Touchscreens in MAME, is this possible?

[newkillergenius]

Hello everyone!

I looked for this thread elsewhere, but couldnt find any useful info.
In emulating touchscreen games such as Touchmaster, it seems useful to be able
to use a touchscreen!  Well, upon booting the rom, and 'allowing mouse input', the game now recognizes a screen press.  The problem, though, is that it only detects the touch in the same area each time.
There are crosshairs you can toggle with F1 that show you where the touch will register, though the crosshairs cannot be moved via the touchscreen.  Like you cant slide your finger across the screen and see the crosshairs move with it.  For example, if you just boot the rom, and then touch the screen, it will register and take you to the main menu.  But only that far, as the touchscreen doesnt detect the location of the touch, only that it has been touched.
But, if you take your mouse, and move the crosshairs to a button, then touch the screen, it will select it. (wherever the crosshairs are.)  I have changed every input setting I could think of in trying to fix this issue to no avail. 
I am certain my touchscreen is fine, because it works 100% in wXP, & with all other progs (jukebox, etc).
I guess there just isnt any touchscreen support for MAME right now?  There just isnt much information on this topic anywhere right now.  Is there anything anyone could suggest that I could try?

My specs,   3Ghz P4
                 1GB ram
                 touchscreen in COM1 serial port
                 WinXPsp2

Thanks all-
NKG

[youki]

Hi,

unfortunaly, I can not help you for mame.

But just in case you looking for a Front End that can manage TouchScreen , AtomicFE does that.  You just need to do a special layout. If you are interrested in that feature. Let me know i will create a template layout for you.

I'm really curious to have feedback from TouchScreen user.

[newkillergenius]

Youki, I'd be happy to beta anything for you.
You helped me out a lot setting up Atomic about a year ago on the Atomic forums.
I could use a good template, just as long as I can run it in 1024 or 1280 and it still has big-ol-touchscreen friendly buttons...

[youki]

Thanks 

No problem for the resolution and the button. Just explain me what you want, i will do the layout for you. then you will just have to change artwork or modify as you wish. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well as far as mame goes, I've gotta ask the obvious question.  Why exactly would you want to have your touchscreen working in mame?  Mame doesn't have any touchscreen games.  I mean there are a few analog gun games like terminator 2 that might be playable with a touchscreen, but "clicking" on what you want to shoot is beyond cheating imho. 

[newkillergenius]

Well, 4 reasons in particular- 3 of which are currently emulated.

tm               - Touchmaster (Midway)
tm3k           - Touchmaster 3000 (Midway)
tm4k           - Touchmaster 4000 (Midway)
galgames   - Galaxy Games (Creative Electronics)

I've got a 21'' TLK monitor from GTT in Korea.  Just seems like something fun to try, since there is very little going on for touchscreens in the game world these days...

Galaxy Games still has some protection issues.

I have successfully emulated all of the Touchmaster series, though tm3k has a few minor graphics flaws on the strip poker game.  It's actually coming along quite well, except for the fact the touchscreen works, just doesnt register where you touch it, only that you have.

If there is interest, I will create a video of the machine booting, and show you guys exactly what is going on.

[newkillergenius]

Mame doesn't have any touchscreen games.  I mean there are a few analog gun games like terminator 2 that might be playable with a touchscreen, but "clicking" on what you want to shoot is beyond cheating imho. 

Howard, this is the least of my interests.  Though it might be fun for the kids.
Just getting Touchmaster running again would be great.  I've got a dead Midway Touchmaster
with no screen that used to be lots of fun around here.  Since I own the PCBs for tm & tm3k, seems like it's OK..

[Circo]

I built a bartop for a friend with a 17" touchscreen, use the feature mainly for casino, jukebox, and some popcap games.  But I remember that it registered as a mouse in MAME and worked fine on some shooting games.  I can't imagine why you would have any issues, but I never tried those games.

[Howard_Casto]

I didn't think the touchmaster style games were emulated yet, has this changed?  I mean having them in mame is one thing, they've been in there for a while, but having them working is something else all-together.

[newkillergenius]

I remember that it registered as a mouse in MAME and worked fine on some shooting games.  I can't imagine why you would have any issues, but I never tried those games.

That's what I'm wondering.  It will register a button press when you touch the screen, but the cursor wont slide with your finger.  Do you recall the version of MAME that was used?  Im using .121

Thanx for your response,  Howard, I think if shooting games would work in MAME, it just seems like the touchscreen ones would work as well, since you would have to be able to move the cursor etc

[newkillergenius]

I didn't think the touchmaster style games were emulated yet, has this changed?  I mean having them in mame is one thing, they've been in there for a while, but having them working is something else all-together.

Yeah, they are fully working!  Everything except the touch is on the up & up.

[newkillergenius]

So nobody has any input on this?  Seems hard to believe what with all the chaps out there claiming it works for them.

[rooter]

This is just a theory but, when you touch your screen, two numbers are sent to the windows driver.   For example, (50%,50%) for the center of the screen.  The driver then looks at the resolution setting in windows, multiplies the values, and reports a click at the result.  Clicking on the center of a 1024X768 screen would send a value of (512,384)

I have a feeling that you are clicking an area outside of the games resolution.  The resolution of Touchmaster 4000 is 400x256, so even if you are touching the center of the screen, you are sending back a value that is 112 pixels too far to the right and 128 pixels too low.   You can see that the screen was touched, but it doesn't show a location because you are clicking off of the emulated screen.  If you could somehow set your resolution in windows to 400x256, maybe it would work.  Try touching the very top left of the screen and see if it responds any differently.

Again, this is all just speculation.  I have a 17" touchscreen that I will test out when I get home from work.

[newkillergenius]

Rooter,

Thanks for the new approach.  Unfortunately, it made no difference.
I wonder how difficult it would be to try add the windows touchscreen driver to MAME?
& It seems some models of touchscreens work with MAME & some do not?  My touchscreen is not even available in any store, its a Korean GTT, the best money can buy.  Which it can't, not in the states!   Yet lamers with the 17 inch crappy wal-mart touchscreens have claimed it works for them...
Thanks for the help so far, all...

[newkillergenius]

{{bwump}}

[RetroBorg]

I too would be interested if you can get the touch screen working I've been playing Touchmaster 3000 for the past two weeks, my wife is very addicted to it. There seems to be a major problem in the games though using the mouse some games are two sensitive and pushing once on the mouse button seems to produce two pushes and on other games not sensitive enough and you have to push the buttons lots of times to get one to register.  Anybody else experiencing the same problems? I was thinking a touchscreen might rectify that problem but it would seem from newkillergenius post it's even worse.

[brian_hoffman]

have did you enable the -mouse switch in MAME?

[RetroBorg]

Yep.

[newkillergenius]

All, I've been dicking with this alot, but cant seem to get it.  Still registers a touch, but just not the location of the touch.  Verrrry frustrating.  I am sure if other touchscreen can do it mine can as well.  I am using the driver from 3M, the next step is to try TouchWare soft.  A word of advice to touchscreen users and hopefuls:  DO NOT USE THE ELO DRIVERS EVER!!!

[squirrellydw]

I have a ELO touch screen for my jukebox and the drivers work great.

[RetroBorg]

All, I've been dicking with this alot, but cant seem to get it.  Still registers a touch, but just not the location of the touch.  Verrrry frustrating.  I am sure if other touchscreen can do it mine can as well.  I am using the driver from 3M, the next step is to try TouchWare soft.  A word of advice to touchscreen users and hopefuls:  DO NOT USE THE ELO DRIVERS EVER!!!

Have you recalibrated the touch screen?

[newkillergenius]

I have a ELO touch screen for my jukebox and the drivers work great.

They locked up my system.  Went  to add/remove progs  & it would not let me uninstall.  Very irritating.
Glad it works for you though

I have re-calibrated.  It will not move the crosshairs in MAME either, but works fine for my touchscreen juke, and every single other app ive tried it with   

[Angry_Radish]

Nothing to see here, move along 

[newkillergenius]

This seems to be the case.  Where are all those other pips claimed to have this working?  Some info from them
would be swell.

[Kangum]

i tried touchmaster 4000 with a magic touch touchscreen and it doesnt work. upon boot it detects no touchscreen controller even though one is there. then i touch the screen and it sees the touch and goes into the next menu just not where its being touched. i did change stuff to mouse inpuit as well.

it would be nice to have them working but oh well. still a ton of games out there that work with a touchscreen. just not in mame.

[Angry_Radish]

I was under the impression that 4000 doesn't work at all..

http://www.lucaelia.com/mame_2007.php

I rewrote the skeleton driver for the Touch Master games by Midway. These are bartop arcade games, featuring many different mini-games.

I emulated the older titles, with a 68000 CPU, where the graphics are drawn by a blitter with access to a double buffered display. Later on (I'm told) they switched over to PC's.

Player input is through a pressure sensitive touch screen (you can hover as well as press). That is not emulated correctly at the moment: the touch screen controller is declared not working at the boot. It then usually works well in game, but tends to go haywire for a while and sometimes it does not recover at all (you have to reset).


The fourth chapter, Touch Master 4000 (1998), is protected and does not work yet.

[newkillergenius]

Hmm.   Touchscreen driver for MAME.   

[headkaze]

I thought a touchscreen would just emulate a mouse, kinda like how tablet PCs work so the mouse position is set when you touch the screen. If it doesn't work like this, I think it would be trivial to write software to do that.

[loadman]

I thought a touchscreen would just emulate a mouse, kinda like how tablet PCs work so the mouse position is set when you touch the screen.

That is my experience of touchscreens.

[u_rebelscum]

Yes, there's some of the confusion in the above posts between touchscreen hardward, windows drivers for said touchscreens, emulated inputs (or the lack there of) within mame, and original ROM test screen text.

As Angry_Radish hinted, the text Kangum saw in touchmaster 4000 was from the original ROM tests, and does not have anything to do with if touchscreen hardware is working on your PC or not, nor whether mame can see touchscreen inputs or not.  The test tests mame's emulation of what the game calls a touchscreen, or IOW it tests mame's game driver on emulating the inputs.  (I hope that's what newkillergenius was hoping for even though it's not a literally a "touchscreen driver for mame", but the game's driver's input code which transfers PC inputs to and how the game expects it.)

As for the other end, if the touchscreen works in windows as a mouse (or a lightgun, or an analog joystick), it will work in mame.  (as long as the game works, too, of course.)


Kangum, until the 4000's emulation is complete, could you test other games?  Zero Point or other lightgun game would be the easiest to see if the touchscreen works, IMO.

[jace055]

I just got it to work!!

I have been using Mameui32 to change the settings so i havent tried them in command line form.

I am using ELO drivers.

Elo touchscreen properties-> mode -> mouse emulatoin

MameUI32
options -> default game options -> controller mapping -> lightgun device-> change to  lightgun

Start any touchmaster game besides 7000 (more on this later)
tab -> controls in this game -> arrow down to touchscreen and hit enter then press the touchscreen with your finger.  This will set up the "click"

Enjoy

Touchmaster 7000 word search on the erotic games dosen't work (uhh.. my friend told me    ) it dosen't handle a click and drag right, I think its a bug. 

[Angry_Radish]

Works for me as well!
 

[youki]

If you need a front end that manage touchscreen , you can try Atomic.

I can do you Layout template for you that works with Touchscreen.

Just let me know.

[newkillergenius]

Works for me as well!
 

Genius.-
Would anyone mind linking me to the ELO drivers you are using to do so?

My orevious ELO installation was a real problem, and did not work with my Touchscreen.

Id like to give this a go.

[dtortor1]

Thank you so much for clearing that up, I've been messing with it on and off for 5 days. I just played my first game of 4000. Now to find the newer versions...

[jace055]

Works for me as well!
 

Genius.-
Would anyone mind linking me to the ELO drivers you are using to do so?

My orevious ELO installation was a real problem, and did not work with my Touchscreen.

Id like to give this a go.

http://www.elotouch.com/Support/Downloads/dnld.asp

sw600390.exe for xp/usb  its the first one on the page.

[dbeeks1]

jace055 - thanks for the settings to make this work!  After a couple of days of trying different settings, I finally found this post.

Now - if I'm running the rom (touchmaster 3000) in a window, touches on the screen only register within the rom window no matter where I touch the screen or what size the window is.  I would like to exit the game without having to use the keyboard. 
Does anybody know if this can be done? 
I know a keyboard encoder and buttons would work, but I would like to use just the touchscreen.

[nipsmg]

You need some other kind of keystroke to register with mame in order to quit the game.  A touchscreen only registers one kind of input (left mouse click).

Without wiring something up (or some crazy pop-away on screen keyboard that I'm not sure exists), you're probably out of luck.

[dbeeks1]

Thanks - a button it will be!

[shredso]

I was able to remap mouse right click to escape key using AutoHotKey, but it wouldn't recognize it in Mame.  I thought one of the front ends could load Auto Hot key, I haven't done a ton more research,  I may try to hack an old keyboard to save some cash for an escape button.

[dbeeks1]

You can change the End UI (default is Esc key) in the tab menu when you have a rom loaded in MAME.  I actually just set it to the mouse right click today. 

Tonight I soldered some wires to the solder points under the right click button on an old USB mouse I had laying around and hooked up an arcade button.  Beacause I only need the one button for my future project, I can avoid spending the cash on a keyboard encoder.   

[eastbayarb]

I have a POS system (Radiant 1510) that has a built in touchscreen and mag card swiper. Would this work for touchscreen games emulated with MAME? If so, how about using the card reader?

Does anyone have or know of a list of touchscreen games that are supported by MAME or other touch screen games and jukebox programs?

[newkillergenius]

Sorry I left this topic a while back, but does anyone know of serial drivers from ELO?  These seem to work with the USB touchscreens only, and I've had trouble with them again...
This touchscreen is connected via serial cable.

[bratwurst]

I just got it to work!!

I have been using Mameui32 to change the settings so i havent tried them in command line form.

I am using ELO drivers.

Elo touchscreen properties-> mode -> mouse emulatoin

MameUI32
options -> default game options -> controller mapping -> lightgun device-> change to  lightgun

Start any touchmaster game besides 7000 (more on this later)
tab -> controls in this game -> arrow down to touchscreen and hit enter then press the touchscreen with your finger.  This will set up the "click"

Enjoy

Touchmaster 7000 word search on the erotic games dosen't work (uhh.. my friend told me    ) it dosen't handle a click and drag right, I think its a bug. 

I'm using ELO drivers, set to mouse emulation, and I cannot get this to work at all.