Recent Posts

I was pulling my video cord out of one of my PCs. To let my daughter use. OMG the computer was NASTY!!!!
 I took the fan off the video card. The thermal past is hard as concrete .I am making headway but I am having to really use the 91% Isopropyl alcohol. For some reason I never gave the the video card a thought. Also from the Factory. The used way to much thermal past .
CPU cooler is next.
Side note this is not my new little Thin Client. These are HP ProDesck  I 5 and I 7 CPU's. Old PC's work just fine for me.
after Playstation 2,  and Wii . Emulation . I am just not interested.

Ah that's good stuff then Yolo! I think we are bang on the same page. I just didn't want to come over all preachy and put you off doing what you are doing, experimenting with the code because that's the key to understanding and finding things out. Also, if it wasn't for your efforts and recent interest in this, I doubt the mystery of the latching bit would have ever been solved!!

Now i know the differences with the machines i agree with you that IPT_DIAL should be the default option for the compact cabinets for use on a spinner wheel and then there should be a 2nd option for a normal wheel. I don't know what the most common wheel ranges would be but i have a 900 degree wheel and the steering was just a bit too sensitive so i lowered it and used a youtube video online that shows a guy doing a hard left at the start of Hard Drivin' to go onto the "secret" bit of road that takes you to that big post in the middle of a circle. I kept lowering it until the car didn't make the turn as sharp as i saw him do it in that video. It's probobly not 100% accurate but my guess would be it's got to be above 95% accurate at least.

Cool, lets get IPT_DIAL and IPT_PADDLE options working then. I know what you mean about the secret road to the left. I'm not sure if its possible to do doughnuts around the pole at the end of the track (I remember trying this once on my mame cab but couldn't keep the backend out consistently). Its cool these hidden features are there though!

That info in the options i know would never be accepted into the official branch i just put it here in case somebody wanted to incorporate it into their own version or something. I don't know how to make or change messages/warnings that pop up before the game starts otherwise i would have just added the info in there for those specific games.

I know what you mean about placing it the messages/warnings things that pop up at the start. I'm not sure how you change that either. I agree though, a description of how to calibrate would be helpful.

The Airborne steering range used to be like all the others by default, 0x010 to 0xff0 , i made my own commit that was merged into the mamedev/master that changed it to 0x000 to 0x3FE to fix the steering for Street Drivin' and Airborne then one of the devs suggested it should be 0x000, 0x3FF and edited it and merged it into the master branch along with the brake calibration fix for street drivin'. Just waiting for the brake fix for race drivin' and hard drivin' compact to hopefully be merged into the master now.

Ok I understand now thanks. It does seem like 0x000 to 0x3FF is the correct range.

The code i have made for the Airborne issues that utilizes EMA smoothing/buffering although it's not in anyway accurate or true to the arcade machine it does stop the steering from going out of alignment in almost all scenarios as long as you don't crash the car and have the wheel held to left or right lol. The only way I've been able to throw it off center is by doing really stupid fast movement with the wheel that would just never happen IRL. I can make that code run in mame on the condition that it detects the Airborne game being loaded up but in all other versions it would just use your modified code.

The "as long as you don't crash the car and have the wheel held to left or right" does really make it sound like an encoder latching issue like we've been seeing doesn't it. I'm now back to think its dual encoders in airborne and not potentiometers lol!

It could be a kinda halfway fix/patch untill somebody like yourself who's way more qualified than me can look at what is going on. I remember when you posted the code to pull the wheel values from the game itself i was just looking at the popmessage box on the screen wondering wtf is going on

lol! It might appear like I know what I'm talking about, but trust me I'm completely winging / guessing at everything all the time!!

I was wondering why the compact versions use less CPU? Another thing i was told by the guy who's talking about making his own flight yoke for Airborne is that there are a few cabinets known in existence and a couple of them are cockpit versions and the others are compact.........i was wondering if the problem is maybe the rom dump available on the internet is maybe from the compact version? Maybe it had a different set of values for the steering so the 0xC00 thing might need tweaked to another value for that to work properly? I really don't know it's just a thought. I have thought about taking the roms from the earlier prototype and trying to mix and match them with the one that is working to maybe see if the steering code could be different in the earlier version.

Yes I know what you mean. Its interesting the compact versions use less CPU, atari must have simplified things, made things more efficient with boards used in the compact cabs (and cheaper probably). I had a thought, I might try and read those nvram binary files that get saved after you finish calibrating controls in hard drivin. If we know where to fish out the CNTSPTRN and PATCEN stuff that gets saved, maybe it'll be the same for the airborne nvrams... Knowing what airborne's steering wheels settings are we can modify the code to suit (Or even edit the nvrams and force them to our favoured CNTSPTRN 1024 PATCEN 0 settings). Bit of a long short but you never know...

When you mention disabling the latching code could i just "//" out that section and compile the game without it? I've not tried anything yet i was having too much fun on compact hard drivin' yesterday to be bothered about it and just woke up

Yes that's it, just comment out the lines that do the "result ^= 0x4000" thing (In hdc68k_port1_r() and hda68k_port1_r()) I reckon.

I've honestly not messed around with airborne much at all yet, but I hopefully will do over the weekend.

it seems like many of us have 1 foot in the grave already

"I hate it when it's my turn" 

One thing fer sure, I want my MAME Cab with me. Pretty sure Kids/Grand Kids will keep it to themselves and leech off my hard work (like they have done all their lves) 

Long Live Thenasty

If a anyone is able to bypass steam let me know, seems some game need the steam inputs to work, otherwise keyboard2xinput doesn not work with the game on its own.

Use a non-Steam version of the game since you already purchased it anyway (hint hint). Have you noticed any issues with the player 1 movement while using your joystick? Seems to get stuck for me specifically moving diagonally.

that depends on what OS your running and what PC your using
windows PC + what version of windows, Android, Pi?
My 1up arcades have Pi's in them 3Bplus. my arcade in a box has a Pi zero 2w. All running Retro Pi
My main PC (daily use PC) windows 10 I use retrobat And Launch box. (retrobat) I had issues with my PS2 controllers I had to switch to Xbox controllers.
my newest project I am using batocera linux version 30. It is a very wimpy as PC standards go. It will go head to head with a Pi 4 and smoke a Pi 3. With batocera linux I can also use Kodi for my movies .

Dropping some knowledge on how to play TMNT Wrath of the mutants on 4 arcade controllers with an Ipac with Rocketlauncher \ Hyperspin

Step 1: Configure game to use keyboard2xinoput in your AHK

Step 2: Add the game to steam and configure it to overide with steam inputs, edit the controls to have the dpad control the sticks

Step 3: Add the following ini info for the game to load:
Application=steam://rungameid/11106784937863282688
Application=H:\PC Games\Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Wrath Of The Mutants\TMNT.exe
AppWaitExe=TMNT.exe
ExitMethod=Send Alt+F4

(you can create a shortcut in steam and it will tell your unique id, most likely different as it's a custom game)

This will work with 4 players, only way I could get my controllers to be recognized, without Steam keyboard2xinput would do nothing...

I was able to get street fighter 5 and 6 working with this methode as well

Hope this helps someone

If a anyone is able to bypass steam let me know, seems some game need the steam inputs to work, otherwise keyboard2xinput doesn not work with the game on its own.

Have to say, I'd be a bit concerned on the amount of options you've added (and the calibration help stuff in the input assignments), might be a bit much for the mame team to swallow.

Regarding Airborne, looking at the control inputs service menu, the steering range is fixed from 0x000 to 0x3FF, and there is no steering calibration menu section... Perhaps steering for this was just a potentiometer, not the free spinning dual encoder idea after all...  If that is the case, I reckon removing the code that toggles the latch bit completely might help. Or having it toggle only at 0x200 maybe? Just guessing.

Hi geecab, you don't sound preachy at all mate i actually did submit options like that before for Airborne and street drivin' on mame's github and one of the devs just said he didn't think it was worth adding extra controller configs .....so it was never merged. I do agree there should be a IPT_DIAL option and that is one of the things i was originally testing out and a guy who's been following what i was doing was willing to do beta testing since he has a spinner wheel and i think he's talking about making his own custom flight yoke for it using a cheap fixed position wheel and modifying it so that it can free spin but will have centring springs and a mouse wheel in the back that detects the motion of the wheel and going to make the wheel able to move back and forwards to control up and down motion in Airborne.

Now i know the differences with the machines i agree with you that IPT_DIAL should be the default option for the compact cabinets for use on a spinner wheel and then there should be a 2nd option for a normal wheel. I don't know what the most common wheel ranges would be but i have a 900 degree wheel and the steering was just a bit too sensitive so i lowered it and used a youtube video online that shows a guy doing a hard left at the start of Hard Drivin' to go onto the "secret" bit of road that takes you to that big post in the middle of a circle. I kept lowering it until the car didn't make the turn as sharp as i saw him do it in that video. It's probobly not 100% accurate but my guess would be it's got to be above 95% accurate at least.

That info in the options i know would never be accepted into the official branch i just put it here in case somebody wanted to incorporate it into their own version or something. I don't know how to make or change messages/warnings that pop up before the game starts otherwise i would have just added the info in there for those specific games.

The Airborne steering range used to be like all the others by default, 0x010 to 0xff0 , i made my own commit that was merged into the mamedev/master that changed it to 0x000 to 0x3FE to fix the steering for Street Drivin' and Airborne then one of the devs suggested it should be 0x000, 0x3FF and edited it and merged it into the master branch along with the brake calibration fix for street drivin'. Just waiting for the brake fix for race drivin' and hard drivin' compact to hopefully be merged into the master now.

The code i have made for the Airborne issues that utilizes EMA smoothing/buffering although it's not in anyway accurate or true to the arcade machine it does stop the steering from going out of alignment in almost all scenarios as long as you don't crash the car and have the wheel held to left or right lol. The only way I've been able to throw it off center is by doing really stupid fast movement with the wheel that would just never happen IRL. I can make that code run in mame on the condition that it detects the Airborne game being loaded up but in all other versions it would just use your modified code. It could be a kinda halfway fix/patch untill somebody like yourself who's way more qualified than me can look at what is going on. I remember when you posted the code to pull the wheel values from the game itself i was just looking at the popmessage box on the screen wondering wtf is going on

I had put my hacky steering fix for the compact version into a pull request on mame's gitbub but i think i should remove it now that you have actually fixed it properly. You know what's funny is i never realised there was a problem with those games because the only couple of times i tried the compact roms i had toggled that wheel centre edge button to be on all the time by accident and made it seem like it worked  I only realised that it had that problem when you mentioned it and i went back and had a look and realised it was messed up badly. You should put your fix for the steering into a pull request for the mame master branch i have been having a lot of fun playing the compact version because i don't have a analogue gear shifter so i was always playing with a automatic car in the cockpit version before you made that fix and the game does run way smoother than the other versions.

I was wondering why the compact versions use less CPU? Another thing i was told by the guy who's talking about making his own flight yoke for Airborne is that there are a few cabinets known in existence and a couple of them are cockpit versions and the others are compact.........i was wondering if the problem is maybe the rom dump available on the internet is maybe from the compact version? Maybe it had a different set of values for the steering so the 0xC00 thing might need tweaked to another value for that to work properly? I really don't know it's just a thought. I have thought about taking the roms from the earlier prototype and trying to mix and match them with the one that is working to maybe see if the steering code could be different in the earlier version.

When you mention disabling the latching code could i just "//" out that section and compile the game without it? I've not tried anything yet i was having too much fun on compact hard drivin' yesterday to be bothered about it and just woke up

Um, this is a tricky one...

I would like to see an IPT_DIAL option in the configuration (with no PORT MIN/MAX limitation). I'd encourage it to be the default option too. The reason is because it would be most authentic to the arcade Compact cabinets, and the in-game steering re-positioning latching behaviour can now be observed working. I think that's what the arcade purists and the mame team are all about.

I do think there should be an IPT_PADDLE option there too (That benefits from your changes, because having just an IPT_DIAL option means the game is pretty much unplayable using a self centring wheel like many people have). Hard/race drivin compact cabinets were unusual in that their dual encoder (free spinning) steering idea was trying to act like the steering potentiometer seen in the hard/race drivin cockpit cabinets. Its almost like mame needs an IPT_DIAL_PRENTENDING_TO_BE_A_PADDLE option). Have to say, I'd be a bit concerned on the amount of options you've added (and the calibration help stuff in the input assignments), might be a bit much for the mame team to swallow.

Hey, just read the above back and I sound like I'm preaching a bit. Really, don't listen to me too much, I can't speak on behalf of the mame team and am just giving you my thoughts. I'll be cool with what you choose to submit
 
Regarding Airborne, looking at the control inputs service menu, the steering range is fixed from 0x000 to 0x3FF, and there is no steering calibration menu section... Perhaps steering for this was just a potentiometer, not the free spinning dual encoder idea after all...  If that is the case, I reckon removing the code that toggles the latch bit completely might help. Or having it toggle only at 0x200 maybe? Just guessing.

@offset - Hi there, I've looked at the racerMame v160 diff (which I think is the latest). I couldn't find any hard/race drivin changes in there. I think generally most people with self centring wheels would use the Cockpit roms with racerMame. The only reasons I can think of using compact roms instead of cockpit roms is because of 1. Performance (The compact roms are less CPU intensive than the cockpit roms) and 2. You have a mame cabinet which uses a spinner/mouse for steering (Thus steering repositioning will work as it should).

I'm still tinkering away on the bartop. It's in functional and presentable state and has been playtested extensively at a couple of parties. So far it's been totally reliable, and I'm relieved that the frontend UI has been pretty easy and intuitive for guests to pick up.

It took a long time, but the edge molding eventually arrived. In the wrong size. The seller refunded without return, so no harm, no foul from my end. I went ahead and did a "temporary" installation using the incorrect material, and it actually came out pretty nicely with some x-acto trim work. It might be good enough as-is, but I reserve the option to replace it later if I feel like it. Proper photos of this soon, but here's a preview:





The lack of an active cooling solution was still bugging me, so I decided to bite the bullet and run it off a relay.



$4 in AliExpress parts later and I have two 12V 60mm fans, fan grilles, and a 12V relay module with hi-low trigger jumper. I plan to mount one of the 60s as an exhaust (intakes are vent holes in base), but I have a second If it seems that it wants additional airflow. The blue board is a dc-dc (buck) converter, with it I can take the 19VDC from the pc power supply and regulate the relay and any load it supports down to 12V (or lower).



The screw terminals on the relay board expect heavier wiring than what's actually in use, so I soldered the "fixed" leads to pins on the the board to prevent anything from coming loose. The fan itself is still connected via the screw terminals for easy removal/replacement.



The blue wire is the trigger wire for the relay, and will connect to the common terminal of the arcade button wired to the pc power switch. The relay has a jumper to set the trigger either low (0V) or high (5V), and I've measured the current from the power switch at 3.7V. I don't recall whether it's active high or active low, but it shouldn't matter anyway with the jumper available. I've bench tested the assembly and it seemed to trigger ok from 3.7V using three AA batteries, so I think the trigger threshold should work out fine even if I'm not feeding it 5V.

I also ordered a cheap 8GB ram module to replace the original 4GB to help the old Dell live its best life in bartop retirement. When the RAM arrives I'll pull everything apart at once to do the fan installation and wiring. Should have "finished" photos to share at that time 

 

 




 

Slight update:

I checked the B+ voltage at the 854 resistor and I have 170v. It warbles a bit between 169 and 173, but mostly stays at 170.

This means my power section is good, right?

Just to reiterate, I can hear the tube static as it powers on, the screen is black, the 'no signal' message is NOT present, and the neck has glow. All the while, something is clicking away constantly in the general area of the HOT. This is without the game board plugged in, so no input signals are present.