Multiple input configuration setups in MAME?

[UberCade]

Hey all, I need a little help. I've built a 4-player control panel for my cabinet (you can see a picture of it on page 14 of the control panel database thread) and I need to know if there's a way to have more than one input configuration setup for MAME, if that makes any sense. Basically what I want to do is use the middle two players play areas on two-player games, so those two players joysticks and buttons will be mapped to the player one and player two controls in the MAME configuration, and when I want to play a 3- or 4-player game, somehow automatically switch the MAME input mappings so player one will be on the far left, player two will be the next one, etc. In other words what were originally player one and player two will become player two and player three respectively because they are in the middle of the control panel, and player one will be on the far left, and player 4 will be on the far right. I hope I'm explaining this in a way that makes sense. I want to figure this out before I start to wire my control panel so I wire it in a way that will make this easiest. I'm going to be using two GPWiz-40 interfaces from GGG, one for players 1-2 and one for players 3-4. I don't know if I will have to create a batch file to accomplish this, like one that will switch the mame .cfg files, or if this feature is built into any front-ends (I plan to use Maximus Arcade). Any help and input is greatly appreciated.

[u_rebelscum]

There are a few ways.  It will help if you start with two lists of all the games that you want to use each setup; RomLister can really help with this.  The first couple are based on ctrlr files, more info in them can be found at the wiki; or you can ask me how to use it.

Method 1:  Two ctrlr files, one for each setup, and game specific ini files pointing to the right ctrlr file.  The game's ini files can be one line long: "ctrlr 12players" or "ctrlr 34players" (asuming that's what you named your ctrlr files).  You could use Romlister to make batch files to create the game ini files.

Method 1a:  If the 3-4 player setup really is the defaults like you say, you don't need that ctrlr file, nor those ini file for those games.  Just a 1-2 player ctrlr file, and ini file for those games.

Method 1b:  Like 1a, except the mame.ini points to the 1-2 player ctrlr file so you don't need ini file for those games, but instead game specific ini files for the 3-4 player games, with just "ctrlr" in them to override the mame.ini ctrlr setting.

Method 2:  One ctrlr file, with each game or group of games with their own setting.  Games can be grouped by parent, bios or mame drive file name.  For example, all neogeo games can share the same entry.

Method 2a:  Again, if you're using defaults, you just need entries for the 1-2 player games in the ctrlr file.

Method 2b:  In the ctrlr file, pick a default, and add entries for all games they use the other setup.  Much like 2a, but does not require either setup to have mame's defaults.

Method 3: Use Cfg Magian to make the cfg file for all games.  You'd have to do it twice once of the 1-2 players games and once for the 3-4 player games.  A little easier, but cfg file are not as upgrade compatable as ctrlr files; a cfg might not save setting when you upgrade mame, so you'd have to redo this for those games that lose the settings (not that is happens often, but something to be aware of).


Personally, I like the ctrlr files, and have used method 2b, but more people here seem to use CFG Magician.

[bkenobi]

I personally have a default setup and have used CFG Magician to generate the odd-ball games.  My CP is a 7 button NeoGeo/SF layout and I prefer to have the bottom row of 4 buttons used for all games that use 4 or less buttons.  If the game uses 5 or 6, I generated cfg files using CFG Magician.

Also, some people like to have p2 joystick mapped to p1 in 2 player alternating games so that the two players don't have to physically move.

[UberCade]

Excellent posts, and very informative. That's exactly what I was looking for. I'll experiment with the CFG Magician you guys mentioned and the ctrlr files and determine which would work best for me. I'll have to decide exactly how I want to wire it, because I believe there are far more 1-2 player games than there are 3-4 player games, so it would seem to make more sense to wire it so the default player 1 and player 2 controls are in the middle of the panel, and make exceptions for all the 3-4 player games. Thanks for the input. I'll play with it and see what I can come up wtih.