]

I understand what you are saying, but if its GG's opinion that Mala is the best FE for this user, its certainly within his right to say so.  Its not like he's closely associated with a FE like you are.

Yeah, he's entitled to an opinion and so am I. If this is about the religious nut comment, orginally it was more of an obvious joke comparing users to Mormons, FE's to bibles and thread posting to door knocking, but I toned it down to avoid offending anyone. I probably should have put a smiley after that, but then it looks like I'm laughing at my own lame jokes. Which is kinda like enjoying the smell of your own fart

[Green Giant]

Wow, created so much controversy.  I mainly said that because there are currently two different ledwiz controlling options for mala.  I know other FE's support the ledwiz, but you have the most variety from what I have seen with mala. 

I haven't heard about any other frontends with the same features as the ledblinky.  I think the ledblinky is far superior if you are going rgb per button over the other mala ledwiz plugin.  I spent a little time setting all the buttons up on my control panel in the ledblinky setup window.  Then all I did was point it to the colors.ini, mame.xml, controls.ini, and mame cfg folder.  The way it reads all my custom configs for games like neogeo is one of the features I really like. 

Being able to change button layouts on the fly and light them to the original colors is what did it for me.  I was under the impression that other ledwiz supported front ends don't have these particular features which are best for people utilizing a massive control panel and all three colors.

Does Mala support the fairly new EmuMovies that are being created to replace the current snap pics of the games? 

Does Mala support Dual Act Labs lightgunes which I currently own? 

My arcade cabinet is currently at a relatives shop for artwork to be air-brushed on the cab so I have sometime to get all the hardware from GGG and software together.  I think I am going to go ahead and replace all my current buttons with GGG's Electric Ice buttons as well as purchase 4 Led-Wiz controllers with the Electric Ice trackball upgrade kit.  I actually have been looking at SlikStiks illuminated custom joysticks as well.  They really compliment the CP if you ask me. 

Now for your questions.

1.  It does support the emumovies.  Look at the link I posted to my cab.  You can see the buttons being lit and emumovies running on my cab.

2.  It does support dual lightguns.  I use the lcd topguns, but the principal should be the same.  Any frontend can use lightguns I think since it is mame that will be utilizing them.

If you have the money then all the more power to you.  I have thought of replacing my pause and exit buttons with led buttons, maybe one day.  The plugin lets you set any led to always on if you want to so you could have your coin and player buttons always lit in whatever color you choose.

[Green Giant]

I probably should have put a smiley after that, but then it looks like I'm laughing at my own lame jokes.

If Letterman can do it, why not you.   

[slsimon]

I understand what you are saying, but if its GG's opinion that Mala is the best FE for this user, its certainly within his right to say so.  Its not like he's closely associated with a FE like you are.

Yeah, he's entitled to an opinion and so am I. If this is about the religious nut comment, orginally it was more of an obvious joke comparing users to Mormons, FE's to bibles and thread posting to door knocking, but I toned it down to avoid offending anyone. I probably should have put a smiley after that, but then it looks like I'm laughing at my own lame jokes. Which is kinda like enjoying the smell of your own fart

Thanks for the reply's headkaze.  From reading your comments, sounds like you are the one to talk to for the GameEX and Atomic FE's.  I am assuming that both these FE's also support the GGG hardware that I am going to purchase.  I am also going to assume that the following is supported by both FE's, Dual LightGuns, EmuMovies, all Randy's GGG LED hardware and what I would like to attempt to accomplish with the Led-Wiz controllers and Led buttons.  I am also going to assume that all three FE's (Mala, GameEX and Atomic) have active development to support new functions and hardware. 

I think it was GameEX that I have previously read a post concerning having to purchase the software to be able to utilize all the configurations and controls that are offered with the full blown release of the FE. 

I guess I will choose the FE that will be easiest for me to figure out.  Really, what I am looking for is just to be able to do the following: 

Here is what I would like to accomplish with the led-wiz controllers, to start with anyway.  I would like player 1 through player 4 buttons to have a specific color per player, (player 1 buttons red, player 2 blue, player 3 green, player 4 yellow).  At the sametime to make things more interesting, I would like to have the player buttons cycle throuh a number of colors every so many seconds or minutes, while at the sametime no player buttons will cycle through the same color.  Once a game starts, I am wondering if it would be possible then to allow for only the game specific buttons to be lit up a specific color and those that are not used to be another color.  Sounds like alot of work going on here but I am thinking the request is reasonable for this controller. 

I don't think that I was given a concrete answer concering if the above is possible or not.  GG suggested that it is possible for game specific led button support but I am not sure if that would be as important to me as being able to cycle through colors for each player's buttons while no player buttons ever getting cycled to the same color. 

This would require a setup such that every so many seconds/minutes a cycle would have to occur similiar to the following:  To be honest, I have not even looked at any of the LED-Add-On software for Led-Wiz configuration yet...

player 1 is red
player 2 is blue
player 3 is green
player 4 is yellow
player1 is yellow
player 2 is red
player 3 is blue
player4 is green
player 1 is green
player 2 is yellow
player 3 is red
player 4 is blue
etc... and continue the cycle with predefined colors. 

[Green Giant]

About the features you want with the ledwiz, I am not sure if that is possible yet.

It sounds like you want it to cycle when you are just browsing through the game lists.  Then when you select a game it lights those games buttons to the originals.  The latter option is currently possible with Mala.  I don't know if the other two support the colors.ini portion that lights the game to the original colors.

All three FE's can light the game controls to a set color, just not sure if they auto switch the colors on a per game basis.

The other thing you want with the colors cycling is not currently possible, however it shouldn't be too hard.  You might ask Arzoo if he can do this with the ledblinky.  He usually gets updates out pretty fast.

Although having all the same colors when cycling through the front end is not the best option.  I have mine set with certain colors for skipping to letter, by page, checking the game information, or whatever you could want.

[arzoo]

slsimon,
If I understand correctly, you want the player buttons groups to cycle through different colors when the FE is active (not during game play). This could be achieved with an animation file. With MaLa and the LEDBlinky or LEDWiz plugin, you can play a LED animation when the screen saver is active. I'm sure this is also true for Atomic and GameEx. I think this meets your first requirement. The only problem is we don't currently have any decent animation editors (actually, I think Atomic or GameEx has its own proprietary editor, but I'm not sure which it is). Anyway, that will be resolved shortly as both RandyT and I are actively working on animation editors.

As for your second request - lighting the buttons during game play, the LEDBlinky allows you to define both active and non-active colors. This can be the same for all games or you can define the colors by emulator or on a game-by-game basis. The other LED apps may be able to do the same. You really have a lot of choices! Bottom line, I think the vision you have for your cab is doable.

[rockin_rick]

So you want each players button block to have a defined 'normal' color that the buttons are always lit with.  But then every so often, you want the color blocks to rotate sequentially like a "movie marquee" a trip or few around, then land back in their 'normal' positions, right?  Sounds cool, would like to see a video of it when completed.

Rick

[slsimon]

slsimon,
If I understand correctly, you want the player buttons groups to cycle through different colors when the FE is active (not during game play). This could be achieved with an animation file. With MaLa and the LEDBlinky or LEDWiz plugin, you can play a LED animation when the screen saver is active. I'm sure this is also true for Atomic and GameEx. I think this meets your first requirement. The only problem is we don't currently have any decent animation editors (actually, I think Atomic or GameEx has its own proprietary editor, but I'm not sure which it is). Anyway, that will be resolved shortly as both RandyT and I are actively working on animation editors.

As for your second request - lighting the buttons during game play, the LEDBlinky allows you to define both active and non-active colors. This can be the same for all games or you can define the colors by emulator or on a game-by-game basis. The other LED apps may be able to do the same. You really have a lot of choices! Bottom line, I think the vision you have for your cab is doable.

Thanks arzoo for you response.  Yes, to start with, I think I am going to attempt to cycle the block of buttons per player through a random amount of colors while at the same time, no player can have the same color of buttons.  I would like to get this setup while the FE is active (during game play) and during inactive play.  I may want to add the option for specific color per game buttons used at a later time once I determine if this is needed or not.  I really have not made a decision on this one yet... 

I have been browsing the Mala site today and noticed the two plugins you mentioned, the ledblinky 2.5 and the ledwiz plugin.  This leaves me to ask another question.  Does one plugin offer extended functionality over the other and or is this just a preference as to what the user prefer's to use.. 

It is nice to hear that both you and RandyT are actively working on supporting the functionality of your software..  From hear, what are your suggestions as far as where I should start working with the software?  Let's say I want to download Mala.  I then would also download either plugin or both (not sure on this one) and then what?  Do I need to download RandyT's app and try to figure out those commands?  From reading others forums, sounds like I need to create an animation config file with RandyT's Luminara app and then import it in the plugin for more functionality, (again I am not sure on this one).  All I know is that I have read through RandyT's PDF instructions for sending commands to mulitple Led-Wiz devices, wow that code is really confusing.  I am no programmer so all this is new to me.  I guess I just need some step by step instructions as far as where and how to start setting up the configuration for the functionality that I am looking for.  I want to get familiar with the available software for a week or two before I max out my credit card (ha ha ha) while purchasing all this hardware from GGG.  This will allow me to jump right into configuring the controllers as soon as I get them.  Please post back.  Thanks,

[slsimon]

So you want each players button block to have a defined 'normal' color that the buttons are always lit with.  But then every so often, you want the color blocks to rotate sequentially like a "movie marquee" a trip or few around, then land back in their 'normal' positions, right?  Sounds cool, would like to see a video of it when completed.

Rick

Yes, very close to the functionality that I want to start with rockin_rick.  Each block of player buttons will cycle through a random color while no other player block buttons will cycle the same color at anytime.  I would like to set this up during active and inactive game play.  This is just a start though.  I may change this to inactive game play later and then allow specific buttons per game to be on to a pre-defined color and or original game color. 

I will not have any problems setting up the hardware but on the software end, this is all new to me.  I just need some guidence to as far as where to start and what applications to download and use as well as what configs I need to setup for the controllers to work correctly.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.  Thanks,

[arzoo]

Thanks arzoo for you response.  Yes, to start with, I think I am going to attempt to cycle the block of buttons per player through a random amount of colors while at the same time, no player can have the same color of buttons.  I would like to get this setup while the FE is active (during game play) and during inactive play.  I may want to add the option for specific color per game buttons used at a later time once I determine if this is needed or not.  I really have not made a decision on this one yet... 

I have been browsing the Mala site today and noticed the two plugins you mentioned, the ledblinky 2.5 and the ledwiz plugin.  This leaves me to ask another question.  Does one plugin offer extended functionality over the other and or is this just a preference as to what the user prefer's to use.. 

It is nice to hear that both you and RandyT are actively working on supporting the functionality of your software..  From hear, what are your suggestions as far as where I should start working with the software?  Let's say I want to download Mala.  I then would also download either plugin or both (not sure on this one) and then what?  Do I need to download RandyT's app and try to figure out those commands?  From reading others forums, sounds like I need to create an animation config file with RandyT's Luminara app and then import it in the plugin for more functionality, (again I am not sure on this one).  All I know is that I have read through RandyT's PDF instructions for sending commands to mulitple Led-Wiz devices, wow that code is really confusing.  I am no programmer so all this is new to me.  I guess I just need some step by step instructions as far as where and how to start setting up the configuration for the functionality that I am looking for.  I want to get familiar with the available software for a week or two before I max out my credit card (ha ha ha) while purchasing all this hardware from GGG.  This will allow me to jump right into configuring the controllers as soon as I get them.  Please post back.  Thanks,

Both plugins (LEDBlinky is mine, LEDWiz developed by loadman/edge) have similar functionality - both light up the correct buttons for each game, both support speech and both support LED Animations. I guess the biggest difference has to do with how the controls are mapped to the LEDs. With LEDBlinky, if you remap a control during game play, the next time you start that game, the LEDs will remap to match the buttons. LEDBlinky also support the Colors.ini file which will light the game controls to their original control panel colors. Other than that, the differences have more to do with gimmicky features. Obviously I'm a bit biased towards mine. I will say this, loadman provides the best MaLa/LEDWiz support around - he's always floating around the software forum solving problems!

By the way, you can download and try both plugins, but just make sure you only use one at a time - you can disable a plugin by simply changing the extension to something other than .plugin.

As for the animation stuff - the Lumaura app cannot be used to generate animations for multiple LED-Wiz devices. So you really need to wait for mine or Randy's forthcoming editors. With these you won't need to worry about any of the commands.

I'd suggest that you start by getting MaLa up and running (if that's the FE you choose to go with), and then focus on the LED stuff.

[slsimon]

Thanks arzoo for you response.  Yes, to start with, I think I am going to attempt to cycle the block of buttons per player through a random amount of colors while at the same time, no player can have the same color of buttons.  I would like to get this setup while the FE is active (during game play) and during inactive play.  I may want to add the option for specific color per game buttons used at a later time once I determine if this is needed or not.  I really have not made a decision on this one yet... 

I have been browsing the Mala site today and noticed the two plugins you mentioned, the ledblinky 2.5 and the ledwiz plugin.  This leaves me to ask another question.  Does one plugin offer extended functionality over the other and or is this just a preference as to what the user prefer's to use.. 

It is nice to hear that both you and RandyT are actively working on supporting the functionality of your software..  From hear, what are your suggestions as far as where I should start working with the software?  Let's say I want to download Mala.  I then would also download either plugin or both (not sure on this one) and then what?  Do I need to download RandyT's app and try to figure out those commands?  From reading others forums, sounds like I need to create an animation config file with RandyT's Luminara app and then import it in the plugin for more functionality, (again I am not sure on this one).  All I know is that I have read through RandyT's PDF instructions for sending commands to mulitple Led-Wiz devices, wow that code is really confusing.  I am no programmer so all this is new to me.  I guess I just need some step by step instructions as far as where and how to start setting up the configuration for the functionality that I am looking for.  I want to get familiar with the available software for a week or two before I max out my credit card (ha ha ha) while purchasing all this hardware from GGG.  This will allow me to jump right into configuring the controllers as soon as I get them.  Please post back.  Thanks,

Both plugins (LEDBlinky is mine, LEDWiz developed by loadman/edge) have similar functionality - both light up the correct buttons for each game, both support speech and both support LED Animations. I guess the biggest difference has to do with how the controls are mapped to the LEDs. With LEDBlinky, if you remap a control during game play, the next time you start that game, the LEDs will remap to match the buttons. LEDBlinky also support the Colors.ini file which will light the game controls to their original control panel colors. Other than that, the differences have more to do with gimmicky features. Obviously I'm a bit biased towards mine. I will say this, loadman provides the best MaLa/LEDWiz support around - he's always floating around the software forum solving problems!

By the way, you can download and try both plugins, but just make sure you only use one at a time - you can disable a plugin by simply changing the extension to something other than .plugin.

As for the animation stuff - the Lumaura app cannot be used to generate animations for multiple LED-Wiz devices. So you really need to wait for mine or Randy's forthcoming editors. With these you won't need to worry about any of the commands.

I'd suggest that you start by getting MaLa up and running (if that's the FE you choose to go with), and then focus on the LED stuff.

Thanks again arzoo.  Hey, can you provide an ETA on your software and or have you been intouch with RandyT as to know the ETA on his editor?  I don't think I am going to be able to accomplish what I want without a GUI editor. 

Also, I read a post to where RandyT created another app to support the led's being able to animate with sound.  Can you provide a link to that download and or provide a link to the forum post?  That is an app that I would like to have as well just to play around with.  I don't see a link on the GGG page with the download for it.  I am thinking it is called LuminAudio or something like that. 

I will take your suggestion and start with Mala.  Where can I obtain the latest colors.ini file and I think the other is catver.ini?  Don't both of these files contain button/CP information? 

One thing I do like about ATFE is that they have so many animated and static backgrounds/layouts.  I did not see a wide variety of backgrounds for Mala.  I am not that partial to those on the Mala site.  Are there anymore backgrounds to choose from for Mala? 

Well again, thanks for all your help.  This forum is awesome.  Everyone posting here is of much help and are thorough with their replys.  Thanks,

[arzoo]

Thanks again arzoo.  Hey, can you provide an ETA on your software and or have you been intouch with RandyT as to know the ETA on his editor?  I don't think I am going to be able to accomplish what I want without a GUI editor. 

I'm hoping to have a beta ready in a couple of weeks - but this is just my hobby, so other real-life stuff tends to take precedence. Can't speak for Randy.

Also, I read a post to where RandyT created another app to support the led's being able to animate with sound.  Can you provide a link to that download and or provide a link to the forum post?  That is an app that I would like to have as well just to play around with.  I don't see a link on the GGG page with the download for it.  I am thinking it is called LuminAudio or something like that.

 

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=69607.0

I will take your suggestion and start with Mala.  Where can I obtain the latest colors.ini file and I think the other is catver.ini?  Don't both of these files contain button/CP information?

Colors.ini
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=69839.msg713887#msg713887

Catver.ini
http://www.mameworld.net/catlist/

Neither of these files contain cp specific data.

By the way, if you can't find what you're looking for on the forum, try the wiki.

One thing I do like about ATFE is that they have so many animated and static backgrounds/layouts.  I did not see a wide variety of backgrounds for Mala.  I am not that partial to those on the Mala site.  Are there anymore backgrounds to choose from for Mala? 

Your FE background is definitely an important visual aspect of your cab - so if you don't see any you like for MaLa, you've got two choices; design your own or go with a FE that has what you like. If you have something specific in mind and don't have the skills to create the graphics yourself, post a request on the forum - you may find someone willing to help out!

[Green Giant]

I will take your suggestion and start with Mala.  Where can I obtain the latest colors.ini file and I think the other is catver.ini?  Don't both of these files contain button/CP information?

Neither of these files contain cp specific data.

Your FE background is definitely an important visual aspect of your cab - so if you don't see any you like for MaLa, you've got two choices; design your own or go with a FE that has what you like. If you have something specific in mind and don't have the skills to create the graphics yourself, post a request on the forum - you may find someone willing to help out!

You are probably thinking of controls.ini file.  This contains information on the controls and works together with catver and colors.ini.  You can also get the gameinfo.dat file.  It contains a description of the game, history, controls, and more.  Really just for fun but I mapped it to a button if I ever want to see it.

There is one other option for MALA backgrounds.  There is a converter program to change mamewah backgrounds to mala.  There are tons of layouts for mamewah that you could use.