Scripts for Game Configs

[Tilzs]

I'm about to setup the software for my cab and I have a question.

I have a cocktail where I can play the horizontal games on the long side of the cab and the screen is auto rotated for vertical games. I have an I-PAC 4 and the 2 vertical controls are hooked up to player 3 and player 4 while the horizonal controls are hooked up to player 1 & 2.

What I'd like to do is run a script to reprogram the IPAC for vertical games. Is there a front end that allows one to do this sort of grouping and running a script based on what kind of game it is. Another option I thought of is going though the mame.xml and writting a script that can figure it all out for itself with a bit of programming logic.

There are also a few other game groups that I'd like reconfig my cp on them. Neo geo comes to mind, motal kombat and I'm sure there are a few more.

Basiclly I'd like to do them in groups as much as possible to save me from going though and remapping keys for every game.

Anyone done anything like this?

[PacManFan]

You can do this with Kymaera, Create your gamelists using the filters for vertical/ horizontal, and then add a launch command to program your Ipac.

-PMF

[ErikRuud]

You can do it for GameLauncher with batch files or an AutoIt script, but that is more work than most people want to do.

[Howard_Casto]

As ipac reprogramming is hit and miss when done over and over, this is a very bad method.  Use ctrlr files to setup all player 1 and 2 keys with "or" pointing to the appropriate player 3 and 4 keys.  If you have any rare instances in which all 4 control sets are used, make a game specific ctrlr file.  This is also true for those games you mentioned like mk.  Remap software, NOT hardware.  

The ipac is not degined to be constantly reprogrammed and on many systems it hangs and corrupts your eprom data on the device.  Mind you this might never happen, but if it does it's a serious pain to get it re-flashed sometimes.  It's best to reprogram the ipac as few times as possible.  

On a side note, why did you wire each panel seperately instead of cross wiring?  Is there a specific game in which two players can be vertically oriented and 2 can be horizontally orinted and they can all play at once?  Also why an ipac 4?  You shouldn't have more than 4 buttons per player on the vertical sides as that's the maximum any vertical game uses.   This sounds like a design flaw, rather than a software issue to me.  

I mean no disrespect btw, I'm just trying to get the the root of your problem rather than offering you a quick fix.

[djbriane]

One trick I found that might save you a little time is if you want to reprogram a bunch of games in mame the same way (ie: street fighter) just do one of them, copy the .cfg file and rename it.

Obviously you need to be careful that the games do indeed have the same controller setup but since there are so many street fighters and derivatives it is a pretty handy trick I thought....

Brian

[Howard_Casto]

cfg files are game specific... dipswitches and other settings are stored in there as well.

With all do respect DO NOT do what he just said unless you are asking for trouble.  The only reason it worked for him is all street fighters run on the the cps systems which just happen to have the same dipswitches.  You use ctrlr files to reconfigure stuff externally, not cfg files.  

[djbriane]

Okay, good point. In my defense I only used this method for games which are clones of each other if I changed the parent. I probably should have been a little more specific.

Brian

[Tilzs]

As ipac reprogramming is hit and miss when done over and over, this is a very bad method.  Use ctrlr files to setup all player 1 and 2 keys with "or" pointing to the appropriate player 3 and 4 keys.  If you have any rare instances in which all 4 control sets are used, make a game specific ctrlr file.  This is also true for those games you mentioned like mk.  Remap software, NOT hardware.  

Yeah that is what I'm planning on doing

Yeah, that is what I'm planning on doing. It pretty much accomplishes the same thing although I'd rather reprgram the software but just never thought of it

On a side note, why did you wire each panel seperately instead of cross wiring?  Is there a specific game in which two players can be vertically oriented and 2 can be horizontally orinted and they can all play at once?  Also why an ipac 4?  You shouldn't have more than 4 buttons per player on the vertical sides as that's the maximum any vertical game uses.   This sounds like a design flaw, rather than a software issue to me.  

I mean no disrespect btw, I'm just trying to get the the root of your problem rather than offering you a quick fix.

Damn I didn't need to get a ass ripping because I wanted my cocktail set up to play 4 player games. Just because it's not they way "you'd" do things doesn't mean that is the way everyone does it or it is expected to be done. Sounds like an attitiude flaw

[Howard_Casto]

No it's not an attitude flaw, I'm trying to frikkin help you. Give me an example, just one, of why you'd need each panel to have a seperate set of inputs.  If you can't think of one then you don't have to do ANY of the stuff above, you just re-wire the panel properly.  Geese try to help someone.  

Your a newbie, I'm a veteran.... when I give you advice it's generally a good idea to listen to it.  

[Tilzs]

4 player games. There are plenty of those. Thats the reason

[Howard_Casto]

No I mean 4 player games in which two people oriented on the other side of the monitor can actually play wihtout tilting their head.  Think about it.  

[Tilzs]

Who said anything about a need to tilt your head?

[Jakobud]

Who said anything about a need to tilt your head?

Everything that Howard has been saying is right on.  

1. He was just trying to help you, not disrespect you or your work.

2. Use CTRLR files instead of reprogramming the IPAC over and over

3. A simple rewiring of the control panel could save you a lot of time I think

You are saying that rewiring wouldn't work because you want to play four player games.... on a cocktail?  To my understanding it seems as though you have a cocktail cabinet with a control panel at each end (1 player per control panel) and another control panel on one side that contains two players.  So you have four players total.  Two that sit facing eachother and two that sit side by side.  So if you and three buddies sit down to actually play a four player game, most likely you are going to have the screen oriented in the horizontal position.  Therefore each player on the ends of the table are going to be "tilting their heads" just to look at the screen properly..... that is unless you enjoy playing games like X-Men or Captain Commando, or <insert 4 player game here> with the monitor on it's side....The only 4 player games out there that this would work with are games like Gauntlet where you are looking down on the whole screen, but

1. There are not very many games like this.
2. The players are still going to be tilting their heads to look at their score and health and stuff.

We are here to help and give advice (even if Howards advice sometimes come across harsh and blunt).  

It sounds like just using CTRLR files will solve your problem if you really do still want to play a bunch of 4-player games.

[Tilzs]

Yes I understand all that and did understand that to begin with. I ask a question then get told my design is all screwed up, I should rewire and I don't know what I'm doing because I'm a "noob". I don't plan to play really that many 4 player games but in the event that there are 4 people over to play 4 player games everyone can play. You really have 2 choices, deal with the screen being sideways or not play at all. I've played with the screen sideways and it really isn't that bad although not ideal, and no you really don't need to tilt your head, it's not really that hard to read what you have to sideways.

The question was more geared toward doing these scripts based on games which was better but not totally answered in the first 2 replies. I'm looking for a quick way to do the selection of the ctrlr files rather than going though every  game one by one.

[Jakobud]

I know what you are saying and I think the only way to accomplish what you are wanting is to split up your game lists according to what type of controls they use.  And then use a different CTRLR file for each game list... There really aren't any FEs I don't think that parse the types of controls that each game uses and is then able to use that information to automatically choose the correct CTRLR for it.  I wish someone would implement that.  Basically do the same thing that the SortInfo program does, but all you need it to do is generate controller and button information.