ShifterMame360 - now with download link!

[Minwah]

In a nutshell: A Mame build for 360deg wheel driving games only, with (where possible) shifter/wheel inputs fixed:

http://mamewah.mameworld.net/downloads/shiftermame360.zip

(copy & paste into browser - clicking probably will not work)


I am building a version of Mame based on v0.125 purely for 360deg driving games.  Main reason is to fix a few games with the toggle-style hi/lo shifter operation. A preferred method is holding an input for lo, release for hi (or vice versa) - this will then work with real shifters (hi/lo and 4-speed).

A secondary reason is to alter the refresh of games >60hz so they run better with certain video hardware (ie ArcadeVGA, probably also some LCD displays). Not yet 100% if I can get this to work right in practice but seems promising so far...EDIT: works great with polepos, had to use slightly below 60hz (original AVGA mode 256x240).

This build is to include only working parent games, using 'dial' input *. An exception to this is that I will also include the Atari versions of Pole Position/2 as these are significantly different enough to warrant it. If you think other clones should be included, please let me know.

* if there are any other 360 deg wheel games whose Mame control type is not 'dial' and therefore may have been missed, please let me know.

(edit: removed games list...will update this when I have a correct list)


I am making this build for my own purposes really (I have a 360deg wheel panel), but if anyone is interested I am happy to put up the binary & source. However note that I do not plan to update this very often (unless TX1 becomes playable  )

[u_rebelscum]

Have you looked at controls.dat's pages?  It lists a few more, plus what gear shift, if any, they have.  It's not complete, either, nor completely correct, though. 

FWIW, there's at least one game in the list below which mame lists as positional type input, which currently is basically a dial type input with more details.  When added, the positional type was going to have more features that haven't been included yet, so for now there isn't too much difference between dial and positional types.

Haven't played any of the following recently so the current status might have changed, but other games include:
- Grand Champion, grchamp (no gear)
- Great 1000 Miles Rally, gtmr (no gear, see note*)
- Mille Miglia 2: Great 1000 Miles Rally, gtmr2 (no gear, see note*)
- Over Drive, overdriv (hi-lo toggle)
- Speed Freak, speedfrk (4 speeds)
- Stocker, stocker (hi-lo ?)
- Super Speed Race, sspeedr (hi-lo toggle, mame lists as positional type)

*Note:
gtmr & gtmr2 have dipswitches to set 360, 270, or 8-way joystick.  The default is the 8-way IIRC, so needs to be changed to use a 360 controllers.  I'm not sure if the driver's input code is working correctly for 360s (but looking at code, I'd guess gtmr2 has better chance of working correctly with 360 wheel than gtmr).

[Angry_Radish]

Count me in as a tester, I'm running a 360 wheel, 2 analog pedals, and a 4-speed shifter.
 

[Minwah]

*Note:
gtmr & gtmr2 have dipswitches to set 360, 270, or 8-way joystick.  The default is the 8-way IIRC, so needs to be changed to use a 360 controllers.  I'm not sure if the driver's input code is working correctly for 360s (but looking at code, I'd guess gtmr2 has better chance of working correctly with 360 wheel than gtmr).

I know ChaseHQ (& maybe some other Taito drivers) has a similar option for 270/360 deg wheel...I don't think the 360deg inputs are hooked up though 

Thanks for the info, I haven't checked most of those games out since Mame <0.100 so I expect they may have changed a bit since then...

[Minwah]

Count me in as a tester, I'm running a 360 wheel, 2 analog pedals, and a 4-speed shifter.
 

Thanks, same setup as me

Would you be able to try some things for me in regular Mame v0.125? I don't have all my romsets updated yet so I can't try most of them atm... I would be nice to just determine a few things:

Preliminary games - I decided to ignore these but it would be good to confirm these are not playable:

carpolo
imolagp
sprint8
ssrj
tx1
speedfrk (joy8way)
sspeedr (other)

Games listed as non-dial - do these have dial input, if so, does it work?

speedfrk (joy8way)
sspeedr (other)
grchamp (vjoy2way)
overdriv (paddle)
konamigt (paddle, used to be dial?)
gtmr (joy8way)      }
gtmr2 (joy8way)           } see dip switches
chasehq (joy2way)     } doesn't look like dial input works?
sci (joy2way)         }


Anything you can look at would be a help

[Minwah]

I will be checking all these games soon so not to worry about testing them.

[Minwah]

*Note:
gtmr & gtmr2 have dipswitches to set 360, 270, or 8-way joystick.  The default is the 8-way IIRC, so needs to be changed to use a 360 controllers.  I'm not sure if the driver's input code is working correctly for 360s (but looking at code, I'd guess gtmr2 has better chance of working correctly with 360 wheel than gtmr).

Have had a look at these...

GTMR2: Although a note in the driver says this does not work correctly, I played the game all the way through and it seemed fine to me. NB I haven't played a real GTMR2 with a 360deg wheel. Works perfectly in the test screen too.

GTMR: Dial input does not work for this, but I managed to hook it up, and it seems to work well with the correct DIP settings. That said, it is at the expense of the paddle input - this is no biggie for this build, although it would be nice to retain both ideally. Edit: got joystick/paddle/dial inputs working according to dip settings.

Edit: would be nice to add GTMRUSA really but 360deg wheel doesn't seem to work with the same dip settings as gtmr...not sure why

Am looking at hooking up ChaseHQ/SCI 360 wheels...currently not working.

Edit: from the ChaseHQ manual, it seems the wheel is an optical wheel limited to ~270 degrees (not unlike RoadBlasters). While Mame really should use dial input for this, my guess is it probably plays better with a 270deg pot-based wheel.

[Angry_Radish]

I had the same problem with gtmr and the 360 wheel, I'll take a peek at it tonight and see what settings I'm using nowadays

[G1zm0]

will be interesting to see hoe this develops, ive 2 driving machines not converted.
ones a turbo outrun and the other is racin force (konami) i think both are 270 wheels with hi/low shifters (one with turbo)

both have gas and brake peds, the onlt ine i see microswitch on is the outrun for the high low,

is there anyway to make a 270 a 360 wheel? wish i picked up ironman and chase hq now.
on the driving force cab i got on the left side the h/l shift and the other side a blank plate, might get a 4 way shift and put it there or might just add 4 buttons for gear 1 2 3 4.

[Minwah]

is there anyway to make a 270 a 360 wheel?

It depends, but there is a good chance.  I had one once which could have easily been converted. Basically remove the return-to-centre springs, and replace the pot with an optical wheel. Then you just need to mount some optics to read the wheel.

I would very much like to extend this project in the future to include 270deg wheel games. At the moment tho, I only have a 360deg wheel panel so this is my priority.

[Minwah]

Are there any other takers except Angry_Radish?  I am nearly finished...

[Paul Olson]

I'll test it out. It may take me a little while though; I just got my U-HID today, so I will be busy for a while getting my cab switched over.
I have 2 360 wheels (3 actually, once I get my Pole Position Wheel mounted), Analog and Digital pedals, and 4 different shifters. Please be patient, I will eventually get everything up and running and be able to test it.

Thanks,
Paul

[Minwah]

No problem...give me a shout when you want it.  I will probably put it online but since there is pretty much no interest so far, I'm not in any hurry...

[Minwah]

Download now available...see link in first post.

[u_rebelscum]

Download now available...see link in first post.

Thanks.  This is off 0.125, not one of it's 'u' updates, right?  Any reason you didn't do a diff instead of the whole source files?  (Not that the diff I made works on 0.125u5.)

I've just glanced at the code so far, but I'll look more this weekend.  Just minor question for now, from the readme item 4:  What dial (& its cpr) are you using to gauge the sensitivity to "(debatably!) sensible levels"?  (So others can gauge how much, if any, adjustment needs to be done for their different hardware.)

[Minwah]

Thanks.  This is off 0.125, not one of it's 'u' updates, right?  Any reason you didn't do a diff instead of the whole source files?  (Not that the diff I made works on 0.125u5.)

This is from v0.125...I thought about doing it from a u release (after I saw World Rally added, it has a wheel input, is it a 360deg one?? *) but thought best to stick to a main release.

I didn't make a diff as um...I'm not sure how to (laziness on my part).  However I have only included the source files which I have changed. I will have a look into making a diff...

I've just glanced at the code so far, but I'll look more this weekend.  Just minor question for now, from the readme item 4:  What dial (& its cpr) are you using to gauge the sensitivity to "(debatably!) sensible levels"?  (So others can gauge how much, if any, adjustment needs to be done for their different hardware.)

Good question. I am using a Pole Position wheel/optics hooked up to a good old Oscar Controls mouse hack.  Really, this is something I did to make my own life easier, and in the hope it might be useful for others...I have no real basis for the settings I used other than 'it felt right'.  I have only played a few of these games on real machines and as you say, different dial/interface hardware will play a part so a pinch of salt required here.  However, IIRC, some of the Mame default settings seemed WAY off to me. Edit: although, some of the dial inputs are clearly not quite emulated right.

Edit: * I see it is an optical wheel supported since v0.125u2...will have to give this game a try, it also has a hi/lo shifter.

[u_rebelscum]

I didn't make a diff as um...I'm not sure how to (laziness on my part).  However I have only included the source files which I have changed. I will have a look into making a diff...

Diff is pretty easy once you ignore the unneeded options.   I'm not sure how aaron gets his diff files; I do it the old-school way (a la Nicolas & Haze) which is a little different in format.   Assuming the folder structure is:

currentfolder
|-- officialmamefolder
    |-- src
|-- edittedmamefolder
    |-- src

from the currentfolder, type:

"diff -urN officialmamefolder/src edittedmamefolder/src > newdiff.diff"

The 'u' sets the diff format, 'r' make diff include sub folders (Recursive), 'N' includes new files correctly (not needed unless you add or remove files, but harmless if not).  More info with "diff --help".

To use the diff, patch -p1 -E < newdiff.diff from the mame folder you want to edit.

But, like I said, enough changes were made in a few of the files by 0.125u5 so the diff fails on those files. 


And whether you do diffs or straight source, do what is easier for you. 

I am using a Pole Position wheel/optics hooked up to a good old Oscar Controls mouse hack.

Thanks! ... Okay, wiki says 96 teeth per rotation (but also says 24 teeth on encoder wheel & 5 to 1 gear ratio, which would be 120 teeth per rotation, no?).  So assuming the oscar is using 4x (as AFAIK all PC X&Y axes are 4x), that's 384 cpr (or maybe 480 cpr, if the wiki's other half right) on your system.  Assuming you adjusted all games perfectly, people with TT2 would want to divide the sensitivity number by 1200/384 = 3.125 (or 1200/480 = 2.5) for the same feel.

[Minwah]

"diff -urN officialmamefolder/src edittedmamefolder/src > newdiff.diff"

Great, thanks for that! 

But, like I said, enough changes were made in a few of the files by 0.125u5 so the diff fails on those files. 

Ah right...I misunderstood before. The changes are pretty minor so I think it could be relatively easy applied to u5 or (more likely) v0.126 source.  I will probably compile a u5 version to try out World Rally with wheel support and see if it's worth adding.

And whether you do diffs or straight source, do what is easier for you. 

Yeah sure...I quite like the way I have done it as it's easy to very quickly see what files I've changed. Would be nice to have a diff too though.

Thanks! ... Okay, wiki says 96 teeth per rotation (but also says 24 teeth on encoder wheel & 5 to 1 gear ratio, which would be 120 teeth per rotation, no?).  So assuming the oscar is using 4x (as AFAIK all PC X&Y axes are 4x), that's 384 cpr (or maybe 480 cpr, if the wiki's other half right) on your system.  Assuming you adjusted all games perfectly, people with TT2 would want to divide the sensitivity number by 1200/384 = 3.125 (or 1200/480 = 2.5) for the same feel.

Makes sense...

Changing the subject a bit...do you have any idea why the controls for GTMRUSA react differently than in GTMR (ie dial doesn't work properly)? GTMRUSA doesn't have it's own input port definitions, so presumably it uses the ones from GTMR...does this mean something in the actual game handles the controls differently?  I would really like to include that clone...

[u_rebelscum]

...do you have any idea why the controls for GTMRUSA react differently than in GTMR (ie dial doesn't work properly)? GTMRUSA doesn't have it's own input port definitions, so presumably it uses the ones from GTMR...does this mean something in the actual game handles the controls differently?  I would really like to include that clone...

Hmmm... looks like the gtmr & gtmrusa use the same machine, input, and initialization code*, so... I'd guess the difference is in the ROM.  Either the usa rom had the 360 wheel code removed, or handles it differently and thus needs it's own emulation code added to mame to match the differences.   (Understanding the original gtmr ROM code is beyond my ability.)


* Looked at the GAME defines at the end of the driver file.  The format goes:
GAME (YEAR, NAME, PARENT, MACHINE, INPUT, INIT, MONITOR, COMPANY, FULLNAME, FLAGS). 
And all the gmtr(1) have the same info (except of course name and fullname).  So mame has no special code for gtmrusa.

[Minwah]

Hmmm... looks like the gtmr & gtmrusa use the same machine, input, and initialization code*, so... I'd guess the difference is in the ROM.  Either the usa rom had the 360 wheel code removed, or handles it differently and thus needs it's own emulation code added to mame to match the differences.

I thought as much, although I was hoping I was wrong...would be nice to play that one!