U360 plug-in issue

[Ummon]

I've found in Congo Bongo, the 4-way diagonal map is not being applied. ??

[fatfingers]

No, it is not.  Congo Bongo just reports itself as a 4-way game, not 4-way diagonal (actually, there's no such thing in mame controls).  If you want it to work, just copy the qbert.ugc file to congo.ugc (or congob.ugc, whichever the name of the rom is).

Good luck.

[Ummon]

Mmmm. I was thinking I might have to modify for various games anyways. Thanks.

[Ummon]

Is there an easy way to modify this (or is that required?) to use it with mame in any directory?

[fatfingers]

Is there an easy way to modify this (or is that required?) to use it with mame in any directory?

Not really sure what you mean.  This plugin works with MaLa, not MAME.  Sure, it enables you to use the correct controls in MAME, but it doesn't care at all what version of MAME you're using.

Does that help or did I misunderstand?

[Ummon]

I meant, a way to use it with mame alone. Ideally, running in the background of Windows that would actuate when a case of mame is run, but at the very least directory-specific to mame alone.

[fatfingers]

Hmmm...not that I can think of (easy, anyway).  Somehow it would have to detect mame starting up and what game it was started with, then figure out the controls for that game, and then map it.

Maybe someone smart can do it?

[TheShanMan]

Actually I think it could be done fairly easily using MAME's output system, which broadcasts various kinds of information to apps that are registered listeners. I think it broadcasts the name of the game at startup (and broadcasts exit too). ledutil is kind of a sample app for that. Several of us have done work with the output system (me, headkaze, and I'm sure others too), so you could always check in with one of us for help.

[fatfingers]

Interesting.

[Ummon]

Yeah, neat.

[fatfingers]

If someone made me a list of these 45-degree games, it would help me out a lot.  rom names would be the most beneficial.

Thanks.

[TheShanMan]

I only know of congo and qbert. Unfortunately I don't think there is any way to generate a list. I did a text search on controls.xml though and these are the games I found (rom names):

• congo
• inferno
• qbert
• qbertqub
• sqbert

All but inferno have control type of "Diagonal 4-way" as listed in controls.xml (inferno is different because it has 2 diagonal 4 ways, with 1 being a trigger stick). So in reality if you just handle that control type, and then handle inferno as a special case, I think you'd be golden.

[fatfingers]

Hmmm...except qbert and congo just get reported to the plugin as 4-way, not diagonal 4-way.

[TheShanMan]

Interesting. It doesn't use controls.xml then, huh?

[fatfingers]

Well, I don't actually know what mala uses to determine the controls.  I assume it would be controls.xml, but what do I know.  Also, I know MAWS does not list anything other than 4-way for those games, either (at least, not the last time I looked).

[loadman]

controls.ini

set in mameconfig - additional

[Ummon]

Just thought I'd mention an easy way to change map assignments is entering new data into a copy of a map file and then naming it to the map that's normally used, as in the case last night where I made a 4-way, no sticky (UD Bias) out of a copy of '4-way' and renamed it that, renaming the original so there was no conflict.