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Ultimarc U-Trak "sensitivity" problem
Cynicaster:
Just yesterday I finished wiring up the control panel on my first MAME cabinet. To my utter surprise, everything worked the first time I plugged it in.
For a trackball, I'm using an Ultimarc U-Trak. It's a really nice and convenient product from an installation standpoint but I'm not crazy about the way it's performing. It's passable on Millipede and any game where you're rolling the ball in small and controlled spurts, but for games that involve more "spirited" rolling and quick changes of direction (like Marble Madness--or at least the way I play Marble Madness), not so much.
Through experimentation I've determined that, for whatever reason, the ball works great when moving up and left, but down and right are extremely sluggish in comparison. For example, if I put the mouse cursor on the far right of the screen and give a solid swipe on the ball to the left, the cursor zooms across the screen no problem. But, if I start at the left of the screen and give a similar swipe to the right, the cursor only moves about 1/4 of the way, so it takes me 3-4 swipes to move left to right across the screen. Similar situation applies for up vs. down.
It almost seems to me like the ball is losing traction on the rollers or something... but if that were the case, why would it only be 2 of 4 directions? I can't see it being a case of the rollers or ball being dirty because it's brand new (not to mention, I checked it for signs of dirt and grime before I installed it).
Any ideas or similar experiences? Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Matt
scream1973:
Email Andy and he should be able to help you out.
Cynicaster:
After fiddling around with the U-Trak a bit more, I've got a theory about what's happening. There appears to be a bit of "slop" in the trackball--like when you do a full swipe the ball "jumps" a bit in the housing. It's not much, but it's enough that you can hear it. So when the ball jumps it probably results in only a fraction of the swipe being translated from the ball to the roller. To me, such a "mechanical" issue is the only way to explain why things would work fine going left but not right, since both horizontal directions are handled by the same encoder. Dang it, I was really hoping it was just a problem with settings... :(
yotsuya:
--- Quote from: Cynicaster on April 04, 2011, 12:26:18 pm ---After fiddling around with the U-Trak a bit more, I've got a theory about what's happening. There appears to be a bit of "slop" in the trackball--like when you do a full swipe the ball "jumps" a bit in the housing. It's not much, but it's enough that you can hear it. So when the ball jumps it probably results in only a fraction of the swipe being translated from the ball to the roller. To me, such a "mechanical" issue is the only way to explain why things would work fine going left but not right, since both horizontal directions are handled by the same encoder. Dang it, I was really hoping it was just a problem with settings... :(
--- End quote ---
I had the same issue at first, but I think you just need to break it in. Over time, I've noticed mine has gotten smoother. Either that, or I compensate for that jump by using the ball differently.
markronz:
I recently had an awful time getting my trackball to work. You can check out my post and see if it might be of some interest. The solution I suppose is part software, part mechanical.
You can try these types of fixes to turn off mouse acceleration:
http://kaioa.com/node/68
http://www.tweakxp.com/article36785.aspx
If the sensitivity numbers don't match, you could also notice a slower response in a certain direction.
Something else that software you could consider is to check out your default MAME config. You want to make sure that your trackball settings are right. You only want the mousecode_1_XAXIS to be listed once under standard. You do not want it to be listed under the increment and decrement parts as well. So something like this would be correct:
--- Code: --- <port type="P1_TRACKBALL_X">
<newseq type="standard">
MOUSECODE_1_XAXIS
</newseq>
<newseq type="decrement">
KEYCODE_G
</newseq>
<newseq type="increment">
KEYCODE_D
</newseq>
</port>
<port type="P1_TRACKBALL_Y">
<newseq type="standard">
MOUSECODE_1_YAXIS
</newseq>
<newseq type="decrement">
KEYCODE_F
</newseq>
<newseq type="increment">
KEYCODE_R
</newseq>
</port>
--- End code ---
To illustrate my point better, this configuration would be WRONG:
--- Code: --- <port type="P1_TRACKBALL_X">
<newseq type="standard">
MOUSECODE_1_XAXIS
</newseq>
<newseq type="decrement">
MOUSECODE_1_X_NEG_SWITCH
</newseq>
<newseq type="increment">
MOUSECODE_1_X_POS_SWITCH
</newseq>
</port>
<port type="P1_TRACKBALL_Y">
<newseq type="standard">
MOUSECODE_1_YAXIS
</newseq>
<newseq type="decrement">
MOUSECODE_1_Y_NEG_SWITCH
</newseq>
<newseq type="increment">
MOUSECODE_1_Y_POS_SWITCH
</newseq>
</port>
--- End code ---
This does some pretty strange stuff if you have your trackball listed in both locations.
Then I guess, like others have said, you just need to break in the trackball as well. My thread goes over some of what I did to break mine in. Basically cleaning out the old oil, spinning, adding 3-in-1 oil and spinning more.
Well, I hope you get it to work. I worked on mine so long it was driving me nuts! But it works great now!
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