Analog Controller with Dragon King

[Terry]

Hello,

I have been reading the forums and trying to resolve this problem I am having for a couple of days now.   I am fairly new to mame and all the front ends available.  I have tried about half a dozen so far and I really like Dragon King.  I have every components necessary to build my cab, but want to set up the software side of it before I begin.  Otherwise I will get to excited and not spend the necessary time to get it all right!

I have been able to skin it the way I want, and play the games.  The only problem I am having is configuring my analog joystick and analog steering and pedal controls.  When using Mame32, everything works prefectly.  All I have to do is set up the pedals within the game configuration.  I did this just to verify that my devices are working properly.

In DK, I have set all my paths, enabled the joystick ID=1 (steering and pedal controls).  Within the controller directory, I did take the std.ini and rename it to default.ini and put it into a new directory called steering, then I set up the mame.cfg file and added the -ctrlr steering to the command line section.  I don't know if the std.ini can be used as controller file, but it looked like it had everything I could possibly want in it.

I have also tried renaming files within Mame.ini with no success.  This is what happens.

In DK, I am actually able to turn my steering wheel from left to right and scroll through the list.  I beleive this is because the joystick mapping has the x+ and x- axis set for the up and down arrow keys.  Once I load a game (outrun), I can start playing the game, and the steering actually works.  But when I go into the input (this game) area and try to re-assign anything involved with the analog controls, it does not accept anything.  It will see any of the buttons, but not the x and y axis of the analog controls.  I find this strange because the steering works while playing the game and in the DK interface.  I have not been able to get my gravis analog stick to work at all.  When I set the joystick ID to use this controller, DK locks up when I try to load a game.  It just says Get Ready and stays there forever.

Another question, can I set up the DK frontend.ini file to use 2 joystick ID's, or is it limited to only 1 at a time.

Just wondering what Mame32 does differently to allow for both my controllers to work without any setup except to enable joystick input.  I am able to configure them within the games and have not had any issues with either of them.

Thanks for the help.

[Howard_Casto]

I think your issue with mame is unrelated.  I'm not ruling it out completely, but it's doubtful that dk has anything to do with it.  

As for the joystick id. To be honest I never tested it.  A lot of users really wanted joystick/mouse support put back in so I did it.  I tested it on a few sticks, made sure it works in mame and that's it.  It should work in theory, but if you put in an invalid joystick id it will lock up.  (I can guarantee it)

[Terry]

Now that you mention it, I think the analog control problem is related with mame.  I am using the Windows version of Mame070b and then using the analog+070 .exe file.  The problem I am seeing was basically the same problem I had with MameFE when running it with regular mame.

When I use Mame32, it uses a different executable all together thats probably why it works.  I will try using Mame32.exe with the DK front end and see if that solves my problems.  Is this a typical set-up?  Or do most people use Mamedos or regular mame when using a front end.

So I guess the question is has anyone else been able to configure analog controls using the regular Mame (not mame32) software?

Thanks,

Terry

[Terry]

Thank you, works great using mame32.

Terry

[Terry]

Well, I guess I should say it 'worked' great in mame32 for a while.  Now it is going in and out.  I don't understand.  I just upgraded to .71 and it worked for a little while.   When I use mame32 directly, it works prefect with both of my controllers every time.  But when I go do DK it is a shoot and miss thing.  Anyone else out there have any experience in setting up analog controls for DK?

The only thing I am really concerned about is my steering a pedal set-up since I really like playing the newer driving games.

Thanks

[Terry]

Ok, I am answering my own questions again.  I guess thats ok.  I can say I am sharing my findings with others if they care.

I found that there was a left over mame32.ini file in the actual mame32 directory.  I went ahead and deleted it since mame32 uses the .ini file from the mame32/ini directory.  Once I did this, both analog controllers were up and running.

I guess DK was finding the .ini file in the mame32 directory first, and for some reason the analog controls did not work with that .ini file, or there was an incompatability with the mame32 version and the unknown .ini file.

I hope my rambling can help at least one other person.

[Howard_Casto]

now those symptoms are a known bug... they will be fixed next version.  

To keep it from interfering, turn off the analog controls in dk.  You see dk and mame use extremely similar input methods.  So much so that only one can be turned on at once.  I turn dk's direct input off before launching a game, but it can still cause issues.  I tested with my latest wip build though and all is well.  So sit tight....

Btw ditch mame32, it's a bad idea  

[Terry]

I looked through the DK ini files and couldn't find where to turn off the analog controls.  Are you talking about setting the joystick ID to 0?  Sorry, I am still pretty new to this.

Terry

[Howard_Casto]

If you read above the joystick id is says to set it to 0 to turn it off.  

[Terry]

Have it running great with mame71 (win32) and analog+71.

Thanks for all the support.

[Howard_Casto]

no problem, but it very well could be dk giving you issues.  Direct input is goofy to say the least and I don't completely understand it yet.