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turbotwist 2 choice - USB vs PS/2

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RandyT:

--- Quote from: rockin_rick on March 01, 2007, 12:40:42 am ---I still would appreciate input about different mouse speeds not effecting mame, though...

--- End quote ---

I have to admit, I don't yet fully understand the dynamic between XP and MAME.  It's possible that the mouse input code on newer versions of MAME aren't affected by the desktop settings, or it may be an XP thing. 

But if you are seeing no differences in MAME with higher pointer speeds under XP,  apparently there is something very different as opposed to how it works with 98SE and 2K.  I just did a quick test under 98SE and 2K  with Tempest and, as I expected, it was virtually unplayable with the speed set higher than 1:1 (slow on 98SE and middle setting on 2K.) 

But you folks are indeed correct in that the mouse speed needs to be set at the middle under 2K / XP.  I watched the mouse cursor jump more than one pixel when at one click higher than center, so apparently "middle" on 2K/XP is "slow" on 98SE.  My apologies for that one.  On 2K, the mouse acceleration should also be set to "off".

Under XP, "acceleration" is tied to the "enhance pointer precision" box. To see how this affects the cursor, take a look at the "mouse pointer ballistics under XP"  page from MS.

Here's probably the line of the most interest to this discussion:
----
7.  If the feature is turned off (by clearing the Enhance pointer precision check box underneath the mouse speed slider in the Mouse Properties dialog box [Pointer Options tab]), the system works as it did before without acceleration. All these functions are bypassed, and the system takes the raw mouse values and multiplies them by a scalar set based on the speed slider setting.
----

I will conduct the same tests under XP (with the same MAME version) to see if the desktop settings are used or ignored.  But they do make a big difference under 2K and 98SE.

On the bright side, on both XP and 2K, the PS/2 poll rate selection looks like it is built into the default divers, so cranking up the PS/2 poll rate is simple from those two OS's.

RandyT

Derrick Renaud:
FWIW, I recomend this utility for XP users.  Use it to set the USB rate to 250-500.  I use 500.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/USB_Mouserate_Switcher_d4469.html

Using PS/2 with the polling rate set to 200 is the bare minimum. But USB set to 250-500 is best.  USB set to 1000 is overkill.  I have written my findings on this in the past and have mentioned that it should be put in a faq somewhere, but never has as far as I can tell.  Without using this utility, then PS2 beats USB.  125 is too low.

You also need this utility to confirm the polling rate.  Even though it is called PS2 rate, it reads USB rates too.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/PS2Rate_Plus_d300.html

So to recap.  Spinners need high resolution so they can be easily scaled and also need a high polling rate of 200 - 500.

Even low res spinners and trackballs need 200+ polling rate.  This balances the data for when an emulated game actually reads the data.  MAME trys to emulate reading the real control where the game would read at the game's vblank.  But windows gets the data at a fixed rate which is different.  So even if a spinner is turning at a fixed rate, the values read by the game drift a little because some vblank reads will have more mouse polling samples then others.  So the faster the polling, the lower the difference sent to mame.

THROW away your serial mice.

D.

spelosi:
Thanks, I found this very useful.

Chris G:
Ok, probably stupid question, but can I use the PS/2 version of the TurboTwist2 AND the PS/2 version of the ICE-T on the same machine?  Thanks

RandyT:

--- Quote from: Chris G on March 02, 2007, 10:12:43 am ---Ok, probably stupid question, but can I use the PS/2 version of the TurboTwist2 AND the PS/2 version of the ICE-T on the same machine?  Thanks

--- End quote ---

Not enough ports :)

Either one will work on either interface.  Run the trackball off of USB with one of those little passive pin adapters if you really want to go PS/2 with the TT2.

You could also attach the TT2 to the Z-Axis of the TB interface, but that gets a little trickier on the software side.

RandyT

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