IPAC & Tunnel Hunt Oddity

[Minwah]

This is odd:

When I run Tunnel Hunt, for some reason my coin mechs do not register coin entry.  That suggests that something is wrong, BUT, they work in all other games (mapped to 5 & 6 always), AND if I hit tab and remap the inputs, they DO register - but they just don't work in the game itself.

If I hit 5 or 6 on the keyboard, the coins register fine.  Now for the really odd part: if I open the coin door, and physically with my finger move the mech microswitch, the coin DOES register.  That suggested to me that for some reason the coin activating the switch was too fast for the game to recognise...BUT, after I have 'fingered' the microswitch, if I shut the coin door and drop a coin it, they now work!  If I quit the game and re-lauch, exactly the same thing happens...

Can anyone explain that?  It defies logic to me  

[Minwah]

Not sure why this was moved, seems more like a hardware issue to me (not that I know!)

[2600]

You softheads always trying to blame the hardware

And Minwah, why is it everytime you mention a game it's always some game I have to look up on klov?  Ahh, maybe the arcades I went to as a kid didn't have the wide assortment yours did.

[Minwah]

You softheads always trying to blame the hardware

And Minwah, why is it everytime you mention a game it's always some game I have to look up on klov?  Ahh, maybe the arcades I went to as a kid didn't have the wide assortment yours did.

Heh

Actually, the arcades I went to were for the most part crap.  While I was lucky enough to play on many dedicated Sega cabs, and a handful of others, the majority were generic jamma-cheapo versions often with things like sound samples missing etc.  

I can't think of any other games I've posted about, but I suppose I have discovered *many* of the games just from MAME.  I do pay particular attention to analog control games, as I find them pretty interesting (& I just made an analog control panel)  

[2600]

It's all in fun.  

Seriously though, doubt it's hardware unless it's a bad connection.

You could really check out your coin mechs by using one of those keyboard test programs.  I think Retroblast has one.  Then just keep shoveling coins to make sure each coin registers.

In game, make sure you are trying to register a coin at the same point in the game using a keyboard and your coin mechs.  I know some games only register coins at certain points in a game.   If you start a game and the keyboard works at one point in the game and then restart the game and the coin mech doesn't work at that same point.  Well then that sucks and requires a bit more troubleshooting.

[Minwah]

It's all in fun.  

Seriously though, doubt it's hardware unless it's a bad connection.

You could really check out your coin mechs by using one of those keyboard test programs.  I think Retroblast has one.  Then just keep shoveling coins to make sure each coin registers.

In game, make sure you are trying to register a coin at the same point in the game using a keyboard and your coin mechs.  I know some games only register coins at certain points in a game.   If you start a game and the keyboard works at one point in the game and then restart the game and the coin mech doesn't work at that same point.  Well then that sucks and requires a bit more troubleshooting.

Well I guess your right, since I've checked the hardware a million times.  The mech does miss the occasional coin, but as I say even in Tunnel Hunt in the TAB menu the mechs work every time, but in the game no-go.

I think I'll have to put it down to 'one of those things'...Tho if anyone else could give it a go I'd appreciate it (I'm using v0.84u3 btw).

[SS427]

Minwah,

This probably won't help and may be totally unrelated, but part of what you said about the switch not working and the keyboard does,,,sounds exactly like what was happening with my keyboard/ipac.  

I had discussed this with you and Andy (I think you and Andy may have discussed this also, but not sure) a number of months ago (maybe longer).   I was having "arcade" button pressing not registering and sending the wrong key press, but when I would use the keyboard everything worked just fine.

Sorry, but we never found out exactly what was causing this.  I tried a new ipac and still had the problems.  What did seem to fix it was that I quit using the usb connection between the ipac and computer and went with ps2 .

On another note I have noticed some games do not register coin inputs when pressed quickly (more than once), inparticular is Tempest on my setup ( I have to give it a second or so before I press the coin button a second time).

ss

[RayB]

What kind of frame rate are you getting in Tunnel Hunt?
(F11 in MAME).

If it's very very low, that could explain things, because your coin might be activating the switch at a time when the game's code is not "looking" at the coin switch register.

See the way it works is that games have one screen refresh to do all their "logic" before it's time to redraw the screen again (which with arcade hardware, it's 60 times per second).

Now, programmers would try and get every millisecond they could if they were trying very "challenging" things for the particular hardware. Tunnel Hunt does alot of scaling and mock 3D yes? There's a chance that in order to gain extra coding milliseconds, the programmer(s) may have relagated looking at the coin reg maybe once every 30 frames, rather than every frame (in other words, rather than checking with every screen refresh, which would be 60 times a second, maybe it's 1 or 2 times a second).

To make a long story short, if such tricks were being done, it wouldn't affect the original hardware, running at its original frame rate of 60fps. But in an emulated version, running slower, with frames being dropped, perhaps the coin checking algorithm is sometimes being skipped!

This is all conjecture.  I'd also check the bug list in MAME.

~Ray B

[Minwah]

Thanks guys

SS427: I think I remember your problem...I don't think this is the case here tho - everything works perfectly except this input on this game.  Wierd that it does register the input in the TAB menu every time (ie the IPAC *is* working properly).  Oh and I use PS/2.

RayB: Good point, but it is running at fullspeed.  I would guess that even if it were skipping frames, it should register the occasional coin (just by luck with the timing) but it doesn't.  I'll check the MAME bug list, but I don't think it will be there, as hitting 5 on the keyboard works every time...