Pacman input controls freeze

[shiloh]

Hello

I have an issue with my MAME cabinet. The problems has occured only in Pacman and Ms. Pacman so far.

What is happening is the input controls (joystick and pushbuttons) stop working during game play. Sometimes after 20 or 30 seconds they start working again, sometimes I need to reboot.

I havent got the problem with other games yet. I played for a few hours at Robotron, joust, Crazy climber without issue. The problem occurs pretty quickly (within the first few minutes of play) with pacman and Ms. Pacman. I can reproduce the issue everytime.

I am using an IPAC-4. I am running XP SP2, MAMEUI32 0.127u5 and Gameex as the front end.

I already did all the troubleshooting I could for the IPAC and the problem seems not to be with the IPAC/hardware. Its seems to be software.

I have installed the latest redist package of DirectX (I have seen this recommanded somewhere), but that didnt change anything.

Any help or input would be appreciated.

thanks all

[shiloh]

*bump*

Anyone have any ideas about this problem?

I've been troubleshooting it for a while now I still didnt find anything.

I have double checked the joystick for sticking microswitch. Everything is fine, I can play hours to other games without issue. The IPAC is working fine.

After testing a few other games, I realize that I have the issue with all game using the "pacman" driver.

I cant replicate on my PC with the same MAME version, but can replicate the problem everytimes on my cab. Just cant put my finger on it... darn

[u_rebelscum]

All games, or most games in pacman.c?  Almost all games in that driver use 4-way joysticks, but not all (jumpshot, ponpoko, lizwiz, drivfrcp, & porky are 8-way or 2-way).  If these few work, and other 4-way games on different drivers don't, I'd guess it's a mame 4-way input bug.  (To get a list of 193 parents, go to MAWS and do the deluxe search: search resource type: parents and control: joy4way.)  Could you test?

If that's not it, it's ... something else.   Umm, yeah, we'll worry about that if the above guess isn't right. 

[shiloh]

So far I tried with 4 or 5 games that uses the pacman.c driver and all games had the issue.

I'll do some more test based on your recommandation and get back to you. It wont be until early next week.

thaks

[Popcorrin]

Just to be positive it is not the ipac, I would unplug it and plug in a keyboard only, then see if the issue still happens.

[shiloh]

Just to be positive it is not the ipac, I would unplug it and plug in a keyboard only, then see if the issue still happens.

I just tested with only a keyboard connected to the cabinet and I can reproduce the problem. So it's definitely not the IPAC.

I'll do some more testing this week if I can get some free time

[Popcorrin]

Try upgrading to the latest mame.  128 is out.