controls.dat 0.97.2 1001 games!

[SirPoonga]

add away
Make sure you add only parents (don't have romof or cloneof)
I see I must have taken the filter off of the add wizard, I might have to put it back on.

I suppose a link is in order
http://fe.donkeyfly.com

[SirPoonga]

New dat file generated.  You notice it is at .2.  This is usual.  Usually the first version isn't good because of romname changes, set changes, etc...  there's usually a "duplicate" entry or two because something is now a clone or romof that wasn't before.  All should be good with version .2.

Actually, looks like add filter is working but the all the golden tee golfs are showing up in the add list.  Hmmm....  will have to investigate why that is.  I see the beatmania is doing that too.  Please only add parents, we will see if it is a parent before we accept new entries.

[SirPoonga]

oh that is interesting.  gtg and beatmanias are parents now, the sets are children.  The old hacked gtg driver everything had gtg3d as the parent, and I remember the first version of mame with beatmania had the first beatmania as parent.  guess they changed things   how annoying.  See why the first version is usually wrong   I can't firgure out what is what until the script that generates those file runs because it also updates some other table with data to determine this stuff

[vibez]

Looks interesting. Have you actually added any controls info to the games. Or just added games?

[SirPoonga]

You mean like more control types, no.  I probably need to add a beatmania controller, maybe a couple of others.

[SirPoonga]

oh yeah, no new games for this update though.  I think one was added.  One was taken out because of rom rearrangement and it is now a clone (that does have the same controls as parent, I looked at that first).  I should run a report of what games are in the system buy not in the current mame.  I don't delete anything.  If it was removed from mame but someone entered it it just won't show up, the data is still there (just in case it comes back).

[vibez]

Sorry, I ment have you added any new button lables to games that previously havent had their buttons documented before

[Veinman]

I just took a look at the ini file, I haven't checked the xml version. I notice that the word "rotary" is misspelled as "rotory".

Very cool project by the way, I definitely plan on utilizing this once my cab is complete.

[SirPoonga]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rotary
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rotory

[SirPoonga]

Sorry, I ment have you added any new button lables to games that previously havent had their buttons documented before

one new game was added, but this is mainly to update the database from .88 to .96 so more games can be added.
Sometime this weekend I will compare the xml file to the control packs to make a list of what's left from that resource.
Unemployment and dial up internet kept me from working on this like I wanted to.

[Veinman]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rotary
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rotory

You did understand that I meant "rotary" is correct, but your file says "rotory", right?

[SirPoonga]

Ahh, I didn't look at the project.  On TODO list.  I read what you said backwards   will change.

[SirPoonga]

errr, 0.97 came out today.  might update to 0.97 over the weekend.

[cdbrown]

Sorry, I ment have you added any new button lables to games that previously havent had their buttons documented before

I think he's just updated the list of games to the latest version of MAME - it's up to us to enter the details of the new games.

SirP - one day I'll get around to researching and adding new games.  One day....

Cheers
-cdbrown

[vibez]

Sorry, I ment have you added any new button lables to games that previously havent had their buttons documented before

I think he's just updated the list of games to the latest version of MAME - it's up to us to enter the details of the new games.

SirP - one day I'll get around to researching and adding new games.

[SirPoonga]

0.97 loaded

[SirPoonga]

0.97.2 generated, 1001 games directly supported!

1001 directly supported
1433 clones indirectly supported.
At least half of the playable games supported.

We are running low on resources, see this thread

299 games are labelled as unplayable in catver.ini
62 of those are parents.
297 of those have a driver status of preliminary
That means most of those can not go into controls.dat, they can't be played and are not finished.  Many of those don't even have controls defined.

978 games in mame 0.97 that have a driver status of preliminary or a catver category of unplayable.  Most likely these will not go into controls.dat because the driver isn't finished and is likely to change, even the controls.

So, to sum up, controls.dat covers alot.  It covers almost everything that people play on a regular basis, at least what was popular enough to still have documentation on the controls.

Since we are running out of resources I am going to start adding clones to the add wizard for people to submit.  I will only add known clones that have different controls than parents to the list.
The funny thing about this is the hardest part is I have to redo the reports page so submitted clones don't get counted twice in the stats.  otherwise I planned this from day one.

[SirPoonga]

If you feel like volunteering some time Look at THE LIST
http://fe.donkeyfly.com/forum/index.php?topic=145.0

We've been going through all the games in the control panel packs to see what we can work with.

[SirPoonga]

FE DEVS, this is an important one for you, the rotary spelling change, other control changes.  I also went through some games that listed misc control type that don't need that anymore.

Next version will probably have a new control too.  Might have to do some changes to driving controls that are listed.  Dang newer racers.  There is a difference between a High/Low shifter and an Up/Down Shifter for gear change.  One is a single button with two positions, other is dual button with three positions.  The Up/Down will have to be added, and will have to go over any game that might have been put in incorrectly

I have to talk it over with some of you folks but I think start buttons need to be labelled.  There are many games in mame that use a start button for something.  Like beatmania use player 3 start for the 'Effector' button.  Right now oddities like that are listed in misc details.  Not sure how on a real machine they are used, that's the only thing keeping me form doing this right now.  Basically, coming up with a good way to describe and enter that type of info that is simple to parse.  I am open to ideas.  First thought, to make it ini and xml compatible is have a tag for how many start buttons are labelled so you know what to look for, at least on the ini side.  Anyway, can discussion on the controls.dat forum.

[Lilwolf]

SWEET and GREAT JOB!

I'll take a look at the naming changes tonight and see if it will make a difference.

[Howard_Casto]

There might be some other small changes within the next few weeks.

Now that the inputting part of the project is winding down we are concentrating on cleaning things up a bit.


Btw we still need volunteers.  We have a list of  about 60, good, readable, pre-sorted cpo images from the cpo pack that can be easily entered.  No crazy controls or anything, they are mostly sticks and buttons.   

Once those are done controls.dat will go into a primarily "maintenance" based mode.  We can keep the entries up to date with cpo pack updates almost instantly.

[SirPoonga]

Good news and Bad news
We finished the list.  For those who don't know the list is a list of games in Mr Do's control panel packs.  See controls.dat forum for more details.
What's good about that is we finished it, went all the way through it.
Bad news is we finished it!  No we gotta find other resources for the rest of the games which will be the tough part.

There's still games form the list that can be added, but HowardC and I (mostly Howard) have to to go through and submit control fixes to mamedev before we can add them to controls.dat.  So you guys don't have to worry about the list too much any more.

This also means it will be difficult to add more to controls.dat as there is now a resource problem   There are a couple of untapped resources we have found recently, but that might result in 10-30 more games to be added that volunteers can do.

If you know a good resource for verifying controls a game used let us know.  Make sure it isn't in our resource thread first!

So I will say thanks to the volunteers that helped with the entries so far.  We still need you, but not as much now   When a new mame is released and you see a game that can be added please do so.  If you know another resource to verify controls let us know and feel free to add to the project.

I am not going to generate a new version for awhile.  I am going to make some changes and maintainence stuff first. 

[Howard_Casto]

Probably the most useful secondary resource is arcadedocs.com

Unfortunately their homepage has been down for some time.  Klov links to a lot of the individual manuals on that site, but without an index on the site itself, it's rather cumbersome to do any searching.  If someone associated with arcadedocs.com is listening, can you help us out?

[ften]

Probably the most useful secondary resource is arcadedocs.com

Unfortunately their homepage has been down for some time.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah I wish there was a better way though.  Since google only "crawls" active links it's probably only getting the docs you can already find at klov.

[Silver]

Just been wondering, seeing as resources are running rather low, have you considered entering accurate entries for Neogeo games?

At the moment there is just a single entry under neogeo with buttons listed as A,B,C and D.

I was thinking this would actually be a rather straightforward addition, as a large percentage of neogeo games actually have controls described during the attract mode. Seeing as all neogeo hardware has the set 4 buttons, there is no need to verify anything on a control panel (as far as I am aware?).

Just a thought... Happy to add some myself?

[SirPoonga]

that is true, but since they all use a neogeo control panel it is more accurate to use A,B,C,D.  The in game instrustions use the color or letter to decribe how to play.

I didn't look at the neogeo entry, I wonder if we put int he color info in misc details.

The only neogeo exception is irritating maze or whatever it is called as it could also use a tball.