AtomicFE newbie question about LEDWiz support

[arzoo]

I'm in the process of deciding which FE to use for my mame project (Arcade Addiction) and I've spent the past few hours reading through the AtomicFE docs, and related threads. My cp has two LEDWizs and 12 RGB LED buttons. So far from what I've read it seems like AFE will to everything I want. Here's my question - If you change the button assignment for a specific game within mame, will AFE correctly light the active buttons? I realize that unlike PowerMame, AFE does not use the active ports to determine which buttons to light, so changes would not happen on the fly, but it seems that any changes to the mame control layout will also require a manual change to AFE config file for each game. Is this correct?

[loadman]

it seems that any changes to the mame control layout will also require a manual change to AFE config file for each game. Is this correct?

I believe so.

I don't know of any FE that supports the LedWiz that can communicate with Mame that way.

How offten are you going to change your CP layout?

[arzoo]

How offten are you going to change your CP layout?

I guess after I get all the games mapped the way I want, changes will be few, but initially that could be a pain. I believe that Johnny 5 uses the individual mame game config files to set the active LEDs and I was hoping that AFE worked the same way.

[headkaze]

The way the GameEx LEDWiz plugin will work, and I assume the Mala and AtomicFE work the same way, is you assign the buttons to your LED's in the setup program. Then the plugin reads in controls.ini and lights up the appropriate LED's for the game. I believe in Atomic's LEDWiz setup allows you to have custom settings for each game (for things like colours), but as for lighting up buttons for each game, that should all be automatic by the plugin.

[Havok]

Unfortunately, I don't have an LEDWiz to test this out. I'll shoot a message to one of our Atomic users that has a LEDWiz, and see if we can get an answer for you. From what I see of how the LEDWiz Manager works - it sets up a <RomName>.led file for each game, which may mean that each setting is static. However, it does refer to each control as Player1 Button1, Player1 Button2, etc, so perhaps it is dynamic.

 

Hopefully we can get an answer for you soon...

[arzoo]

Unfortunately, I don't have an LEDWiz to test this out. I'll shoot a message to one of our Atomic users that has a LEDWiz, and see if we can get an answer for you. From what I see of how the LEDWiz Manager works - it sets up a <RomName>.led file for each game, which may mean that each setting is static. However, it does refer to each control as Player1 Button1, Player1 Button2, etc, so perhaps it is dynamic.

 

Hopefully we can get an answer for you soon...

That's where I think the problem may be - AFE assigns the LEDs to P1B1, P1B2, etc, not to the mapped keystroke. So if the key mapping is changed for a specific game (within mame), then the button lighting will not match. I'm kinda surprised nobody else has come across this situation.

If it turns out that AFE does not light the buttons the way I would like, I guess I could let AFE launch J5 to set the blinkies.

Anyway, thanks for looking into this!

By the way, I was going to post this on the AtomicFE support forum, but I'm still waiting for my registration to be accepted DOH!

[Havok]

By the way, I was going to post this on the AtomicFE support forum, but I'm still waiting for my registration to be accepted DOH!

Yeah, sometimes the admin takes a while to add new users. No problem - Youki and I are on both boards, usually every day. Youki is not going to be on as much for the next couple of months, but I'll try and pick up the slack in the meantime...

[MYX]

Hey Arzoo,
Havok told me that you had a couple of questions. AFE is the killer FE and I want to encourage to stick with it. Once you play with it a little you will see the power in it.

Ok, ADD and personal preference has led me to want my CP set up a little different than than the average bear.  So I ran into the same situation. The trick is to get MAME set up the way you want FIRST! AFE looks at the button set up in MAME. This is a good thing as once you get everything set up YOUR WAY AFE follows. I like my fire button to be where the average button 3 is. Button 2 is set for jump etc.
   
1  2  3 <- Fire
    ^ - Jump
4  5  6

Take the time to make sure that you have set up the user button ->LED assignment page completely and accurately.
I have button 3 set as a RED LED in the LED > Button config screen. Button 2 is set to Green.
In MAME I set button 3 as button 1 in the game user set up (User ALL games) Once you get the button > LED config done and save it, then you can go into the individual game settings screen and generate the LED list. This sux all the info out of MAME and all your settings with it. Then the majority of the games will be correct. I also lit my track ball as player 1 custom 1. I put all my utility buttons on player 1 custom 2 (Pause, Player 1, 2, $.25, Pause). I then used Youki's place LED setting utility to add my utility row.  Now these light up for every game. (They stay on but at level 6 so they are not very bright, but able to be seen in low level light). Stuff like Marble Madness and missile command (Trackball games and spinner games cause I did not want a spinner) I have to go into the LED Game Set up and add the track ball. This is easy to do. Find the game in the list, click on it, Add custom 1 (or wherever you have the TB set up). The set up process does not take too long if you can keep from getting sucked into playing games (a common problem for me  ).

Now, I will tell you that there are a couple of gotcha's that Youki is working on (I think). You want to set up AFE so it displays game settings as you scroll through the games. This will lead to a near perfect score to getting the correct lighting during gameplay. If it is set to all blink or mode 1-4, I found that the game settings would not load properly all the time. (about 50-60%. Also if you have AFE run one of the modes or random LEDs during screen saver, sometimes it will never come back and you have to restart AFE. Not a big deal, but it is a little bug. The thing to remember that this stuff is early in the programming phase. You will find this already to be very powerful. Youki has cool things up his sleeve for the future.

Hope this helps if not, steer me more towards the issue.

[loadman]

The way the GameEx LEDWiz plugin will work, and I assume the Mala and AtomicFE work the same way, is you assign the buttons to your LED's in the setup program. Then the plugin reads in controls.ini and lights up the appropriate LED's for the game. I believe in Atomic's LEDWiz setup allows you to have custom settings for each game (for things like colours), but as for lighting up buttons for each game, that should all be automatic by the plugin.

Headkaze:
FYI The MaLa plugin also allows 'custom settings for each game'

If it turns out that AFE does not light the buttons the way I would like, I guess I could let AFE launch J5 to set the blinkies.

Indeed you could do that with any FE   

The trick is to get MAME set up the way you want FIRST! AFE looks at the button set up in MAME. This is a good thing as once you get everything set up YOUR WAY AFE follows.

Yeah  but he wants to be able  change things in mame and The Leds follow automatically (refer first post)

[headkaze]

FYI The MaLa plugin also allows 'custom settings for each game'

Sorry loadman, I neglected to mention that because it was an Atomic question. But I know the Mala plugin is very complete, I tend to avoid saying things about other FE's when it's unlrelated because I don't think people ask q's about FE's expecting advice about other FE's. It's just something that annoys me, so I tend to keep with the subject at hand

[loadman]

Sounds like J5 is the only answer with his choice of FE if he wants that sort of flexibility done automatically

[MYX]

Yeah  but he wants to be able  change things in mame and The Leds follow automatically (refer first post)

I was just giving the answers I had. Sorry if you didn't like it. I do not know much about J5. I tried to get some answers about J5 once and got no usable answers. The set up to use J5 and a FE got frustrating. (Although I was also dealing with a lot at work and home at that point as well which didn't help the brain absorb stuff either). I have been playing with AFE hard and heavy the past few weeks and was just trying to help.

[loadman]

Yeah  but he wants to be able  change things in mame and The Leds follow automatically (refer first post)

I was just giving the answers I had. Sorry if you didn't like it. I do not know much about J5. I tried to get some answers about J5 once and got no usable answers. The set up to use J5 and a FE got frustrating. (Although I was also dealing with a lot at work and home at that point as well which didn't help the brain absorb stuff either). I have been playing with AFE hard and heavy the past few weeks and was just trying to help.

Chill, My man.   I just thought you may not have understood his question 

[MYX]

yeah, long day yesterday. grumpy and tired when I got home. Little on the defensive side eh?

[arzoo]

Wow, I'm away from my pc for a night and come back to info overload!  Havok, MYX, loadman, and headkaze - thanks for all your help. One of the reasons I decided to give AFE a try was because after reading other threads, it seemed that the devs and users were very willing to provide help - which is obviously true. 

Initially I configured mamewah and got it working pretty well. But at the time, there was very little LEDWiz or GPWiz49 support, so I switched to PowerMame. PM seemed like the perfect solution, but alas, its future seems unsure. It's been almost a year since I started my mame project and now I'm ready to finalize the FE software. So it seems that the two best choices for my needs are MaLa or AtomicFE.

The thing to remember that this stuff is early in the programming phase. You will find this already to be very powerful. Youki has cool things up his sleeve for the future.

early in the programming phase I can't imagine what the final app will do! I'm a software developer by trade and I love apps with lots of tweaks and options.

MYX, Thanks for your tips. I hope to get AFE up and running this weekend.

I'm still not sure if I'll use J5 with AFE or just go with AFE's built in LED support. I need to mess around with the two apps for a bit. Who knows, maybe AFE can be enhanced in the future to config the LED mapping on the fly more like J5.

[gamenut]

I think you will be happy with Atomic Fe.
And if you decide to use your own led animations Atomic makes it REALLY easy to script them.
And it's customizability is really cool. SO many options so you can get it to do what YOU want.
Yet easy enough for a newbie like me figure out.


Atomic FE = AWSOME

[youki]

Hi thanks to all.

I'm sorry i'm not very present since few days, and it should be like that until next week.

I can't not answer to the question now, i have to study deeper what you want to do to be able to answer and i don't have time now.

So i will come back on that subject  next week i think. But from my quick read if you want Ledwiz setting react on a keymap change in Mame , that 's not the case.  Ledwiz setting file are generated from information find in mame.xml , and you can then of course customize for each game.