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Mame 108 XML Schema Question

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Boz:
Does anyone know for *certain* what the following XML element would represent in any given game? This is a result of the "mame -listxml" command. It doesn't follow any logic that I can see in about 30 minutes of checking so I'm guessing it's a code of some sort.

(for those just guessing, it does NOT coorespond with the number of players allowed, buttons used, or coins required)

:defender
<input players="1" buttons="5" coins="3" tilt="yes">   (defender has five buttons and 3 coin mechs, but can have 2 players)

:puckman
<input players="2" buttons="1" coins="2"> (puckman has no buttons)

:subhunt
<input players="1" buttons="2" coins="1"> (sub hunter has four buttons)

Silver:
Nope, you have it right, input players does indicate the number of players. Defender has two ALTERNATING players - not at the same time. i.e. I believe it only says 2 players when it is 2 simultaneous players.

Puckman - This is the type of reason the ControlDat project got started. A lot of the information on games in Mame is incorrect or inaccurate. I believe a lot of it stems from either hacking certain controls or simply using macros or whatever from other games to save time.

e.g. From ControlsDat.XML:

:puckman
 numPlayers="2" alternating="1"
<player number="1" numButtons="0">

which correctly identifies Puckman has having no buttons.

The only catch is the ControlsDat project does not yet have info for all games (everything that goes in is verified off actual cabs or pics of control panels I think).

Pi:
I seem to remember that the button in Puckman is actually the double speed "cheat", which can be wired to a button (either by making a new button in the control panel, or using an existing button like 1P). However, this extra button in MAME is listed as an independent input, classified as a button. So, there is a reason for MAME listing Puckman with one button, from the hardware point of view, it has one.

Most of the things which people points as "innacuracies" have their reasons, although from a "gaming" point of view they look quite meaningless or simply wrong. That doesn't mean that MAME doesn't have errors, just that it doesn't have as many as people think...  ;D

Howard_Casto:

--- Quote from: Pi on September 10, 2006, 11:01:15 am ---I seem to remember that the button in Puckman is actually the double speed "cheat", which can be wired to a button (either by making a new button in the control panel, or using an existing button like 1P). However, this extra button in MAME is listed as an independent input, classified as a button. So, there is a reason for MAME listing Puckman with one button, from the hardware point of view, it has one.

Most of the things which people points as "innacuracies" have their reasons, although from a "gaming" point of view they look quite meaningless or simply wrong. That doesn't mean that MAME doesn't have errors, just that it doesn't have as many as people think...  ;D

--- End quote ---


Not true.  Puckman doesn't have any buttons.  A speedup cheat in mame uses a button toggle though.  The actual hardware (which is all we care about) didn't have any buttons.  Inaccuracies are just that.  Trust me, sirp and I head controls.dat and a lot of stuff in mame is plain out wrong.  Ask the mame devs for that matter, they'll agree.  Some stuff was added to toggle cheats, some stuff is macro errors, some games have extra inputs hacked in because the original control was "goofy" and the driver author wanted to add support for a normal joystick ect.....  There are a few exceptions, and those are noted in the controls.dat, but generally when mame lists a game with a button and you know that it doesn't have one, mame has added a "fake" button for some reason. 

Don't confuse mame cheats with hardware hacks.  Cheats are the mame equivelent of game genie codes, they don't have anything to do with real hardware. 

Howard_Casto:
Oh btw..... then number of players thing... that is actually consistant most of the time.  Puckman has cocktail mode and thus has two sets of controls.  Defender doesn't. When mame lists players, it really means the number of independant controls per player.  So 2 player alternating games show up as 1 player games UNLESS they have a cocktail mode. 

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