NextWindow Touchscreens and MAME?

[WindDrake]

So, I've been messing around with an HP All-In-One, an IQ500, trying to get MAME to recognize the touchscreen as a valid device for input.

These things use an optical touchscreen interface made by NextWindow.

Using the config utilities, I've forced the device into USB HID Mouse mode and disabled it's multitouch functions.

MAME still doesn't see it as an input device. It completely ignores it.

The wired mouse works fine, however.

Anybody ever mess with something like this? Is MAME just not up to the task?

[Howard_Casto]

Do you have multi-mouse enabled?  Because if you do, mame's default mappings only apply to the first mouse on your system, not all of them.

[Chris John Hunter]

I think it might be more of a 'get system to recognise the HID' - Surely if the system recognises it then its simply a matter of creating a controller profile for mame and then selecting that controller for your input?


With my cabs I use a different controller profile for each controller. I switch between them on the fly when I select a game. But then I am using my own FE.

I think mouse input is enabled by default for mame whereas other controllers are not. I had some trouble with a couple of mine but I got there in the end.

Goodluck

[WindDrake]

Mouse and Multi-Mouse are enabled. Even then, I can't get MAME to see the touchscreen's inputs as valid.

Any other ideas?

Edit:

Messed with it more. Apparently the touchscreen is not a mouse. It's a GUN. It shows up as a Lightgun, and started working once I enabled it.

What's weird is that in Touchmaster it doesn't track tapping very well, despite touch to click working fine in the OS. I tend to have to double-tap to get it to register a touch. This may be the Touchscreen > Mouse translation's problem, though, not MAME's fault.

I also noticed that the "Lightgun" does not translate from the 16:9 panel to a 4:3 image on screen. I think this is the same problem the lightgun guys have. I think they have to actually run and calibrate the screen in 4:3 in order to get proper tracking. I'd really like to avoid that if at all possible.

[Howard_Casto]

That seems reasonable.... any non-relative mouse input would show up as a lightgun in mame. 

What resolution are you running the games at?  My suggestion would be to run the games in 16:9 but with a 4:3 ratio, that *should* do it, but honestly, you have to calibrate for every gun game in mame. 

[WindDrake]

Well, I've got it more or less working. I either have to calibrate the screen in 4:3 to play games in 4:3, or just run them in 16:9.

Still can't figure out this tapping thing, though. Windows always picks up a tap as a left click, but MAME has decided that tapping isn't generally good enough. It wants more of a tap-and-wiggle, which doesn't make any sense. Non-mame stuff doesn't do this.

[Howard_Casto]

It probably has to do with the fact that MAME is looking for a button press (they are mice buttons but still buttons) other more generic programs are looking for a mouse click, which is a different animal. 

In other words the wiggle probably isn't needed, but holding it down a while might be.  Also it entirely depends upon how the hardware is sending button presses. 

You might want to contact some of the mame devs as it could be something that could be fixed in a future update.