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Johnny 5 and LedWiz

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Tiger-Heli:

--- Quote from: MYX on August 10, 2006, 10:33:53 am ---Ok, I do not know where MAME stops and the FE begins.

--- End quote ---
You really have three different things that can be going on.  (Without knowing if you are familiar with the previous version of Johnny5, etc).

1)  You can modify MAME so the it sets DRS modes correctly, sets LEDwiz lights, calls Johnny5 on pause, etc.  This is where MikeQ was going with PowerMAME, but it's pretty difficult even with an app that isn't re-written every six months or less.

2)  You can setup your frontend so that along with launching a game, it also sets the correct DRS modes, or monitors for certain keypresses, etc.  (GameEx does a little of this, but most FE's don't do this.).

3)  You can use third party software that runs in the background and does certain things when certain keys are pressed.  These can be launched by (most) frontends prior to calling MAME.  (Howard C's AutoHotKey script for Johnny 5 and SirPoonga's DRS modes software would be examples of this.)

--- Quote ---1. Are the PM extras like running a LWA when there is a coin up, or qbert knocker, something that the FE can handle or is this strictly MAME?

--- End quote ---
Typically neither.  MAME normally would not do this until MikeQ modified it.  Most FE's are not going to support it.  What you will likely see is Aaron Giles seems to be pretty determined to fix the output (LED's (specifically 7-segment LED's), lighting in Beatmania, possibly force-feedback down the line, Q-bert knockers, lighting events (Weapons Van light in spyhunter)) side of MAME.

When this happens, it will be easier to write specific third party software to watch for these event triggers from MAME and act on them.

You can see this in 0.108 with the keyboard LED's which are now run off an external program rather than from inside MAME.

--- Quote ---2. Is Auto DRS select (for the 49ways) doable with the FE?

--- End quote ---
Yes - with GameEx, it can be done inside the frontend, however it is usually done outside the FE with SirPoonga's app.  See http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/set49mode/

--- Quote ---Is it like the LEDWiz in the fact that MAME broadcasts the game that it is running and you can use that to also select which DRS mode to use?

--- End quote ---
No, it is not quite like the LEDWiz in that rather than having SirP's app running constantly and listening for MAME to launch so it can get the rom name, you simply call SirP's app and pass it the rom name when your FE launches a game.

--- Quote ---In PM in the user interface (within MAME) you can change this. I understand that to be a MAME thing, not a FE
thing.

--- End quote ---
In PM it is a MAME thing, but that is the only time it would be and only b/c MikeQ coded it that way.

Howard_Casto:
Continuing what tiger already answered:

The beta of j5 I released has a -justlight tag.  What this means is a fe can launch it prior to mame and set the lights for you. I don't have it setup to run in the background because j5 takes a considerable amount of resources when loading a entry and it's a tad slow starting up. 


Aaron's output method works pretty well.  I've already started on an app to make use of the outputs but I'm having trouble retriving the id names.  Once that is done I will make a resident app. I've actually got a little test app up and running, but since you guys probably need the outputs labeled "Led1" instead of "12345" I think I better wait to release it.  ;)  This kind of stuff doesn't have anything to do with j5 so it will never be included in j5.  J5 is about controls, not controlling do-dads.  The only reason I'm adding light support is because it's an alternative way to label buttons, which falls into J5's scope. 

There are a ton of outputs already supported initially, so this is a exciting turn of events.  Btw... the force-feedback support is not a problem. I primarily use dx8 to write stuff anymore and it has very good ff support.  it's ony a matter of linking a mame trigger to a ff-effect or directly streaming raw data into the motors. 

Timoe:
I'm getting a runtime error 399.  the "Ledwizm.ocx is missing or not found" but I have thie file in both my J5 and Ledwiz folders.

??

Any ideas?

Howard_Casto:
Are you running 98?  98 might require you to register the files.  I can help you with that if you want. 

I don't reccomend running 98 on a cabinet anymore which is why I didn't mention it. 

Timoe:
Win XP Pro, SP2



Could it be that when doing minor tweaks to XP from the suggestions at this forum that I have disabled some process and that is causing my problem here? 

Maybe this is why I'm also having problems with Zinc?

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