Arcade control panel mapping questions

SammyLJ

@caver01 WOW let me start by thanking you for your time and patience.

Ultimarc IPAC - reset
Since the basic panel designer does not have My Enter - Pause - Exit - Settings(Menu) buttons, I've had to add them. I programmed escape to be exit and pause to be p. BUT, Enter is already programmed, by default to be 3sw3. Should I change that around? Also, since you've suggested we move away from tab being the settings keystroke, what should we use instead.

retroarch is setup as such
input_enable_hotkey = "nul"
input_pause_toggle = p
input_exit_emulator = "escape"

input_player1_a = alt
input_player1_b = ctrl
input_player1_y = shift
input_player1_x = space
input_player1_start = num1
input_player1_select = num5
input_player1_l = z
input_player1_r = x
input_player1_left = left
input_player1_right = right
input_player1_up = up
input_player1_down = down

input_player2_a = s
input_player2_b = a
input_player2_y = w
input_player2_x = q
input_player2_start = num2
input_player2_select = num6
input_player2_l = i
input_player2_r = k
input_player2_left = d
input_player2_right = g
input_player2_up = r
input_player2_down = f

input_player3_a = enter
input_player3_b = rctrl
input_player3_y = rshift
input_player3_start = num3
input_player3_select = num7
input_player3_left = j
input_player3_right = l
input_player3_up = i
input_player3_down = k

input_player4_a = e
input_player4_b = b
input_player4_y = h
input_player4_start = num4
input_player4_select = num8
input_player4_left = v
input_player4_right = u
input_player4_up = y
input_player4_down = n

how we looking so far?
so last thing would just be the enter button on the panel.

SammyLJ

and settings button

caver01

@sammylj I cannot access my config file since I am away from my Pi, but I know there are some odd overlaps on the defaults, specifically, notice how " i" and "k" are used twice. This is still MAME default, and the rationale is that there are no 3 player games that would have player 2 using those buttons.

So, if you want to have the ENTER key accessible to the admin button you have, just wire Player3SW3 to it. You can have two buttons wired to the same switch on the IPAC.

And for settings, I have # input_menu_toggle = space, or in other words, it is setup as spacebar but it is commented out because of the #. I am not using the retroarch settings menu for anything. Remember, that line is going to invoke the RETROARCH settings, which, if you get things configured in the file correctly, you should not need to use. You want to keep TAB unmapped in Retroarch so that the raw key will work to invoke MAME's own menu. So, you will still need to wire the button to an IPAC input, and that input should be configured in the IPAC to send TAB, but there is no corresponding entry in retroarch for it. It is just a raw key.

caver01

@sammylj Basically, ENTER is used as button 3 in MAME. You can also wire it to your admin button too.

Here is a screenshot from the WinIPAC utility looking at my IPAC4:

caver01

I can use the secondary shift feature of IPAC to invoke TAB, but if I had a dedicated button I might have configured Player3 or 4 switch 6 or something out of the way like that to be TAB, and wired that to my admin button. I did not really want to have TAB easy to access on my system. I figured I would do most of my configuration with an external keyboard attached, and once everything is setup and working, there is no reason to use tab. For me, my admin buttons are EXIT (esc), Pause (p), and volume UP and Down. You can see in my IPAC that my exit and pause switches double as ENTER and TAB in the secondary shift feature if I ever need them.

SammyLJ

@caver01 while I could just physically move the wire on the ipac couldn't I just program both buttons to be enter in winipac and it would do the same thing?

SammyLJ

@caver01 either i'm getting smarter or you are a good teacher because I completely understood what you said about the tab keystroke. ok will do

SammyLJ

I also have volume + and - buttons.
Volume + is 4sw7 and Volume - is 4sw8
#Increases audio volume.
input_volume_up = kp_plus
#Decreases audio volume.
input_volume_down = kp_minus

SammyLJ

so moving forward....
when i'm in emulation station
B = Back
A = Launch
START = menu
SELECT = Options

but 'B' is a player 4 button, 'a' is a player 2 button etc
where do I go to configure those?

Is there any setup to a trackball or is it straight usb plug in and go?
I put a trackball, aim left and aim right buttons just above the trackball for Goldentee. They are 4sw5 and 4sw6. Because those are for 1 game only, I can edit those in the in game control menu.

SammyLJ

added a bunch of games and tested Player 2 down is "f" and during game play it brings up the runcommand screen. let go of down and it goes back to the game.

caver01

@sammylj no that cannot be Runcommand. Maybe retroarch GUI menu? Check your retroarch.cfg to see if f is mapped to something.

caver01

@sammylj said in Arcade control panel mapping questions:

so moving forward....
when i'm in emulation station
B = Back
A = Launch
START = menu
SELECT = Options

but 'B' is a player 4 button, 'a' is a player 2 button etc
where do I go to configure those?

You are confusing a gamepad A and B with keyboard keys. In Emulation Station, these refer to the player1 gamepad buttons.

Is there any setup to a trackball or is it straight usb plug in and go?

Read this documentation. There is a whole section I wrote about spinners and trackballs. It is not hard to setup. Mostly plug and play, some configuration.

I put a trackball, aim left and aim right buttons just above the trackball for Goldentee. They are 4sw5 and 4sw6. Because those are for 1 game only, I can edit those in the in game control menu.

SammyLJ

@caver01 so when in game, if I hold down on player 2(which is f) the screen goes black and the grey box comes up in the middle. It says...

Launching avps (lr-mame2003) ...
Press a button to configure
Errors are logged to /dev/shm/runcommand.log

The only thing I see mapped to f isn't active
#Toggles fullscreen.
#input_toggle_fullscreen = f

should I send you my cfg file so you can look at it, maybe i'm missing something

SammyLJ

@caver01 so if I want to re route the buttons in emulation station is it under the main menu, configure input? The would change the emulation sation buttons but not the in game. right...

caver01

@sammylj
correct.

caver01

@sammylj said in Arcade control panel mapping questions:

@caver01 so when in game, if I hold down on player 2(which is f) the screen goes black and the grey box comes up in the middle. It says...

Launching avps (lr-mame2003) ...
Press a button to configure
Errors are logged to /dev/shm/runcommand.log

The only thing I see mapped to f isn't active
#Toggles fullscreen.
#input_toggle_fullscreen = f

should I send you my cfg file so you can look at it, maybe i'm missing something

I am not familiar with this coming up in-game. Runcommand dialog appears briefly as you launch a game from Emulation Station.

SammyLJ

@caver01 right so when press down it comes up or hold down, it stays up

SammyLJ

@caver01 so I changed the emulation station buttons and it changed the in game buttons as well....

SammyLJ

ok wait a minute
this whole time I have been changing /all/retroarch.cfg
should I have been changing /mamelibretro/retroarch.cfg

SammyLJ

so I got everything to work in game. I even figured out how to exit from the games. Escape alone doesn't seem to work but player 1 select(num5) is set to be the hot key and that plus escape backs out of games. That seems to be the only way I can get it to work. The runcommand no longer comes up when I hold player 2 down not sure what it did but I changed some stuff and it worked.

so we are basically all good and playing.
I wish I could change the emulation station menu buttons but when I do it changes everything.