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Retrofitting X-Arcade Tankstick with 2 TurboTwist2 USB Spinners - Mame settings?
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roger:
I have an X-Arcade Tankstick with a built-in USB Trackball, and would like to add two spinners for 2-player games such as SuperSprint etc. that I would like to play with my son. I would also like to be able to play Arkanoid in a manner that doesn't suck. After quite a bit of searching, it appears that the TurboTwist2 is the only spinner that has both the resolution for Arkanoid and a small enough form factor to fit the TankStick.

So, I know what spinners I want, mostly thanks to this forum, but I still have few questions to which I was not able to find good answers. I'm a newbie, so please forgive me if this has been asked and answered before.

- When ordering the TT2 USB spinners, should I get a master and a slave, or should I get 2 masters with different IDs? Which combination works better in MAME?
- I would like the trackball in the X-Arcade to be mapped to the mouse and player 1 analog control like the default, and I would like to use the spinners for analog controls for player 1 and player 2. I.e. I wouldn't necessarily need support for 'multimouse', the trackball could act as my default mouse, and the spinners could act as X and Y axes of the same default mouse. What should the settings in mame.ini be for this type of setup? What should the game settings be?
- And, this is probably just a question of personal preference, I'm wondering what kind of knobs I should get, and whether I need the fly-weights or not.

Thanks in advance for your advice.
u_rebelscum:

--- Quote from: roger on March 13, 2008, 03:26:59 am ---- When ordering the TT2 USB spinners, should I get a master and a slave, or should I get 2 masters with different IDs? Which combination works better in MAME?
--- End quote ---

Either work fine.  Both will require remapping and/or changing one setting in mame.ini, but IMO both are easy.  (See next part)  I'd worry about other games, and price, rather than mame.

--- Quote ---- I would like the trackball in the X-Arcade to be mapped to the mouse and player 1 analog control like the default, and I would like to use the spinners for analog controls for player 1 and player 2. I.e. I wouldn't necessarily need support for 'multimouse', the trackball could act as my default mouse, and the spinners could act as X and Y axes of the same default mouse. What should the settings in mame.ini be for this type of setup? What should the game settings be?
--- End quote ---

- Master + slave: Remap in "Input (general)" so each player (probably just player2, but see note) uses the correct "mouse" axis for mame's dials at least.  Note: TB movements will affect the spinners if moved and vice versa, unless -multimouse is enabled where player 1 might need to be remapped, and maybe the TB too.
- 2 masters, one on X, one on Y axis: same as master + slave, with same notes.
- 2 masters, both on X axis: Enable -multimouse in mame.ini.  Remap the spinners to both players dials, and the TB might need to be remapped, too.  (This is how I'd do it, but I'm very picky about not letting one control mess up other controls.)

Anyway it's done, you might want to look into using the ctrlr file to save the remapping.  It's a little safer at saving the remaps.  (I can help you at this if you at this if you're interested.)


--- Quote ---- And, this is probably just a question of personal preference, I'm wondering what kind of knobs I should get, and whether I need the fly-weights or not.
--- End quote ---

It is opinion, and the fly-weights depends on which knob you get.  Most people seem to like the TokenTop knob, and this does not need the fly-weight.  (I have the TT2, but don't have that knob, so....shrug)
roger:

--- Quote from: u_rebelscum on March 13, 2008, 02:00:51 pm ---- Master + slave: Remap in "Input (general)" so each player (probably just player2, but see note) uses the correct "mouse" axis for mame's dials at least.  Note: TB movements will affect the spinners if moved and vice versa, unless -multimouse is enabled where player 1 might need to be remapped, and maybe the TB too.
- 2 masters, one on X, one on Y axis: same as master + slave, with same notes.
- 2 masters, both on X axis: Enable -multimouse in mame.ini.  Remap the spinners to both players dials, and the TB might need to be remapped, too.  (This is how I'd do it, but I'm very picky about not letting one control mess up other controls.)
--- End quote ---

Thanks a bunch! This is really helpful information! I'm glad to know that, no matter what I order, there is way to make it work in MAME. Puts the mind at ease a little bit. So, I'm going to look at some of the other games and emulators I may be wanting to play in the future to see what configuration I should get. Can you think of any particular disadvantages of one versus another option? The only one I can think of right now is that, when using your option 3 with 2 masters on X-Axis and -multimouse enabled, I'm not sure how to guarantee that the mouse/trackball/spinners are always mapped to the same mouse number after a restart or power cycle of the system. I don't know how a Windows PC assigns the IDs of attached mouse devices at startup, i.e. whether it actually looks the device IDs and makes the same assignment every time, or if just depends in which order it discovers the devices on the USB bus.


--- Quote ---Anyway it's done, you might want to look into using the ctrlr file to save the remapping.  It's a little safer at saving the remaps.  (I can help you at this if you at this if you're interested.)
--- End quote ---

Thanks, I appreciate the offer. I will try to figure it out my self, but in the event that I fail, I will report back.
You're right, adding the configuration to the ctrlr file does make sense since the spinners will be part of my X-Arcade, i.e. the x-arcade.cfg file should contain all that. I suppose I could use the menus in MAME to create all the mappings and then just cut the information from the default.cfg and paste it into x-arcade.cfg?


--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---- And, this is probably just a question of personal preference, I'm wondering what kind of knobs I should get, and whether I need the fly-weights or not.
--- End quote ---

It is opinion, and the fly-weights depends on which knob you get.  Most people seem to like the TokenTop knob, and this does not need the fly-weight.  (I have the TT2, but don't have that knob, so....shrug)

--- End quote ---

Thanks, the TokenTop knob looks very nice, but I wonder how good it would look on the X-Arcade:

I think any of these should look pretty good as they seem to fit the color scheme:

I haven't quite decided where to put the spinners. Depending on where they go, there might be a constraint on height and diameter.

Thanks again for your help, I appreciate it.

Roger
dmel75:
I'm very curious to know how did this work out for you? Did you order the spinners and install them yet? I have one of the original 2 player x-arcade sticks in my mame cabinet and want to add the same two-player racing functionality.

Thanks!
roger:

--- Quote from: dmel75 on March 31, 2008, 04:13:28 pm ---I'm very curious to know how did this work out for you? Did you order the spinners and install them yet? I have one of the original 2 player x-arcade sticks in my mame cabinet and want to add the same two-player racing functionality.
--- End quote ---

Yes, I did order the spinners (a master and a slave), and I went with the black knobs with the dimples, as well as the fly-weights.
It took me a little while to decide where to put them. I needed a place that both worked space wise with the stuff that is in the controller as well as a place that works ergonomically. I ended up using double-sided tape to stick the buttons to the controller in the locations that had room for the spinner to get a feel for how well gaming would work. The best place turned out to be at the top edge of the controller, in line with the player 1 and player 2 buttons, and between buttons 2 and 3 of the button arrays for each player. The Tankstick has 2 buttons in the back. One for programming and another one to disable the x-axis of the trackball. I had to relocate the programming button further to the left because it would interfere with the left spinner otherwise. Now I have an extra hole in the back through which I bring out the USB cable for the spinners for now. Eventually I will install some sort of strain relief for it so that the cable can't be yanked out.
The spinners work really well. I'm glad I went with the TT2s, they're really worth the money. Arkanoid, Tempest, SuperSprint, etc, are really great to play. GoldenTee Golf works really great too, BTW. It's a lot easier on the wrist than constantly having to whack the trackball. I use the right spinner to shoot and the left one to select clubs.

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