I'm back again after a year trying again...not sure what's going wrong but I can't get this FFB plugin to work with any version of MAME (trying to get Virtua Racing running). I've tried 181, 221 and 238 (all 64 bit) with no success. It works perfectly with with M2emulator (tested with Sega Rally and Daytona) so it's not the wheel or windows. I have the latest visual runtime files installed as suggested on discord, I'm using the latest version of the FFB plugin (2.0.0.11) and the FFB test program works EXCEPT it crashes on the 8th test every time without fail. To be clear: If I go to FFB test, select my wheel and click constant left (or any signal test) it works, until I try for the 8th time, at which point it crashes to desktop (MAME) or it just stops working until restarted (m2emulator). I've also changed the mame.ini setting to windows and changed the cabinet to upright.
When I try starting MAME with my wheel selected in the FFB plugin, it hooks (makes the sound) but crashes after 2-3 seconds. If I choose any other device for FFB ( or no device), MAME loads without a problem. The last thing the logfile returns before the MAME crash is:
disabling all current FFB effects
setting haptic gain to 100
setting haptic auto center to 0
creating base effects...
I'm using a direct drive wheel (not Fanatec but VRS) and it works with everything else I've ever tried, only MAME crashes with FFB enabled. I've even done a Windows fresh start reinstall a few months back but that hasn't helped, same issues as before.