Need Help with Zinc Configuration

[dgrams2000]

I just upgraded the PC in my Emulation Arcade Cabinet and
now can run Zinc pretty well!
Yay!

I downloaded Zinc 1.1 and all kinds of roms

One in particular I want to get going is HYPER ATHLETE.
I've been reading all over how you do not want to run Zinc through the Zinc Front Ends, because
it breaks the controls (or doesnt allow the config files to be used properly?)

I'm fine with using Dos commands to start it up, but I've tried and have had no luck so far.
I've gone in and edited my controller.cfg file (for player1 as a test) to use the keys that I need.
I've run zinc with the following command thinking it would use that specific controller.cfg file:

D:\Games\zinc11-win32>zinc 56 --use-controller-cfg-file="d:\games\zinc11-win32\c
ontroller.cfg"

But it doesnt seem to work.
There are 1 or 2 other threads related to Zinc Controls around here, but the links to the files within those threads
are all dead.

Can anyone help me get through this?   

 

[Howard_Casto]

Heh you didn't see the giant news blurb on the main page then?  Chances are if it's to make your life easier, it's on my site and I wrote it.   You'll find a zinc control config utility in the misc utilities section. 

AFAIK hyper athlete doesn't work though.  Sorry

[dgrams2000]

Heh... Nope must have missed it.
I'll go look for it.

  I'm sad that there is no way to get HyperAthlete to work. 

[dgrams2000]

Went to your webpage and downloaded the Zinc Util...
It seems that the .zip file is bad.  (Cant extract anything out of it.)

 

[Havok]

Went to your webpage and downloaded the Zinc Util...
It seems that the .zip file is bad.  (Cant extract anything out of it.)

 

Zip file on the website is fine - I was able to download and extract. (Using IE7) Try right-clicking on the link and saving the file to your desktop?

[dgrams2000]

huh.  that is weird.

I did the right -click and save as.
Used IE and Firefox.
I'm able to download it, but can't open it.
Any chance someone can email to me at  dgrams2003@yahoo.com?

[Havok]

You've got mail!

 

[dgrams2000]

Thanks!   

But...
 
"Does not seem to be a valid Archive"
Is the message I get from WinZip,
and WinRAR says "The archive is either an unknown format or damaged"

I'm trying to open this on a machine that I just reloaded from scratch 2 days ago
and I also went to another machine here (co-worker) and tried to unzip it on his
machine using WinZip and got the same error.
What the heck is going on?   How can this be?

[Howard_Casto]

If you are at work then your network might be fudging up the file.  Try it at home.

[dgrams2000]

Nope.  He wasnt at his computer :gasp:
I snuck on it and had my file out on the network and tried opening it.
I'll try it from home tonight.  (not that its a big deal.. I'm the 'junior' network admin here)
You guys are sure you are able to open it? 

[dgrams2000]

Yup. the zip worked at home.  (very strange)

Later tonight: onto configuring Zinc! 

[dgrams2000]

Got stuff to work!  Thanks Howard.

Got Hyper Athlete to work for plyr1 with uncustomized keys.
(Left, Right, Coin1, Start, A, S, D)
but cant get plyr2 working... I got B, M, 6 & 2 to recognize, but need to find
buttons that work the left<>right joy and the center button.

Is there a program out there that lets you 'simulate' key presses
by pressing keys on the keyboard?
(example... If I press  SPACE and LCTRL like the buttons on my Mame cabinet, is there software that would turn act like A and D are being pushed?)

[Howard_Casto]

Well that's the part that doesn't work (player 2). 

Look into autohotkey, it should fix you up. 

[dgrams2000]

Okay.. got player 2 working with Keys 6 (coin), 2(start), B(left), M(right), U(b1), I(b2), O(b3)

so, I can get a 2 player game of hyper athlete working now, but need to find a way to 'remap' these static keys to be activated by pressing a different key (on my mame cabinet)

[dgrams2000]

Okay.
I have everything working for Hyper Athlete on my Mame Cabinet for both players.
 

Thanks for the AutoHotKey recommendation.  It works flawlessly.

The only other thing I have to figure out is how to get my DOS command to launch. (To start zinc)

I cant just stick the command in a .bat file - because when I run it, the window instantly dissapears.
I have a feeling that this part should be the easy part.  Maybe I'm just too tired to think.

[dgrams2000]

Okay, I made a shortcut for my DOS command window on my desktop
in the default directory that comes up in the command window, I just made a batch file
called "1.bat"

When I want to launch it, I just hit my Player1 button, and then my Player4 button. (which is like hitting '1', then 'enter')
Badda Boom-Badda Bing.  Hyper Athlete comes up then.  I am sooo happy!

[dgrams2000]

Well that's the part that doesn't work (player 2). 

Look into autohotkey, it should fix you up. 

Howard, just curious, what part of player2 isnt working?
I have all the functions of P1 and P2 working.

[Howard_Casto]

It isn't working in that winterblast's plugin (which is what everybody uses) won't let you remap those keys.  You might not have it installed.

[dgrams2000]

Ah.. I see.
Yes, I only have 1/2 of the plugin installed.
I found that If I use the controller.znc from the winterblast plugin,
the game crashes when run (HyperAthlete only)

But if you replace the controller.znc with the one that comes in the zinc11-win32.zip
the game runs and you can use the default controls and all the buttons work fine.
(which is why I'm now using the AutoHotKey that you recommended)

Long story short, I have a 2nd 'zinc' folder.. This one just for HyperAthlete so I can run it with the appropriate mixture of zinc files and plugin files.

Thanks again Howard.  Wouldn't be playing HA without your help.
 

[Howard_Casto]

You don't have to go to all of that trouble..... there is a --controller setting for zinc, you can simply add that flag when launching ha and point it to the default controller plugin. Of course you still need your ahk script, but you could make it intelligent (read the caption of the window, have it exit unless it's hyper athlete).

[dgrams2000]

Great.  I'll keep that tip in mind.

Its a round-a-bout way, but I have it running the way I want it so I dont think that I am gonna mess with it anymore. 

 

[JCKnife]

Yup. the zip worked at home.  (very strange)

Later tonight: onto configuring Zinc! 

I'm having the same issue, this ZIP file won't extract, says it's corrupted. I've tried opening it a couple different locations. What's going on?

[Howard_Casto]

Certain networks scan zip files as they come in and it can corrupt them.  Of course that's just a guess.

Also keep in mind that my new links use a php re-direct.  If you have things like scripting disabled in your browser then they might not work correctly.

[RecklessAbandon]

i get an invaild archive here too 

downloaded through ie, ff and opera
opened with winzip, winwar and 7zip

so im pretty sure its your file

edit - infact the only file i can download and open from that page is PC Games Utility and Launcher
the other 5 are all corrupt

[Howard_Casto]

Again I'm very sorry that you guys can't get them, but it's NOT the files.  The files are fine, I won't rule out the possibility that something might be going on in the transmission, but I've tested em. 

-edit-

Also read what I said above, certain networks and isps monkey with files on their end and corrupt them, your browser wouldn't make a difference, rather what pc you download it from would (in other words, it might not work at your school or work). 

[JCKnife]

Could someone e-mail me a working file of the Zinc controller configuration ZIP?

(hold on, the e-mail addy in my profile is outdated)

[JKnife]

Okay, I couldn't remember my password and since I had a dead e-mail account associated with JCKnife, I had to create this new username. So, same request as above: could someone e-mail me an uncorrupted ZINC config zip?

[Howard_Casto]

Better yet... send me a "corrupted" one.  Getting the files emailed to you is NOT a viable solution, we need to figure out what is going on. 

[RecklessAbandon]

well as i can download one file that isnt corrupted, and four that are, im guessing its your side thats borked.

you could always try rar'ing them up and hosting on sendspace or rapidshare and see if the problem is still there

[Howard_Casto]

For the 1000th time it is not the files, they are fine.  I can go to the site and download every single solitary file, open them and view the contents, and my download point isn't special or anything seeing as how the whole site is hosted on saint's server and has absolutely nothing to do with my own personal pc.  I'm not alone in this either, most people can download them fine, but something odd is going on with a small minority of people.  I need to see the download files in question to confirm that they are indeed corrupted, and how they are corrupted (I can tell) so that we can come up with a solution.

There could be something going on with the php, or saint's server itself, but the files are fine.  Putting them up on another site will not help because I won't be hosting them on another site and I know that the files themselves are fine and something is either going on at the user end (due to their particular setup) or something is going on in the transfer process, which would be different if I put the files elsewhere.

If this comes off as me quarreling, it isn't meant to be, but the sooner somebody sends me one of these bad files, the sooner I can start my rather long a troubleshooting process and get this fixed.  Arguing who's fault it is won't fix the problem.  Just use my email link right here in my profile and I'll keep everyone in the loop. 

Thanks very much,

HAC

[RecklessAbandon]

all i was saying is most of the files on your site work fine, its just a few that appear corrupt.
just seems strange to me. if it was my connection they all would be, if it was the server i'd assume same result, all being bad.
its just the fact its only a few and not all made me think its the files

http://members.lycos.co.uk/guru404/zincconfig1.5.zip <- that is a link to a bad zip and re-hosted i got, if its any help

[Howard_Casto]

Well, as I suspected, it's on your end.     I downloaded the file you linked to and it opened fine.  I still want to help though... I need some basic specs like your os, versions of winzip, ect....

[JKnife]

I'm using WinXP pro and Winrar 3.42

I upgraded to Winrar 3.70 and got the same result:

"The archive is either unknown format or damaged"

I download and extract zipped files all the time and have never encountered this problem, so not sure how it's on my end.

[Howard_Casto]

There actually seems to be a bug in winrar itself. 

I use 3.60 (and have for some time) and it reads the file and extracts it fine.  The new 3.7 seems to choke on it though.  It should be noted however, that every other zip program I have on my machine opens it fine, including xp's built in zip support.  Using the "repair" function in winrar also fixes it.  I can re-zip the files and re-upload them, but in the mean time just use a better zipping program (like the one that comes with windows). 

Thanks for you patience.

-edit-

Re-zipped files are up.  I confirmed that my recovered files had the error as well, so this should fix it. 

[RecklessAbandon]

top banana