Alt Key Pauses Blaz Blue Continuum Shift (Taito Type X)

[twistedsymphony]

So I've been working on getting TTX stuff up and running on my new machine and I ran into a problem.

When you push the Alt Key while playing Blaz Blue Continuum shift it pauses the game... pushing it a 2nd time unpauses. I managed to find confirmation that this is indeed something built into the game

The problem is I'm using a JPAC to interface with original arcade hardware and since I'm using the default keymapping EVERY other game on my machine has Player 1 button2 mapped to the Alt key.

I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for a work-around OTHER than remapping every other game on my machine.

Thanks.

[BadMouth]

Best to abandon the default keys now rather than them causing issues again and again in the future.

[twistedsymphony]

Best to abandon the default keys now rather than them causing issues again and again in the future.

do the default keys normally cause issues?

I have about 50 non-mame games already setup and none of them have any problems other than this one.

I'm looking at 3-4 hours worth of work to re-map the keys in all the games I've already got setup and running, which is why I was looking for an alternative solution.

[BadMouth]

Best to abandon the default keys now rather than them causing issues again and again in the future.

do the default keys normally cause issues?

The oddball keys like ctrl, alt, shift can't be used on some of the console emulators.
I don't recall which ones.  We should have compiled a list of them long ago.
People usually end up using an alternative emulator. 

There's also the issue of posting windows hotkey commands during gameplay.
The one that usually gets people is CTRL+ALT+Arrow which rotates the desktop. 
Luckily hotkeys can be disabled.

I don't know why people cling to the default keys.  I guess they're using an x-arcade cp or downloading the stuff pre-configured for the defaults.
IMO, the only time it really makes sense to stick with them is if you're using an inferior keyboard encoder that has a low limited number of simultaneous presses.
The oddball keys usually don't count toward the limitation. 
(YouR JPAC doesn't have that limitation)

The reason you haven't seen anyone warn against the default keys is that a lot of people don't venture too far from MAME.
They don't install all this other stuff, so the default keys are never an issue for them.

[twistedsymphony]

Thanks for the insight...  that actually explains a lot.

I kept the defaults simply because I often to try to keep to de-facto standard.  I figured that was the standard that was most frequently used... now I'm regretting it. :-/

[twistedsymphony]

ok so I decided to just bite the bullet and remap the controls to use none of the special keys.

after a few hours going though game by game I ran into Power Instinct 5 which has several hard coded keys to BBCS that conflict with my NEW mapping  This game wasn't a problem before since the default MAME mapping didn't conflict with any of this game's special keys

so WTF do I do now?

[Howard_Casto]

Don't run power instinct 5?  The type x games are hacked in pretty badly.  I've yet to know someone that got all of them 100% working on their setup. 

Badmouth was correct though, at the very least you shouldn't be using the alt key because it causes all kinds of mayhem on pc games and emulators alike.  Ctrl is a little more forgiving, but you really need to ditch it as well. 

Back in ancient times when dinosaurs roamed the earth mame's default keys matched the default keys of the games at the time.... which happened to be dos games like DOOM.  You don't have to worry about special keys in DOS because they don't do anything.  MAME really should have changed it's default mappings at this point.

[twistedsymphony]

The mapping I'm using now is:

Player 1:
joystick: up down left right
buttons: k l ; m , .

Player 2:
joystick: w s a d
buttons: r t y f g h

the start, coin and service buttons I left as default since they just use the number keys
I changed the test button to q
enter, tab and esc are their default in mame but everything else has been disabled.

-----------
I've actually got most of the TTX game running well. not for lack of trying... some of these games took me litterally hours of trying different thing to get them to run and play right. I'm not running any vertical monitor games (so no giga wing or raiden) or anything that can't be played with a typical controls (so no beatmania or otomedius) The problems I'm still having are:

Not working at all:
KOF XIII - Simply wont launch... no error message, no idea why
KOF Regulation A - Launches and shows the CRIWARE and SNK PLaymore logos then goes black and locks up forcing me to kill it in the task manager

Semi-working:
Samurai Showdown Edge of Destiny - For some reason it wont accept any input from the player 2 side, I haven't got around to remapping the controls to my new layout yet (since it requires hex editing) so that might help... who knows. I've read comments from others who ran into this issue and somehow solved it but never posted up how exactly :-/

Power Instinct 5 - The original keyboard layout is hard mapped so even though I can setup alternate keys if there is any overlap with the original layout it will push BOTH at the same time... this has the weird result of  things like player 1 button 2 causing player 2 to push button 3 and other unintentional button pushes.

Arcana Heart 2 - Runs in slow motion, I had a similar problem with a different game that ran super-fast and I fixed it by using an alternative launcher but I haven't looked into the slo-mo AH2 problem much yet.


Everything else I've got setup and running great, I've even got most games running in FreePlay mode

[BadMouth]

KOF XIII is a widescreen game.  The issue is probably that your resolution just isn't supported.

KOF Regulation A sounds like it is crashing when it's time to render 3D.  Try using your video card software to disable all effects (anti-aliasing, etc).
There are high res and low res options in the configurator, try both.

Samurai Shodown - There might be a newer version out there that doesn't require hex editing to map the controls.  I recall someone having an issue where they lost P2 controls when using a version that could be run at high res.  I'm using the old version that requires hex editing, I don't recall having issues with P2 controls, but it's been a long time since I messed with it.  I seem to recall having an issue with coin input for P2 and having to use the service menu test buttons or something like that instead of the coin inputs.  I might not even be thinking of the right game.

Arcana Heart - Try changing video settings in your video card software, vsync in particular.

I have my keyboard encoder set up to use the MAME defaults, with the exception of CTRL, Alt, Shift, Space (not sure what order they're in) replaced by V B N M.  I didn't do much testing with Power Instinct 5, so I'm not sure if there are issues with that game or not.  Not a big fan of it anyway.

I have all the Taito Type X games working on my setup, but haven't gone back to add Daemon Bride or Otomedius which technically aren't Type X games but are usually lumped in with them.

[twistedsymphony]

KOF XIII is a widescreen game.  The issue is probably that your resolution just isn't supported.

KOF Regulation A sounds like it is crashing when it's time to render 3D.  Try using your video card software to disable all effects (anti-aliasing, etc).
There are high res and low res options in the configurator, try both.

Samurai Shodown - There might be a newer version out there that doesn't require hex editing to map the controls.  I recall someone having an issue where they lost P2 controls when using a version that could be run at high res.  I'm using the old version that requires hex editing, I don't recall having issues with P2 controls, but it's been a long time since I messed with it.  I seem to recall having an issue with coin input for P2 and having to use the service menu test buttons or something like that instead of the coin inputs.  I might not even be thinking of the right game.

Arcana Heart - Try changing video settings in your video card software, vsync in particular.

I have my keyboard encoder set up to use the MAME defaults, with the exception of CTRL, Alt, Shift, Space (not sure what order they're in) replaced by V B N M.  I didn't do much testing with Power Instinct 5, so I'm not sure if there are issues with that game or not.  Not a big fan of it anyway.

I have all the Taito Type X games working on my setup, but haven't gone back to add Daemon Bride or Otomedius which technically aren't Type X games but are usually lumped in with them.

I tried a few different resolutions for KOFXIII but none of them had an effect... I manage to get a few other games running by tweaking the resolution but no luck here. It also wont boot on my Win 7 machine but gives me a "game.exe has stopped working" error message.

for KOF Impact Reg A I don't think it has to do with 3D... it gets a little further on my Win 7 machine where after the SNK logo it will show a "please wait" and then goes into an attract mode video... it play attract mode fine on that machine but as soon as I touch any buttons it crashes.

I do have Deamon Bridge setup and running great... Otomedius supposedly uses touch screen controls on the original machine so I haven't even bothered trying to get that one running. Same with Half-Life, Silent Hill and Hot Gimmic.

When you say change settings in "video card software" are you talking about settings in the nVidia Driver itself? I haven't played around with that at all.... everything there is setup however it installs by default.

[BadMouth]

When you say change settings in "video card software" are you talking about settings in the nVidia Driver itself? I haven't played around with that at all.... everything there is setup however it installs by default.

In the Nvidia control panel, on the Program Settings tab.  (the tweakguide logo is a watermark on top the pic)

[twistedsymphony]

In the Nvidia control panel, on the Program Settings tab.  (the tweakguide logo is a watermark on top the pic)

Interesting... I didn't even realize they provided the option for global controls like that (I do 99% of my gaming on consoles and arcade machines so I've been out of the PC gaming/hardware setup loop for years).

I'll give that a try tonight, thanks!

[twistedsymphony]

nothing I've changed in the Nvidia control panel has had any effect... I've tried turning everything off, setting everything to app controlled, making it match the tweak guide exactly.. I've tried several different resolutions, no change in getting either of the KOF games to run properly.

I feel like my copy of KOF XIII just has a bad launcher, a lot of the TTX games wouldn't launch with the .bat files and I had to use the included SFIV_Launcher.exe (or whatever game) file instead.... I don't have one of those for KOF XIII