Multiple Mice/Split Mouse Axes in Mame32 and Mame Analog+ under XP

[themetz]

I hate to drudge up an old issue, but I've seen numerous threads on this topic with no absolute solution and plenty of confusion.  Plus, I'm pulling my hair out trying to just get two steering wheels (spinners) working simultaneously as Player 1 and Player 2 using Mame32 and Mane Analog+ under Windows XP.  I had this working great under Windows 98 and an old flavor of Analof+ such as .63.  I think one more discussion could also help many individuals out there who are confused about how to get Mame32 and Mame Analog+ to work together smoothly and provide al least split mouse axes or better yet multiple mice.

I'm sure you'll immediately see some things I'm doing wrong, but I've noticed others fallling into the same traps, so we'll be helping many folks I hope.  I might ask some dumb questions, but I'll bet many others have the same questions.

I install Mame32 v90, then place the last version of Mame Analog+ for Mame32 I can find, which is 0.83 in the Mame32 subdirectory and run it.  Is this the first problem?  Do these versions need to match?  The banner at the top claims Mame32 0.82 Analog+ (just a cosmetic defect I'm guessing).

I have 2 steering wheels, one spinner, and 1 trackball all connected via an optipac.  All control the mouse as they should (either 1 or both axes) in Windows itself.

I do not have the mouse menu item I should have under Tab in Analog+ after editing the mame32.ini file for multiplemice and switchable mice.  I don

[Silver]

well I can't answer all those questions, but in my opinion you need to seperate out the 2 versions of mame. Personally I'd have them in seperate directorys.

mameanalog.exe will (I guess) use mameanalog.ini, not mame32.ini. having switchable mice in mame32.ini is not going to help I don't think.

I've been using mameanalogxp.exe (same version as you) for lightguns (mice in windows) no problem.

For the record, I don't think you need analogmame for 2 steering wheels as they only need 1 axis. make sure you have "mouse      1" in mame.ini, then in the game goto Inputs (this game), select the analog control for P1, and then move the wheel - it should detect the movement and allocate that wheel to that input.....

[themetz]

No luck.  Neither Mame32 nor Mame32Analog+ is recognizing the steering wheels under Config.  However, for the ones that are  already pre-configured, such as Player 1 dial for driving games, the wheel works.  It's just that steering wheel 2 doesn't work because I can't get Config to see the wheel in order to configure it for player 2.  I can't even get Config to see wheel 1 when I try to assign it to dial 2.  I haven't played with plain Mame32 enough to understand it all yet.   

It's probably something really easy I'm overlooking.  However, the Mame32Analog+ problem is driving me crazy.  I'm just used to seeing that mouse menu under Mame32Analog+ that gave complete control over the mouse axes.   Even if I get Mame32 to work, I'm still going to keep troubleshooting the missing mouse menu in Mame32Analog+.

[themetz]

Thanks guys, I got it.

There's nothing wrong with this version of Mame32Analog+, there's just something wrong with me   

Performed the following and I now have mouse control:

Typed "MAME32AnalogXP.exe -cc" and Enter.

Edited the C:\mame32\mame32analogXP.ini file as such:

### Input device options ###
mouse                   1

### Analog+ options ###
multiplemice            1
switchablemice          0
switchmiceaxes          1
splitmouseaxes          1

Copied the file above to the C:\MAME32\INI folder.

Now when I start a trackball game, the Tab menu has an option called "Mouse Axes" 

What a bozo.  I was editing the mame32.ini file all along because that was the only ini file I was seeing.  I didn't know I had to go and force a mame32analogxp.ini file to be created.  I figured mame32analog+ was just using the mame32.ini file because when I ran mame32analog+ it made new entries in that file.

The case is solv - ed  (in honor of the Pink Panther opening this week)