Questions about ipac VE

[evilfuzzle]

I recently ordered the Ipac value edition from Ultimarc (because i am a poor student ) and I was thinking about how it saves game configures/preferences to ram as opposed to the hard-drive.
when I want to configure q*bert ,for example, by making mame only register the diagonals of my joysticks it would save to my ram, but as soon is i turn the computer off those settings disappear right? if i keep my computer on all the time (which i plan to do by having it on standby/hibernation) would all these configures fill up my 1Gb of ram and make my computer slower?
maybe someone who bought the ipac ve could tell me what they did.

Also, i ordered the ipac ve without the winpac disk because it meant free shipping from the us to australia for me (keeping my spending down) and i was wondering if there are any free/opensource key setting programs out there or if there is anybody who has the winpac software that i could get a copy of or knows where i could download it i would be very greatful 

thanks for listening

evilfuzzle

[AndyWarne]

You are probably referring to setting controls in Mame, on a per-game basis. If so, then you dont need to worry about any of this as the control settings are saved within Mame and will stay saved.

The additional feature of the I-PAC boards is they can have a customised control set saved to the board itself and it will stay saved on the board. On the VE board it does not stay saved after power off, and the default keycode set will be invoked. But if you are configuring in Mame itself this is not relevant. In most cases you can do all the configuration in Mame and just use the default keycodes from the board.

Andy

[Teknique]

I recently ordered the Ipac value edition from Ultimarc (because i am a poor student ) and I was thinking about how it saves game configures/preferences to ram as opposed to the hard-drive.
when I want to configure q*bert ,for example, by making mame only register the diagonals of my joysticks it would save to my ram, but as soon is i turn the computer off those settings disappear right? if i keep my computer on all the time (which i plan to do by having it on standby/hibernation) would all these configures fill up my 1Gb of ram and make my computer slower?
maybe someone who bought the ipac ve could tell me what they did.

Also, i ordered the ipac ve without the winpac disk because it meant free shipping from the us to australia for me (keeping my spending down) and i was wondering if there are any free/opensource key setting programs out there or if there is anybody who has the winpac software that i could get a copy of or knows where i could download it i would be very greatful 

thanks for listening

evilfuzzle

I belive it stores info to the ram chip on the Ipac.  It does nothing to your computer ram.  Thanks G- what I get for not reading..

and you can DL Winipac from ultimarc's site:

http://ultimarc.com/download.html

Tek

[Ginsu Victim]

The VE doesn't. Andy just said so.

[evilfuzzle]

thanks andy 
if the Ipac VE hardly makes a difference then why does everyone go for the regular ipac? i mean you get free shipping (if you opt for the no disk approach ,which you don't entirely need) and better price. it sort makes more sense
 
thanks for the download link teknique 

[Ginsu Victim]

Makes no sense. I'd rather have it save my setup to the unit itself. The VE is an option for some, but definitely not for most.

[evilfuzzle]

well i am having a simple control panel with two joysticks, 6 buttons each, player1 start, player2 start,pause, exit and two pinball buttons on the sides of the cp. will this all be configured properly on the default keycode leaving me without an issue? .i am a bit confused about these default keycodes, can someone explain this to me .

also, why does the ipac ve have more inputs on the board than the ipac regular? what would a person using the VE have to plug in that a regular person using the regular board not have to. i was under the assumption that there is basically an input port for everything a person could need to plug in.

if you cant permanently save keycodes on the VE then why would i need winpac, isnt winpac to configure the keycodes
 
so i am generally very confused and probably make no sense.

[AndyWarne]

WinIPAC is still valid for the VE board because you can still program custom keycodes into the board if you need to. Also you can set WinIPAC to download the codes on boot each time.

But, as has been said, you can set up a 2 player Mame panel using the VE without ever needing to worry about programming it and without using the additional inputs over the I-PAC 2.

Andy

[u_rebelscum]

well i am having a simple control panel with two joysticks, 6 buttons each, player1 start, player2 start,pause, exit and two pinball buttons on the sides of the cp. will this all be configured properly on the default keycode leaving me without an issue? .i am a bit confused about these default keycodes, can someone explain this to me

You asked for it; sorry if it's a little too technical.

This is something that isn't as straight forward as most people think.  Both mame can be remapped, and the ipac can be remapped.  And any physical (digital) input can be wired to any ipac port.  Mame has a default keycode, for example "pause" default is 'P' key, and ipac has a port that's default key matches mame's default keycode for pause, so it's labeled as such; same with the other ports on the ipac.  This labeling makes it easier to wire if you leave both mame and ipac at the default, but since you can change either the ipac or mame, you don't have to follow the labels either.

Wild example: ipac port labeled "p1b2", defaults to output 'alt' keycode, but changed to output the 'A' keycode, and wired to p2coin button on CP.  Mame's default for p2b1 includes the 'A' keycode, but remapped so p2b1 has the 'W' key instead, and p2coin has the 'A' key. 

So imagine physical input ---- ipac port ---- ipac output keycode ---- game's inputs in mame
Any of the above "----" links can be remapped or rewired.  Which ones people change is totally up to the user (in most cases).  I prefer changing mame's maps because it can do everything the others do plus more and more often and automatically, and only change I do with ipac-type encoders is remove the shift fuction.  (I love mame's ctrlr file.)  Others like changing only ipac's keycodes and leave mame's inputs alone.


OP, this is what I'd suggest you do:
Wire buttons & joysticks to ipac ve as labeled, leave ipac ve to it's defaults, leave mame to it's defaults (which match) except for a few games, like qbert.  Qbert had a normal 4-way joystick (that only sent carnidal directions), but rotated 45 degrees.  So you want mame to see the diagonals as the game's "cardinal" directions.  Start qbert, press tab, select "Inputs (this game)", and remap so the joystick's diagonals are are seen by mame as the game's cardinal dirrections (example: player 1 up mapped to joyleft joyup).  Exit mame.  Assuming you have write pression in mame's cfg folder, mame will save it, and every time you start qbert, it will be mapped correctly.

[evilfuzzle]

well that seems perfect for me, so all i really want to do is configure certain games to take certain inputs and i can get away with the rest Cool that's good enough for me