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New Product: 49-Way USB Interface - The GP-Wiz49 with DRS Technology (TM)

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screaming:

--- Quote from: RandyT on April 15, 2005, 10:01:01 am ---I've been wrestling with this one myself, and the only way I can see for it to work is through the front-ends.  They need to be able to call an executable with a command line based on information related to the game being launched, or just dump information related to a current game into a file that can be loaded and parsed by the switching software.   The problem there is deciding on formats and terminology that would be standardized across FE designs, so keeping the switching as generic as possible would probably be for the best.

--- End quote ---

  Using information currently available from MAME is the most reasonable, isn't it?  That would offer the easiest "upgrade path" for front ends to support running external applications natively without messing with batch files (like MAMEWAH already does).

  Even using different terminology like "4way" vs. the existing MAME format of "joy4way" would mean that every front end (or anyone else that makes an external application to handle writing to the encode based on game info) would have to come up with some sort of translation.

  I kind of see it as an all or nothing thing (maybe I'm wrong). If you don't go with the MAME-style, you might as well come up with your own format.. but that would potentially allow you to make it "better" by natively supporting controls.dat, for example.

-sab

screaming:

--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on April 15, 2005, 09:52:49 am ---I also can't speak for MinWah, but I can virtually guarantee that Mamewah will add support for this eventually.

--- End quote ---

  Did you read my post?  How is this different than what's already in MAMEWAH?

-sab

Tiger-Heli:

--- Quote from: screaming on April 15, 2005, 10:15:34 am ---
--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on April 15, 2005, 09:52:49 am ---I also can't speak for MinWah, but I can virtually guarantee that Mamewah will add support for this eventually.

--- End quote ---
  Did you read my post?  How is this different than what's already in MAMEWAH?
-sab

--- End quote ---
Actually, I was typing when you posted it, but I did read it.  :police:

I was thinking more of an option like "Use GP-Wiz49 software = Checkbox" and then MAMEwah would automagically decide what command to issue and take care of the switching (after RandyT finalizes the software of course).

I also think the data should come from controls.dat where possible as MAME is flat wrong about 30% of the time (I don't have raw data to back up that stat).

I also think Toonces had this working with GamEx using the same command structure as you mention for MAMEwah, so I think the FE devs and FE users should review what he has done to get it working (replacing the Parallel Port calls with command-lines to the GP-Wiz software).

IntruderAlert:

--- Quote from: IntruderAlert on April 15, 2005, 09:45:42 am ---Minwah or Dave Butler can fix this

--- End quote ---
...oops
sorry Mr. screaming
I didn't realise you were the "MAMEWAH config" dude
http://www.bluecamel.org/index.php?id=14
.. i think you should be able to fix it too  ;D

Toonces:

--- Quote from: RandyT on April 15, 2005, 10:01:01 am ---
--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on April 15, 2005, 09:52:49 am ---[
Sorry now, Randy, for essentially hi-jacking the thread.


--- End quote ---

Heh.  No need to apologize.  I appreciate the help. :)

I've been wrestling with this one myself, and the only way I can see for it to work is through the front-ends.  They need to be able to call an executable with a command line based on information related to the game being launched, or just dump information related to a current game into a file that can be loaded and parsed by the switching software.   The problem there is deciding on formats and terminology that would be standardized across FE designs, so keeping the switching as generic as possible would probably be for the best.


RandyT


--- End quote ---

The way the batch files and GameEx approaches this is by using the ability to run a program or batch file before and after each rom. Modes are passed to my batch file in a numerical format based on controls.ini. The numbers GameEx passes to my batch files are the same mode numbers Randy has already assigned:

1 = 49 Way
2 = 49 Way Progressive
3 = 8 Way
4 = 4 Way
5 = 4 Way Diagonal
6 = 2 Way Horizontal
7 = 2 Way Vertical
8 = 16 Way

So just pass the mode number to the app and it switches. This is easy for the FE and Randy's app. By using the mode numbers Randy's app doesn't have conform to the MAME terminology.

There's a reason controls.ini exists. The information in MAME is wrong or not descriptive enough for quite a few of the games. In MAME there is no differentiation between a 4 way joystick and a diagonal 4 way (Q*Bert, Congo Bongo), there's also no differentiation of 2 way controls either (Vertical vs. Horizontal) all are just joy2way (Defender, Space Invaders, etc). There are many 4 way games that have joy8way as the controller.

The only thing the FE has to do (or an external app if you want MameWah to support it right now) is parse Controls.ini and pass back 1-8 to Randy's app and the mode is switched. If a game is not in Controls.ini, add it and contribute it to the project! Of course, you could also fall back to MAME's control info but if the game is a 2 way H or V, you're not going to know which one. For GameEx, I use a default of 8 way if it's not in Controls.ini. GameEx also uses the list of all of the controller names from controls.ini as a seperate file to get it's mapping info so the end user can change the selected mode for a given controller type.

Certainly not the only way to do it but it definately works.

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