Disable joystick for Mame trackball games?

[Thurman]

What's the best way to disable the actual joystick but still use the joystick buttons on Mame trackball games?  The reason I'm asking is because when my joystick is enabled for trackball games, it causes all kinds of problems.  I'd like to disable the joystick but I still want to use its buttons.  What's the best way to do this?

[Ginsu Victim]

it causes all kinds of problems

Care to elaborate? There's a deeper problem here. You shouldn't have to disable your joystick.

How are your joystick, trackball, and buttons interfacing with your PC?

[Paul Olson]

In MAME, hit tab to open the menu to change the control inputs. Scroll down to the Track section. You will see Track X DEC and Track X INC. Delete whatever is in these by selecting them and hitting ESC. Do the same for Track Y. These are used to simulate a trackball if you don't have one, but they really get in the way if you do. If you have the correct controllers for different games (optical or analog) get rid of the DEC and INC for any type of control in the input menu.

The reverse is also true. Say you don't have a 270 analog wheel; assign these settings to a joystick or buttons and go play outrun or something. It is far from perfect, but it is good enough to get into the game well enough to see if there are any slowdowns or glitches.

I hope that made sense, I just woke up. 

[Thurman]

it causes all kinds of problems

Care to elaborate? There's a deeper problem here. You shouldn't have to disable your joystick.

How are your joystick, trackball, and buttons interfacing with your PC?

As soon as I launch Centipede, my bug blaster immediately pulls hard left and up.  I use the trackball to pull him back into place and it again pulls him left and up.  When I launch Shuuz and try to select 2 player with my trackball, the cursor keeps pulling up to the 1 player.  If I open Mame.ini and set Joystick = 0, the problem is fixed but I can't use the joystick buttons.

I'm using a GP-Wiz49 as my joystick.  The problems happen even when I plug in a regular mouse.

[ahofle]

In MAME, hit tab to open the menu to change the control inputs. Scroll down to the Track section. You will see Track X DEC and Track X INC. Delete whatever is in these by selecting them and hitting ESC. Do the same for Track Y. These are used to simulate a trackball if you don't have one, but they really get in the way if you do. If you have the correct controllers for different games (optical or analog) get rid of the DEC and INC for any type of control in the input menu.

Also make sure only the trackball (mouse) is selected under the "track X analog" and "track Y analog".  In other words you should not see joystick under either of those.

[Thurman]

In MAME, hit tab to open the menu to change the control inputs. Scroll down to the Track section. You will see Track X DEC and Track X INC. Delete whatever is in these by selecting them and hitting ESC. Do the same for Track Y. These are used to simulate a trackball if you don't have one, but they really get in the way if you do. If you have the correct controllers for different games (optical or analog) get rid of the DEC and INC for any type of control in the input menu.

Also make sure only the trackball (mouse) is selected under the "track X analog" and "track Y analog".  In other words you should not see joystick under either of those.

Question about that..... the default value for "track X analog" is both Joystick and Mouse.  What's the trick for getting it set to just the mouse?  For example once I've gone to "track X analog" and hit the enter button, what do I hit next to get it to recognize the mouse?  I tried rolling the trackball but it didn't register.

[Ginsu Victim]

What version of MAME are you using?

[ahofle]

In MAME, hit tab to open the menu to change the control inputs. Scroll down to the Track section. You will see Track X DEC and Track X INC. Delete whatever is in these by selecting them and hitting ESC. Do the same for Track Y. These are used to simulate a trackball if you don't have one, but they really get in the way if you do. If you have the correct controllers for different games (optical or analog) get rid of the DEC and INC for any type of control in the input menu.

Also make sure only the trackball (mouse) is selected under the "track X analog" and "track Y analog".  In other words you should not see joystick under either of those.

Question about that..... the default value for "track X analog" is both Joystick and Mouse.  What's the trick for getting it set to just the mouse?  For example once I've gone to "track X analog" and hit the enter button, what do I hit next to get it to recognize the mouse?  I tried rolling the trackball but it didn't register.

Then that's absolutely the problem with the drifting. 
When remapping, make sure you only roll it along the X axis (side to side).  Roll it hard and try various speeds if it's still not registering.  It should pick it up.

You probably want to do this under "input (all games)" so you only have to do it once.  If you have a trackball, you probably never want the joystick mucking up trackX/Y.

[Ginsu Victim]

The reason I ask about his MAME version is because I'm using 0.84 and it won't let me map mouse directions. It's setup already, but I can't remap (I can only use the analog settings menu to make changes like reverse, etc)

[Paul Olson]

If you are having a hard time getting the trackball set, you can try using a mouse, sometimes it picks it up easier.

[ahofle]

The reason I ask about his MAME version is because I'm using 0.84 and it won't let me map mouse directions. It's setup already, but I can't remap (I can only use the analog settings menu to make changes like reverse, etc)

You can also go directly into the cfg files and edit/change things there.  I had to do that a long time ago and I can't remember why.

[Ginsu Victim]

Luckily, I have no issues, though there are some games I'd like to play with a spinner, like Puzzle Bobble.

[Thurman]

In MAME, hit tab to open the menu to change the control inputs. Scroll down to the Track section. You will see Track X DEC and Track X INC. Delete whatever is in these by selecting them and hitting ESC. Do the same for Track Y. These are used to simulate a trackball if you don't have one, but they really get in the way if you do. If you have the correct controllers for different games (optical or analog) get rid of the DEC and INC for any type of control in the input menu.

Also make sure only the trackball (mouse) is selected under the "track X analog" and "track Y analog".  In other words you should not see joystick under either of those.

Question about that..... the default value for "track X analog" is both Joystick and Mouse.  What's the trick for getting it set to just the mouse?  For example once I've gone to "track X analog" and hit the enter button, what do I hit next to get it to recognize the mouse?  I tried rolling the trackball but it didn't register.

Then that's absolutely the problem with the drifting. 
When remapping, make sure you only roll it along the X axis (side to side).  Roll it hard and try various speeds if it's still not registering.  It should pick it up.

You probably want to do this under "input (all games)" so you only have to do it once.  If you have a trackball, you probably never want the joystick mucking up trackX/Y.

Ok I've tried everything and I can't get it to register my trackball or a mouse for "Track X Analog".  I've tried rolling it slow, rolling it fast, and I've even manually edited the mame.ini file.  Here's what I manually set it to, but the next time I launch a game, it resets right back to include the joystick  This is Mame 0.89.  Any ideas?

         <port type="P1_TRACKBALL_X">
            <defseq type="standard">MOUSECODE_1_ANALOG_X</defseq>
            <defseq type="decrement">KEYCODE_LEFT OR JOYCODE_1_LEFT</defseq>
            <defseq type="increment">KEYCODE_RIGHT OR JOYCODE_1_RIGHT</defseq>
            <newseq type="decrement">NONE</newseq>
            <newseq type="increment">NONE</newseq>
         </port>

[ahofle]

Wait where did you add that?  mame.ini?  It should go into either default.cfg or the cfg of the particular game you are setting.  Also, make sure your game cfg file isn't overriding what's in default.cfg.

[Thurman]

Wait where did you add that?  mame.ini?  It should go into either default.cfg or the cfg of the particular game you are setting.  Also, make sure your game cfg file isn't overriding what's in default.cfg.

My mistake.  That code was actually in the default.cfg.  I guess I'll start with a fresh install of Mame and see if I can get it to work from there.

[u_rebelscum]

Ok I've tried everything and I can't get it to register my trackball or a mouse for "Track X Analog".  I've tried rolling it slow, rolling it fast, and I've even manually edited the mame.ini file.  Here's what I manually set it to, but the next time I launch a game, it resets right back to include the joystick  This is Mame 0.89.  Any ideas?

         <port type="P1_TRACKBALL_X">
            <defseq type="standard">MOUSECODE_1_ANALOG_X</defseq>
            <defseq type="decrement">KEYCODE_LEFT OR JOYCODE_1_LEFT</defseq>
            <defseq type="increment">KEYCODE_RIGHT OR JOYCODE_1_RIGHT</defseq>
            <newseq type="decrement">NONE</newseq>
            <newseq type="increment">NONE</newseq>
         </port>

I don't remember when mame added remap mice in the UI, but I'm thinking it was added around 0.106-0107 time zone (in addition to the video changes).  I don't see why your hand edit doesn't work, but I'd make one small change.

<port type="P1_TRACKBALL_X">
   <defseq type="standard">MOUSECODE_1_ANALOG_X</defseq>
   <defseq type="decrement">KEYCODE_LEFT OR JOYCODE_1_LEFT</defseq>
   <defseq type="increment">KEYCODE_RIGHT OR JOYCODE_1_RIGHT</defseq>
   <newseq type="decrement">KEYCODE_LEFT</newseq>
   <newseq type="increment">KEYCODE_RIGHT</newseq>
</port>

But even so, I'd guess yours should work, too.  If you can't get it to work, I'll download that version and take a look, but I doubt I'll be able to until Monday.