Driving games in Mame

[jhuie]

So I'm building a multi-driver and it seems like I have to configure each driving game individually to get the analog steering wheel adjusted.  First off, the analog settings section doesn't seem to apply to all games and need to be set individually.  And second, even if I set two games to have the same settings, one of them will steer much more agressively than the other.  Does anyone have any good tips for simplifying this?

EDIT: Oh yeah...I'm using a standard arcade steering wheel connected to a 5k pot running through a U-HID device set up to look like a gamepad/joystick controller.

Thanks!

[isucamper]

Different games used different wheels, and the resolutions of those wheels (tooth count of the optical encoder) weren't necessarily the same between games.  You will have to set up each game to work with the wheel you have.  There's really no way to get around it. 

If you know the tooth count of your wheel, and you know the tooth count of the wheel originally used in the game you are trying to play, you can figure out what to set the sensitivity to in the analog settings.

Just take the original tooth count divided by the tooth count of your wheel.

For example.

Say you're trying to play Pole Position with a Turbo Twist 2 spinner (I use the TT2 cause that's what I have and I know the tooth count).

Tooth count of Pole Position was 103.  Tooth count of the TT2 is 1200.

103/1200 = .086 = 8.6%

So you would round up and set the sensitivy to 9% in mame.

[jhuie]

Fascinating.  What is the tooth count exactly?  There aren't nearly that many teeth on the steering wheel gear so it's not that.  And is there a database/list of known tooth counts already?

[isucamper]

Fascinating.  What is the tooth count exactly?  There aren't nearly that many teeth on the steering wheel gear so it's not that.  And is there a database/list of known tooth counts already?

Sorry.  I mean to include this link in my last post.  It's also called 'spin count'.

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Spinner_Turn_Count

[jhuie]

Fascinating.  What is the tooth count exactly?  There aren't nearly that many teeth on the steering wheel gear so it's not that.  And is there a database/list of known tooth counts already?

Sorry.  I mean to include this link in my last post.  It's also called 'spin count'.

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Spinner_Turn_Count

Now there's some useful information.   Thanks for the link!

[jhuie]

Just a note for anyone who researches this later.....the U-HID sections labeled J1, J2 and J3 aren't good for analog devices.  This should be documented soon.  Basically, be sure to hook any analog devices up to the other sections and it works great.

[coinopper]

I'm looking for information on putting together a MAME racing cabinet.  I posted over at KLOV about how to set up MAME to handle the problem of games using different shifter setups and someone mentioned a member here (minwah) had put together a version of MAME specifically for driving games: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=123432  I've tried sending him a message but he hasn't replied so I'm wondering if someone else can help with this.

[Paul Olson]

That was me. Here is a link to Minwah's site: http://mamewah.mameworld.info/downloads.htm

[coinopper]

Thanks Paul.

[coinopper]

Finally had time to mess around with this.  For some reason, most of the driving games this supports don't show up in the menu, even though I copied over all the roms for them from my main MAME folder. I know the roms are good since they run with MAME. Not sure what I should be looking for, and the link to minwah's site shows the account has been suspended. Can anyone help me with this?

[releasedtruth]

isu, great information. I just ordered my TT2 and 6" wheel so any headstart on setup for the 360 driving games is handy. Do you have a config file for your driving setup I could take a peek at?

Anyone else have the data from Minwah's site?