Current MaLa issues, seeking advice.

[csa3d]

Hi all!

So I'm currently looking into rotating monitor stuff via plugins.  I'm currently using Weishaupt's beta plugin.  It appears to be working.  This being said, I'm having a lot of troubles with my system currently.

System Config:

- WinXP SP3
- Latest ATI Radion Drivers
- MaLa 106.13 (J)

Problems:

1.  After choosing, launching, then exiting various games in a pattern that changes screen orientation causes MaLa to display the desktop with no way to Alt-Tab back to the game list.  Alt-F4'ing to close at this point forces exit.  Restarting MaLa is possible, pattern of problems repeat.

2.  After choosing various games, launching, exiting game, repeat  (no pattern of selection identified at this time), my mouse gets stuck repeating a random axis direction.  All interface navigation at this time is lost.  Exiting MaLa forced through Alt-F4 ony (cuz you can't use the right click menu for selection), Windows mouse navigation (trackball) is also not possible.  Hard system reboot is required to regain control of the machine.

3.  After choosing various games, launching, exiting game, repeat, exit MaLa, occasionally the mouse (trackball) control of windows seems to be 1/3 normal response speed, as though something is still sharing control over the mouse and not letting go.  It's obviously Something Bad (tm), and a Start -> Shutdown -> Reboot is in order to make the problem go away.

4.  Launching a selected game from this list takes two button presses [BUG:  Noted by Loadman]

5.  After exiting a vertically oriented game, if I use the mouse (trackball) to scroll the game list and select a game, no event message is sent to the malaRotateBeta plugin until I launch a new game (works as intended).  However, after exiting a vertically oriented game and then using the keyboard to navigate the gamelist, the first keystroke (up or down) causes an event message to be sent to the malaRotateBeta plugin which forces the screen layout back into horizontal mode!  (same problem as two button presses issue perhaps?)  I can now (after slight pause) select games once again.  If I choose a vertical game now, the screen rotates back into vertical as expected via the malaRotateBeta plugin.  The issue here is that there was no need to rotate the monitor 2 times during the game changing process.

Here are the variables as I see them:

1.  KeyWiz uploader mapping custom keysets.
2.  Ultimarc U360 mapping softare
3.  Plugin:  FatFingers auto mapper for the U360
4.  Plugin:  Led Blinky
5.  Plugin:  Weishaupt's malaRotateBeta.mplugin

What I've done so far to debug

1.  Removed the KeyWiz Uploader software from ever uploading any keyset, and unlinking it from MaLa completely.
2.  Removed the Mouse Map from the UltraMap/maps folder, thinking maybe this was causing my mouse issues
3.  Enabled logging in the Mala.ini, however I get no debug spew about what plugins get called, when, and in what order... so I don't know who's to blame for what problem.  I just see that games were selected.


Any help to resolve these issues would be greatly appreciated.  The software side of my arcade cab is currently my White Elephant.

-csa

[NOP]

yowch.  that's a lot of debugging and variables.
I wonder if you can simplify your setup any more and get things stable and then add one item at a time?

You could also make some batch files that launch MAME+game and use them to duplicate problem #3 and see if it's mala or mame or something else in your system that is making the mouse go wonky?  I've really no ideas, but something like that sounds like a hardware issue to me, but eliminating more software stuff could help get it isolated.

I experienced problem #4 as well, and my solution was to move all my buttons from the ipac over to the USB buttons off the U360s.  That eliminted the ipac altogether in my situation, which made life simpler in the process.

[csa3d]

yowch.  that's a lot of debugging and variables.
I wonder if you can simplify your setup any more and get things stable and then add one item at a time?

Yeah, I guess that is what I've sudo planned to do next.  In the back of my head, I am suspecting that it's the plugin system.  I can see that MaLa sends a message, and all the plugins go "oooOOOHH!!  My Turn!" and race off at once to do their thing.  I think each plugin then tries to finish doing it's chore as fast as it can, but in no particular order.  Depending on the return order, we see various bugs appear.  I could be completely off my rocker, but I've experience similar coding issues when spawning DOS calls from other scripting languages.

You could also make some batch files that launch MAME+game and use them to duplicate problem #3 and see if it's mala or mame or something else in your system that is making the mouse go wonky?  I've really no ideas, but something like that sounds like a hardware issue to me, but eliminating more software stuff could help get it isolated.

Well, I've *just* ordered an IPac2 yesterday to get rid of my KeyWiz.  That software that comes with it is trash "fussy".  If  you touch ANYTHING on your cab while it's uploading keycodes it goes bananas!  Like, when friends come over to play an I boot up the cab, the default behavior is for them to start mashing buttons for no reason while they wait.  And I have be all like "NOOO NOOO.. stoooooop!"  And they are like wtf!?  I'm hoping having custom codes always loaded in a *real* EEPROM solves this uncomfortableness.

I experienced problem #4 as well, and my solution was to move all my buttons from the ipac over to the USB buttons off the U360s.  That eliminted the ipac altogether in my situation, which made life simpler in the process.

I considered that.  I'm not 100% sure that all emulators I want to use support gamepad input, which is the only reason I stayed away from that.  As for the bug, I think think there is something "special" going on with the Keyboard hotkey section of MaLa.  As I stated before, the two button press issues only seems to be an issue if I use the keyboard to select games from the list.  Using the mouse to scroll the list allows me to one button press start a game.  I'm willing to live with this bug until it's fixed I think.

I'll report back later with any news.

-csa

[loadman]

I might add an option in MaLa logging (in new Verbose logging mode) to note when messages are sent to the plugins. It makes MaLa slower (a bit) but it helps de-bug things. It will be in the next version.

[csa3d]

Hi all!

So I'm currently looking into rotating monitor stuff via plugins.  I'm currently using Weishaupt's beta plugin.  It appears to be working.  This being said, I'm having a lot of troubles with my system currently.

System Config:

- WinXP SP3
- Latest ATI Radion Drivers
- MaLa 106.13 (J)

Problems:

1.  After choosing, launching, then exiting various games in a pattern that changes screen orientation causes MaLa to display the desktop with no way to Alt-Tab back to the game list.  Alt-F4'ing to close at this point forces exit.  Restarting MaLa is possible, pattern of problems repeat.

2.  After choosing various games, launching, exiting game, repeat  (no pattern of selection identified at this time), my mouse gets stuck repeating a random axis direction.  All interface navigation at this time is lost.  Exiting MaLa forced through Alt-F4 ony (cuz you can't use the right click menu for selection), Windows mouse navigation (trackball) is also not possible.  Hard system reboot is required to regain control of the machine.

3.  After choosing various games, launching, exiting game, repeat, exit MaLa, occasionally the mouse (trackball) control of windows seems to be 1/3 normal response speed, as though something is still sharing control over the mouse and not letting go.  It's obviously Something Bad (tm), and a Start -> Shutdown -> Reboot is in order to make the problem go away.

4.  Launching a selected game from this list takes two button presses [BUG:  Noted by Loadman]

5.  After exiting a vertically oriented game, if I use the mouse (trackball) to scroll the game list and select a game, no event message is sent to the malaRotateBeta plugin until I launch a new game (works as intended).  However, after exiting a vertically oriented game and then using the keyboard to navigate the gamelist, the first keystroke (up or down) causes an event message to be sent to the malaRotateBeta plugin which forces the screen layout back into horizontal mode!  (same problem as two button presses issue perhaps?)  I can now (after slight pause) select games once again.  If I choose a vertical game now, the screen rotates back into vertical as expected via the malaRotateBeta plugin.  The issue here is that there was no need to rotate the monitor 2 times during the game changing process.

Here are the variables as I see them:

1.  KeyWiz uploader mapping custom keysets.
2.  Ultimarc U360 mapping softare
3.  Plugin:  FatFingers auto mapper for the U360
4.  Plugin:  Led Blinky
5.  Plugin:  Weishaupt's malaRotateBeta.mplugin

What I've done so far to debug

1.  Removed the KeyWiz Uploader software from ever uploading any keyset, and unlinking it from MaLa completely.
2.  Removed the Mouse Map from the UltraMap/maps folder, thinking maybe this was causing my mouse issues
3.  Enabled logging in the Mala.ini, however I get no debug spew about what plugins get called, when, and in what order... so I don't know who's to blame for what problem.  I just see that games were selected.


Any help to resolve these issues would be greatly appreciated.  The software side of my arcade cab is currently my White Elephant.

-csa

Today I started debugging this issue further.  I removed the KeyWiz uploader, FatFingers U360 plugin, and also LedBlinky.. leaving only the malaRotateBeta plugin.  Problems #1, 2, 3 and 5 went away.  This means that I'm pretty sure my issues aren't related to the malaRotateBeta plugin.

Next I added LED Blinky back into the equasion.  Before doing so, I updated it to the latest version, thinking that surely some bug fixes have been made since whatever version I had installed.  Initial test proved the same, where problems #1, 2, 3, and 5 went away.  I realized that my button LEDs weren't lighting upon game selection from the front end, so I apparently accidently whiped a led blinky .ini file.  I went into LedBlinkyConfig.exe to fix things, and I noticed there's now an option for LedBlinky to control the Map Restrictos to the U360!  Hmm... well, seeing how everything else was working to this point, I enabled it.

To my surprise, it appears to restrict the u360 as it says on the tin, AND, I still am not experiencing problems 1, 2, 3, or 5.  This means I now have LEDS, Digital restrition, AND monitor rotation all working relatively well!

So then, what WAS my problem??  Well, KeyWiz uploader is an external .exe call from MaLa.  UltraMap is also an external EXE... but... does Arzoo's LedBlinky call it differently from mplugin then Fatfingers mplugin???  Could this be a loss of focus fight between mala and external EXEs?  I'm definately suspicious. 

Loadman, from here... are there any tests I could run which would help narrow anything down?

Thanks, -csa

[NOP]

FWIW, i've been using the fatfingers plugin with mala and my u360's for a long time and it's always worked flawlessly.  It is also the only plugin I'm using, so that may be a factor too.

I'm really happy that you've gotten all these bugs fixed in one swell foop!

[csa3d]

FWIW, i've been using the fatfingers plugin with mala and my u360's for a long time and it's always worked flawlessly.  It is also the only plugin I'm using, so that may be a factor too.

I'm really happy that you've gotten all these bugs fixed in one swell foop!

well, i do still have the confusion over Mala sending horizontal event message when things are clearly verticle.  Also the 2 pushes to start game bug.  Definitely closer.  Could be related to multiple plug-ins "stealing" event messages. 

-csa

[arzoo]

So then, what WAS my problem??  Well, KeyWiz uploader is an external .exe call from MaLa.  UltraMap is also an external EXE... but... does Arzoo's LedBlinky call it differently from mplugin then Fatfingers mplugin???  Could this be a loss of focus fight between mala and external EXEs?  I'm definately suspicious. 

I'm not sure how Fatfingers u360 pluggin works, but LEDBlinky does not use the UltraMap app - it uses a custom function library (dll) created by headkaze. 

[csa3d]

So then, what WAS my problem??  Well, KeyWiz uploader is an external .exe call from MaLa.  UltraMap is also an external EXE... but... does Arzoo's LedBlinky call it differently from mplugin then Fatfingers mplugin???  Could this be a loss of focus fight between mala and external EXEs?  I'm definately suspicious. 

I'm not sure how Fatfingers u360 pluggin works, but LEDBlinky does not use the UltraMap app - it uses a custom function library (dll) created by headkaze. 

Well, I must say that your implementation of the map upload seems 20 times faster!  So it's still likely that calling external .exe's from Mala causes loss of focus issues or something.  Also, does your implementation work for non-mame emulators such as stella or nes?

BTW - I'm still messing with rotating monitor circuitry, but I'm not opposed to beta testing the new stuff too.  Just probably won't get to it immediately.

-csa

[arzoo]

Well, I must say that your implementation of the map upload seems 20 times faster!  So it's still likely that calling external .exe's from Mala causes loss of focus issues or something.  Also, does your implementation work for non-mame emulators such as stella or nes?

BTW - I'm still messing with rotating monitor circuitry, but I'm not opposed to beta testing the new stuff too.  Just probably won't get to it immediately.

-csa

LEDBlinky has always been able to handle other emulators - but the configuration was a bit of a pain. The latest version (currently in beta) has a new controls editor - which should make it much easier to configure non-mame emulators.

[csa3d]

Well, I must say that your implementation of the map upload seems 20 times faster!  So it's still likely that calling external .exe's from Mala causes loss of focus issues or something.  Also, does your implementation work for non-mame emulators such as stella or nes?

BTW - I'm still messing with rotating monitor circuitry, but I'm not opposed to beta testing the new stuff too.  Just probably won't get to it immediately.

-csa

LEDBlinky has always been able to handle other emulators - but the configuration was a bit of a pain. The latest version (currently in beta) has a new controls editor - which should make it much easier to configure non-mame emulators.

Sorry, was referring to the UltraStick 360 addition of LED Blinky being able to work for other emulators.  Agreed that configuring led blinky is a lot of reading

[arzoo]

Sorry, was referring to the UltraStick 360 addition of LED Blinky being able to work for other emulators.  Agreed that configuring led blinky is a lot of reading

With the new version you can define the primary joystick type for each emulator or each individual game - which will set the u360.