VPinball/IPAC help please

[dezblack]

I have an IPAC programmed to use enter for the plunger on the down axis of the right joystick. I have a problem in some games, but not all and am confused as to why. I can press enter on the keyboard and the ball is launced fine in haunted house (for 1), but using the joystick it doesn't hit it hard enough to launch it all the way. It only goes about 3/4 of the way up the launch part and rolls back. Anyone dealt with this before?

[NelsonPJ]

I'm using an IPAC with a button programmed as "Enter" for the Visual Pinball plunger and it works fine, so it should work fine for a joystick input too (since they're both microswitches).

Some Visual Pinball games have strange plunger behavior, like requiring the arrow keys to "set" the plunger, and then pressing the enter key to release the plunger.  Not "cab friendly" at all.  Are you running into something like that?

[drventure]

Also, I believe VP uses a "timed" press concept.

Meaning, you press the enter and it starts pulling the plunger back, and when you let go, it releases the plunger.

If your stick just "clicks" the button, it might not be being held down long enough to pull the plunger back far enough to actually get a proper kick.

But that's just a guess.

I wired a switch onto an +actual+ plunger and that's the behavior I was seeing.

[Ummon]

I'd never use 'enter' for anything but what it does on the keyboard.

[NelsonPJ]

As I remember it's not easy to change VPinball key assignments, since a lot of them seem to be defined in the scripts for each game.  So you'll run across a table that has key assignments "hard-coded", including the "Enter" key for plunger.

Then again, what's the problem with having a button press "Enter" if you're also generating "Alt" "Ctrl" and "Shift" for MAME?   

When I first built my cab, it was running fine with two U360's using the gamepad inputs for my buttons.  I had no issues with MAME and other emulators, but I found to run VPinball I needed to buy an IPAC to generate the keyboard inputs needed for plunger ("Enter"), flippers (left and right "Shift" buttons), bump buttons (Z, /, and space, if I remember), and also coin and start (5 and 1).  I could have used XPadder or joy2key, etc, but I couldn't get that set up reliably.

[dezblack]

well honestly, it was quite easy to setup the buttons from an option in the menu at the top. all of my buttons do work fine from the keyboard. and yes, I do need to hold down enter to let the plunger go all the way back and then release to launch. it works just fine from the keyboard, but when going through the ipac mapping it does not launch strong enough. I have tried holding it down for variable amounts of time, and graphically, the plunger does retract and extend fully. I'm just baffled here, it appears maybe I have an issue with the ipac somehow?

[ahofle]

I wonder if your joystick is 'bouncing' the switch when you let go of it?  Try mapping to a button instead (or try releasing the joystick back to center very SLOWLY) and see if that helps? 

[NelsonPJ]

Does the IPAC have some sort of  optional "key repeat" functionality?  Maybe you've accidentally enabled it?  So when you pull the joystick down to press "Enter", instead just sending a single key command, it's sending the key on and off really fast?

Looking at the IPAQ FAQ on the Ultimarc website, I found this:

What about key-repeat (Typematic)?
In USB mode key repeat is supported as on a normal keyboard and is handled by the PC. In PS/2 mode key repeat is not generally desirable for gaming because sending unnecessary strings of key-presses to the PC can cause unwanted clutter on the PS/2 interface and steal CPU cycles. It is useful though to have key repeat outside of gaming, for example for scrolling up and down game lists in a front end. The I-PAC solves this problem by implementing a selective repeat on up/down only, for scrolling through lists. If you have a need for repeat on all inputs, this can be supplied on request.


Is it just a coincidence that the key repeat feature is only available on  Joystick#1 up/down, and you've assigned "Enter" to Joystick#1 Down?

[dezblack]

Well I did try the releasing slowly thing and it didnt work. This is on joystick 2, but it looks like the issue is with the repeatable key! The weird thing is, It works fine in about 90% of games. I guess I need to look at the scripts and see if I can figure out if there is code I can swap out to fix it. thanks for looking at that and letting me know what you found.

[dezblack]

Thank you all for the help! I played around a bit more after getting the info you guys helped me with. I am able to get it to work now. All I did was map the right joystick up to enter as well. Now when I launch it, for some reason it is always at a speed strong enough to actually get it to the table, thanks again all! I just checked my post on the vpforums that I put up on the 15th and still not a single reply! I appreciate you guys
 

[NelsonPJ]

Cool!  I'm glad you got it working.  I love playing VPinball on my cab.

[Ummon]

I just checked my post on the vpforums that I put up on the 15th and still not a single reply! I appreciate you guys
 

VPforums is back up?.....