Off the Wall (Atari) - Any way to play with spinner?

[PaulG]

I asked this question at the beginning of the year and never got a reply, so I'll try and ask again.  Is there any combination that allows you to play Atari's Off The Wall with a spinner in MAME?  I know it supports dials in the settings, but it just won't recognize my Vortex spinner.  I've tried numerous different MAME programs and have had zero luck.  I would almost think it doesn't work, but I could have swore I've seen threads here that mention Off The Wall as one of the few games that supports more than 1 spinner at a time (3).  Yet I can't even get 1 to work.  Help.  Please.

[Gunstar Hero]

You just need to set it up as a mouse, right? Lemmee try this real quicklike... (tries)

Okay! Using MAME Classic as a FE and the newest MAME version I just clicked on mouse control and gave it a try and it worked like a charm. The Dial V Analog shows up as Mouse 1 Y and then you can adjust the sensitivity in the Analog Controls menu.

I think you probably just need to add -mouse to the command line for that game and you'll be "dialed" in!

[PaulG]

Downloaded Classic MAME and the latest MAME.  And what I discovered was it's the same problem with MAME32.  It actually does work with the "mouse."  I can control the game with my trackball by rolling up/down (Never tried the trackball before. Duh!)  Do you know of simple instructions on how to reverse the axis (in software) so my left/right spinner will register?  Thanks.

[Gunstar Hero]

Sorry bro, that's got me beat.

[u_rebelscum]

... and the latest MAME.... Do you know of simple instructions on how to reverse the axis (in software) so my left/right spinner will register?  Thanks.

With mame after 0.84, it's almost as easy as remapping buttons:
Start the game.
Tab
Input (this game)
Dial V
enter
spin your spinner a "decent" speed (aka "not too slow, not too fast" )
Repeat last two until mame gets it.  (It will switch between "none" and the default "mouse 1 Y axis" if mame doesn't get it.)

It usually takes me two or three times before mame remaps, but sometimes mame sees the mouse remap every time.  I don't know what's going on that causes the differences.

The other way is to hand edit the game's cfg/cfg or ctrlr/cfg file.  Easiest way to see how is to remap like above, exit mame, and look at the cfg/offtwall.cfg file.  ;p


The other way is to get the next to latest MameAnalog+ (see sig).  The laster version (the "zero" version) does not have the old Analog+ mouse remapping; Official mame's "almost mouse remapping" has me rewriting a lot of the UI stuff that I hoped was not going to be needed anymore.

[PaulG]

... and the latest MAME.... Do you know of simple instructions on how to reverse the axis (in software) so my left/right spinner will register?  Thanks.

With mame after 0.84, it's almost as easy as remapping buttons:
Start the game.
Tab
Input (this game)
Dial V
enter
spin your spinner a "decent" speed (aka "not too slow, not too fast" )
Repeat last two until mame gets it.  (It will switch between "none" and the default "mouse 1 Y axis" if mame doesn't get it.)

It usually takes me two or three times before mame remaps, but sometimes mame sees the mouse remap every time.  I don't know what's going on that causes the differences.

The other way is to hand edit the game's cfg/cfg or ctrlr/cfg file.  Easiest way to see how is to remap like above, exit mame, and look at the cfg/offtwall.cfg file.  ;p


The other way is to get the next to latest MameAnalog+ (see sig).  The laster version (the "zero" version) does not have the old Analog+ mouse remapping; Official mame's "almost mouse remapping" has me rewriting a lot of the UI stuff that I hoped was not going to be needed anymore.

Awesome, thanks!  Spinner didn't wanna register, but I was able to easily change the axis by rolling the trackball sideways.  Now to go through MAME again and try and find a couple other games I discarded because they were doing the same thing to me.

[Lilwolf]

If your spinner didn't want to register, it might be that your game was paused.

pausing a game, then changing mouse inputs doesn't work.  Might be why you sound like your having mixed results.

[u_rebelscum]

If your spinner didn't want to register, it might be that your game was paused.

pausing a game, then changing mouse inputs doesn't work.  Might be why you sound like your having mixed results.

True, but I have problems when remaping my TB axes most of the time.  Too fast or too slow rarely works.  Middle speed works 50-50.

My guess is the spinner is probably too slow for mame to remap; spinners unsually output slower than trackballs.  (Although very rarely I can remap when turning my TB slow.)


Or is this remapping a problem of my system?

[PaulG]

I don't think it's just your system.  While it's theorhetically possible I had MAME paused, I know not to do this and am pretty certain that wasn't the case.

And I didn't bang my head trying to get the spinner to register.  I gave it 3 or 4 spins, it didn't work, rolled the trackball once, it did.  Exited.  Inserted coin, hit 1 player, and spinner was functioning.  I'm not sure why it was that way, but as long as the actual game works once mapped, I'm not really worried about it.