I figured it out, or at least why it wasn't working in Tempest or Centipede. Having it work in Marble Madness threw me off by making me think that the correct mouse index was already set. It was not. My trackball is at mouse1.

In the main retroarch.cfg I set:
input_player1_mouse_index = "1"

That fixed it.

@mitu Thank you and I'm sorry for not following what was clearly written down. In the future I will make sure I list all that is needed. In this case I figured out the solution but do appreciate the beginnings of the sites help.

Thanks - Aaron

@wavfact Good to know, thanks for sharing your solution.

@Kartman

I have definitely have had the most success with trackball games on Advmame on Ubuntu. However, it comes with its own issues. I haven’t been able to get overlays to work at all (apparently it uses an older Mame overlay system that locks up my games when I try and add).

As mentioned above, the only trackball game I’m not using Advmame for is Golden Tee Fore 06 since it’s seems that will only run with lr-mame. Frankly, I just think the trackball work better with Advmame.

@Gryphandor78 I'm struggling with the same issue. I went into mame menu using tab, and set the X+ X- Y+ Y-, the INC and DEC settings, and the trackball worked. I haven't been able to get it working without using mame settings instead of Retroarch. The trackball is a little sloppy dong this, and it has to be done for every game? Is this the way you did it? By moving the trackball in MAME UI to register the positions? Also, did you change any of the sensitivity?

@MrRalphMan said in Unable to get Trackball working with Mame2003.:

*** Can I mark this as solved or something? ***

Modify the topic subject and add a Solved at the beginning.