MAME buttons not saving after I change them

[DeLuSioNal29]

Hi all,

I began having this problem recently and it's driving me nuts.  I re-programmed my i-pac4 to non-default keys so that certain emulators would work with the new buttons.  (ie. alt or shift or ctrl was not recognized in the emu as a valid button).

It programmed fine and the emu's work great.  However, I'm not sure if it's related or not but for some reason if I use MAME and go into the tab menu and assign keys to buttons it does not retain the new button assignments when I exit the game.

For example:

In a MAME game, let's say Donkey Kong, I start the game, hit TAB to enter the control config.  I set "global" settings for player 1 and change the default player 1 button ( ctrl ) to my new key ( \ ).  I play the game and it works fine.  I exit the game.  I start the game again.  The newly assigned button reverts back to (ctrl).  This happens EVERY time.

Has anyone ever heard of this?

It's driving me nuts.  I am using MAME .119

Any help would be appreciated.

~ DeLuSioNaL

[protokatie]

This prolly wont be of any help to you, as I am using MAME32/ui. But I have noticed that after changing any settings in MAME32, if I close the window via the x button, it will not save the changes.

Also, check you cfg directory, this is where the controls are stored for each game. If you are having too much trouble using tab, just edit the default.cfg file in the cfg directory.

[Dazz]

Hey DeLuS,

Can you run the Ipac programmer in Notepad (www.ultimarc.com/interact.html) and copy/paste how you have programmed your IPac4?  I'll program mine to match and see if I have the same issue in MAME.  This will also help me because I too have been looking for a good mapping to run other emus with but the ALT key screws up some emulators.

[TheShanMan]

Read only files in the cfg directory? NTFS permission problem? Sounds like you have read access only, no write. One cause could be copying files from a CD, which gives you read only files.

[Dazz]

Yeah, I just re-programmed my IPAC4.  I went into MAME and was able to assign my new keys and they are remaining assigned.  Now I just need to compile MAME for TAB = Pause.

[protokatie]

Read only files in the cfg directory? NTFS permission problem? Sounds like you have read access only, no write. One cause could be copying files from a CD, which gives you read only files.

Oh, that is something to put in the faq or a sticky thread. I had almost forgotten about the write-protect from CD files... (I planned to us a CDR to copy my whole MAME directory to the machine I intend to use as my arcade machine, now I will remember to undo the write-protect before I start bashing my head in)

[Dazz]

Hey Guys,

This appears does not appear to be a "read only" issue.  This appears to be a Maximus Arcade Front End issue...  I am having the same issue only when I use Maximus. 

I loaded up mame.exe directly and was able to configure my keys, exited MAME, re-launched MAME and the keys were there.  Loaded up Maximus, launched a game, went into TAB menu in MAME and my custom keys were gone.  It appears that Maximus is erasing the default.cfg when it launches.  I also tried this in HyperSpin and it keeps my key config, so I am positive that this is a Maximus Arcade bug.

BTW - I want to say this looks like it might be specific to 2.10b5.  I'm reverting back to 2.10b4 to see if this was just introduced in b5.

I just verified and 2.10b4 does not do this, so this is indeed a Maximus Arcade 2.10b5 issue.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Dazz, you are correct.  It is indeed a Maximus Arcade issue.  When I reverted back to an older version of MA (beta 3) the problem ceased to exist and I was able to retain my settings.  I did this the day of the posting and didn't have a chance to post my results since.  Thanks for posting your results on your end as well.

Great news though, as a result of this bug (and other bugs) MA 2.10 beta 6 has been released which corrects this problem.

~ DeLuSioNaL