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LED-Wiz USB LED and Output Control Device now available. *Blinky lights*

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SirPoonga:

--- Quote from: SKondris on January 24, 2006, 11:31:22 am ---so, mahuti, will your method require the user to individually define the LED settings for each game, or will there be a way to that info from MAME directly?

--- End quote ---

--- Quote from: mahuti on January 23, 2006, 08:14:47 pm ---So. If you are a rom-glutton... you would have to make an ini file with thousands of lines. If you are like me and have less than 100 roms that you are interested in playing, it won't take you too long to configure the basics. There is also a default setting you can configure.

--- End quote ---

mahuti:
You'll need a custom version of mame if you want to have lighting events triggered by mame itself (for things like QBert knockers, or flashing buttons that might activate when you are about to die)

If all you want to do is have different lighting configurations based on the game you choose in your frontend, then you can use my little app. It's not very elegant, but it works.

Sounds like what you would like is "zero configuration" with the last method, though. MAME is not the proper place to get the info... it's very inaccurate (in most cases) on proper game controls, so we'd have to get the info from the controls.dat project. An elegant solution would be for me to include code that reads your CFG files and displays the buttons you have mapped for the game based on the controls.dat file. It would still require configuration of different LWA files, though. Basically what SirPoonga said. I'll probably go ahead and add support for this over the course of the next few days, basically to save me from having to write tons of code myself. That's not a promise though. Even if I get that done, I'd rather see SirPoonga's version happen.

If SirPoonga decides to add support to his set49way... then it'll be pretty slick.

MikeQ:

--- Quote from: Buddabing on January 24, 2006, 11:29:52 am ---Mike,

You might consider incorporating gl.tter's LSE (Light Signal Engine) code into your custom version of MAME.

Alternatively, if you make your DLL conform to what gl.tter expects, you could just supply that and BuddaMAME will drive the board. You wouldn't need to maintain your own build.



--- End quote ---

Is this gl.tter thing available?

My DLL just talks to the LEDwiz.  It doesn't and shouldn't do anything else.  It is an API for using an LEDwiz.  Applications should conform to the API.   It exists purely as an abstraction of the hardware so users don't need to know how to communicate with the device.


edit:  (warning... sort of a rant)

I should also mention that the real reason I started working on my own version of MAME was to add hardware acceleration of 3D graphics (using D3D/OpenGL or a custom driver if necessary) to the later 3D games.  I get a lot of people suggesting I should make my stuff external to MAME so that I don't need to support a custom version of MAME.  I get suggestions that I should do this or that.  I get a lot of people just asking questions.  This takes up time and frankly, the suggestions are all so someone else can get some benefit from my work.  I never intended on releasing this stuff to the public and have been developing the setup that I wanted.  The LEDWiz project has become a distraction from my original plans.  If people can use what I have, I don't mind releasing it.   

People have to understand though that writing large scale software takes a lot of time.  It is a lot of work and it is work that I don't get paid for.  For me it is doubly like work because I write software for a living.   It also takes a lot of time to dive into the MAME code and figure out how things work.  I enjoy this when I'm doing it for me at my own pace.  When I suddenly feel like I'm on someone else schedule working on someone else's agenda, it isn't fun anymore.

If the MAME software community could come together and create a single custom version of MAME that we all put our modifications into, this would be something I could really get behind.  This way, we don't have a bunch of different MAME's floating around, all of which have some nice feature but no one of them having all the features I want.  I would be willing to listen to input and support the thing like it was a product, but everyone else who contributes to this version of MAME would have to make an equal commitment.  I guess what I'm suggesting is a MAMEdev type of team for extra features.  This would be beneficial too because when one person is too busy to add some feature, someone else on the team could do it with help/guidance from the owner of the feature.  Everyone on the team would learn from each other.   It would also reduce the amount of request we all would get to " add bob's feature, its cool".  It would be beneficial because the team might be able to generate financial resources to purchase tools, source code control softare, hosting space, etc.  These are all real expenses that are incurred by making a free product available to the public.  My biggest hesitation on releasing something is my fear that I will become inundated with requests, suggestions, etc and that I will have to abandon this forum for sanity sake.

If people aren't interested in something like this, then people will have to just accept what what they get and when they get it.   "If it doesn't do what you want, don't use it."

JoyMonkey:

--- Quote from: MikeQ on January 24, 2006, 11:48:35 am ---Is this gl.tter thing available?

--- End quote ---

AFAIK gl.tter's LED engine is included in the BuddaMAME source, available here:
http://cpmaker.mameprojects.com

It's a nice system silimar to AdvanceMame's scripting system that allows you to link actions to specific memory addresses; for example, you could make all your buttons blink when the ghosts in Pac-Man turn blue.

MikeQ:

--- Quote from: mahuti on January 24, 2006, 11:40:42 am ---You'll need a custom version of mame if you want to have lighting events triggered by mame itself (for things like QBert knockers, or flashing buttons that might activate when you are about to die)

If all you want to do is have different lighting configurations based on the game you choose in your frontend, then you can use my little app. It's not very elegant, but it works.

Sounds like what you would like is "zero configuration" with the last method, though. MAME is not the proper place to get the info... it's very inaccurate (in most cases) on proper game controls, so we'd have to get the info from the controls.dat project. An elegant solution would be for me to include code that reads your CFG files and displays the buttons you have mapped for the game based on the controls.dat file. It would still require configuration of different LWA files, though. Basically what SirPoonga said. I'll probably go ahead and add support for this over the course of the next few days, basically to save me from having to write tons of code myself. That's not a promise though. Even if I get that done, I'd rather see SirPoonga's version happen.

If SirPoonga decides to add support to his set49way... then it'll be pretty slick.

--- End quote ---

It works for me.  I havent found a game yet that lights the wrong LEDs.

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