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I'm completely stuck on this now. 

I found my original HDD for the actual game, and while my Windows PC couldn't recognize it, I put it on my Mac and I saw all of the stuff on it, which is all windows stuff. 

So I copied it to a USB stick and put it on my MAME PC. 

Running it raw works just fine, as in it loads up and stuff.  Nothing works control wise with the keyboard or anything though, and I had to quit it via task manager.

I then tried just replacing the VSIOBOARD.DLL with the hacked one, and it's the same behavior.  I see it show up in task manager for like 15-20 seconds and then it just disappears.

Playing Daytona Championship USA - NSE and the wheel always has a slight rumble to it (like a car idling) even when in attract mode/menus. I have tried adjusting min force to 0 and even tried 50 but it still remains. Is there another deadzone like option for the ffb? Turning the wheel in attract mode/menu activates the motor as well.

Tekno Parrot 1.0.0.1568
FFB  v2.0.0.53
BFF 7.0.167

X-Arcade Tank-stick Max spinner.

I'm not sure which spinner that is.   

Is yours like this one where there's no shaft sticking out the bottom, just wiring connectors. . .



. . . or this one with an encoder wheel (or shaft) on the bottom?

If your spinner is like the first one, you won't be able to add an encoder wheel to signal when the spinner is at the 12 o'clock position.

It might theoretically be possible to mod the second one, but it would be a lot easier to mod a TT2 or SpinTrak.

A 1/4" flange shaft coupler like this one should be a good way to attach a 3d printed encoder wheel to the shaft of a TT2.  IIRC, the SpinTrak would need a 6mm I.D. version of this part.

I want to create a "button click" when the spinner is in the 12 o'clock position. You mentioned an optical gate. Can you point me in the direction of what this is, or where to get it, or how it would emulate a button click when the plastic passes through the optical gate.

A basic optical gate/optical circuit a.k.a. an "opto" has an LED and a photo transistor.

A spinner or trackball will have two optos per axis.
- The good spacing image shows the encoder wheel at the left edge of Phase 1.
- Data line A is transitioning from HIGH (not blocked) to LOW (blocked) and data line B is in the middle of being blocked.
- As you rotate the encoder wheel clockwise, the blocking and un-blocking of the optos will produce the quadrature waveforms shown.



For the centering "button press" on 720, you should only need one opto/data line since you don't need to determine the direction of rotation, but rather when the spinner is at the 12 o'clock position.
- The encoder wheel would only need one tab for blocking the opto.
- This design can jam/break if the encoder wheel tab and opto get out of mechanical alignment.
- To avoid this problem, you must design the sensor holder so it is adjustable and partly overlaps the body of the encoder wheel.

If I wanted to build an updated 720 controller, I would probably use the Adafruit 2167 beam break sensor mentioned in my previous post along with a custom 3d printed mount for the LED and sensor modules.  If you don't go that route, you could use a Happ "Red Board" with a custom mount.

To translate the data line signal from the opto into a button press, here are some options you could try:
- Use an "active low" gamepad encoder -- data line is HIGH until the tab blocks the LED so the phototransistor can't see it which sends the data line LOW which triggers the input to output a button press.
- Use an "active high" gamepad encoder and add a 74LS04 Hex Inverter or similar circuit to invert the logic level between the opto and the encoder.
- Make an Arduino "active low" gamepad encoder firmware and connect the data line to an interrupt pin for the fastest response.

Figuring out the correct combination of sensor/LED spacing, 3d printed mount design, encoder wheel diameter, tab width, encoder, and MAME settings is more work than I'm willing to invest.


Scott

An optical gate could do that job... just have a little tab of plastic or something at 12:00 to break the beam as it spins by.

Hey Howard_Casto,
I hope you're still reading these posts 8 years later.... I've been searching the internet for a solution and THIS sounds like an awesome idea! I would love to do it. I have 720 running great on MAME thanks to DarthMario. I have a pretty legit 720 stick I found on ebay. I attached it to an X-Arcade Tank-stick Max spinner. I have the same issue though. Like DarthMario's video, the skater goes out of sync after about 10 spins. Instead of tapping the center button and holding the stick up when the skater is facing north to recalibrate, I want to create a "button click" when the spinner is in the 12 o'clock position. You mentioned an optical gate. Can you point me in the direction of what this is, or where to get it, or how it would emulate a button click when the plastic passes through the optical gate. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

-Chris

I know this is an old thread but I am back at this again as I have put together another MAME PC in my light gun cabinet that will be dedicated for it, and once again, I am having trouble with Friction lol.

I actually have all of those same instances on the HDD of the other PC and I am trying to run them on this new PC, and I am getting the same exact problems. 

When I try to load up the hacked vsioboard.dll file, nothing happens and the process just quits.

If I change the vsioboard.dll to the original unhacked one, the game loads up just fine but none of the controls set in the vsioboard.ini file are working (obviously) but I can control it with the mouse.

So my question is - does anyone have a source of where I can get a known working full game that works on the PC?  Like one that works out of the box? 

Or one of the hacked vsioboard.dll files that is known to work just fine? 

I'd prefer the former if possible and even allowed on here, but if not, the latter would help too.  I still own an actual physical Friction arcade board set so technically it is not piracy for me.

EDIT:

Or maybe my vsioboard.ini files have something wrong with them?

Anyone have one of those they could attach that works with their game?

Hi,

It's in /usr/local/share/attract/layouts/Basic

You may copy the folder to your home dir in ~/shared/frontends/attract/layouts and modify it there

Yeah based on the reply in the groovyMAME forum and just from messing around with it more, I don't think it is a resolution thing.  I think it is more of a 4:3 screen thing whereas the analog control is really just in a 1:1 aspect ratio, so I think there is some sort of translation MAME is doing with that to translate the 1:1 of the controller to the 4:3 aspect ratio of the screen.

Again, this is all theory and I can't prove any of this, but just the way the offsets grows more and more as I get closer to the edge of the screen, that is what I am thinking is going on.

And it's definitely JUST a MAME issue at this point because VCop works flawlessly.  HOTD seems to work too but it is at a slight offset everywhere I aim.  I think it's an in game calibration issue though.  I haven't messed with the in game calibration because I can't read the menus in 320x240 so I have to figure out where to go to calibrate first. 

I should try and get Friction running and see how that tracks.  From what I remember, it tracked flawlessly as well when I did it on my old PC as a proof of concept.

Hi,

Where is the GroovyArcade frontend attract mode basic (layout)  directory?
I would like to change the colors.

Thanks

Haha!  That's the first thing I checked when I went to look at it.  Reached around back and felt the top edge.  Seems he went with black paint.  The machine has held up remarkably well.  Still pristine.  Very sturdy build.  Must have been well loved and cared for by the previous owners.

When I saw the ad on Marketplace, I was not sure if this was a custom machine or a mass produced unit.  For some time I searched and did not find anything that looked exactly like it.  I decided to take a chance and told the seller I would take it.  One last search in the morning before I headed out to buy it and I found this thread.  Very happy to have come across this gem. 

Now to update the insides.  I have a rpi5 ready to set up.
The machine has a GP-wiz40 board in it.  That's new to me as I am new to this hobby.  Will have to do some research.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll check out custom PCB options.