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Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: btesser on December 09, 2011, 02:26:35 am

Title: LEDBlinky Controls.dat for non-mame emulators (speak controls for other systems)
Post by: btesser on December 09, 2011, 02:26:35 am

Hey Guys,

I've been searching around for hours trying to find the equivalent of a controls.dat for other emulators.  I have build a cabinet with button led's and I am using the LED-Wiz and LEDBlinky to speak the controls for mame roms when the game is started.  I'm hoping there is some sort of collection or list of controls for other systems so I don't have to start entering thousands of games manually.

I'm using Hyperspin as a frontend.  I'm using the "Hyperspin Project" from UG so I will have a near complete collection for numerous systems.  Speaking controls for everything would make it complete.  Please let me know if any of you have any Idea what I should do.

Thanks
Ben

Title: Re: LEDBlinky Controls.dat for non-mame emulators (speak controls for other systems)
Post by: arzoo on December 09, 2011, 09:38:28 am

Unfortunately there is no controls.dat for other emulator games (that I’m aware of). You can use the controls editor to add the games, but this is a manual process.

Title: Re: LEDBlinky Controls.dat for non-mame emulators (speak controls for other systems)
Post by: Howard_Casto on December 09, 2011, 07:10:20 pm

Actually there IS a controls.dat for one or two other emulators.  I think I did one for Daphne. 

There are some very very good reasons why though. 

1.  Controls.dat displays the labels on the control panel... this automatically negates the idea of making controls.dats for consoles, that is unless you want the label for every single game on the console to be "A,B,X,Y" ;)

2.  Most non-mame emulators support games that are also in mame.  Just run your viewer with the mame romname as if it were a mame game and you'll get your entry!

3.  Controls.dat is based around the idea that labels are linked to "real" controls, which are linked to mame control constants, which can be compared to a mame game's control settings, giving you a set of labels for your individual control panel layout as you have the controls mapped, not just a generic one.  When we start looking at other emulators they don't use the same control constants, or worse yet they don't have any constants at all, meaning you have to do some sort of lookup table to convert the mame constants into the specific emulators constants.  It's just a lot of work. 

I hope that clears some things up.

p.s.  Just for the record, it would be absolutely possible to do a controls.dat for mess as it's an offshoot of mame.  The thing you've got to remember though is that mess treats each game system like mame would treat a rom, so you would have a single entry for all snes games... one for the 2600 ect...