Ultimarc A-Pac with 5k Potentiometers

1500points

Awesome steps to begin exploring. Thank you guys!

I did get all 4 pots working as 4 spinners in wolfmame .106 from PC using the following.
That is the proof of concept I was hoping for.
Now to get it working for the Retropie project.....woot!
I'll report back. thanks again.

Paddle Analog = J1 X Axis
Paddle Dec = J1 X Axis + (spin counter-clockwise)
Paddle Asc = J1 X Axis - (spin clockwise)

Paddle 2 Analog = J1 Y Axis
Paddle 2 Dec = J1 Y Axis +
Paddle 2 Asc = J1 Y Axis -

Paddle 3 Analog = J2 X Axis
Paddle 3 Dec = J2 X Axis +
Paddle 3 Asc = J2 X Axis -

Paddle 4 Analog = J2 Y Axis
Paddle 4 Dec = J2 Y Axis +
Paddle 4 Asc = J2 Y Axis -

1500points

@caver01 said

First of all, check out the docs, as you maybe already have, regarding the setup of Spinners and Trackballs. In that document, I described how you can use the utility that comes with AdvanceMAME called advm which is used for testing mouse inputs. AdvanceMAME also comes with a utility called advj which is similar, but designed to test joystick inputs. My thought is that you should be able to use advj to test your inputs which will help you to connect your controls to their logical names that you will need to reference in your input mapping.

I looked over the doc here- http://www.advancemame.it/doc-advj
but it is assuming I have more back knowledge than I do, I think...

Can you tell me how to run that utility from RetroPie?
I assume there is a command string to be entered from the f4 area?

caver01

@1500points The path to that utility is alongside the other AdvanceMAME binaries, so it will depend upon which version of advmame you are running, but here is an example:
/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/1.4/bin/advj
This command should run the utility using the advancemame 1.4 version. You can obviously change directories using cd and list the contents using ls--standard linux commands to navigate through the directory tree. For example, you may want to run the latest 3.x version of advmame, so you would modify the command above using the path to that version's bin folder.

The point of this test would be to know how advmame will "see" your inputs so that you can pursue a proper configuration. It's a way to get beyond the catch-22 where you want to try your controls, but you can't because they won't work until you configure them. At least this way you can move pots and press buttons and see the inputs appear on-screen.

If you read the Trackballs and Spinners document, this is very similar in theory.

caver01

@1500points I am absolutely confident that if Linux can see your controller and receive the inputs, you can configure advmame like you did on the PC. The fact that you already know that the Paddle input is the right one for your ROM is an important discovery that will save you a lot of time. Now, it is just a matter how assigning the input logic like you have done above using the results of testing.

1500points

@caver01 said in Ultimarc A-Pac with 5k Potentiometers:

@1500points I am absolutely confident that if Linux can see your controller and receive the inputs, you can configure advmame like you did on the PC. The fact that you already know that the Paddle input is the right one for your ROM is an important discovery that will save you a lot of time. Now, it is just a matter how assigning the input logic like you have done above using the results of testing.

I tried TAB from Advance MAME but the mapping does not recognize the paddle input. It sees the buttons but not the paddle. When I was googling I thought I saw that retropie spinners don't map right via tab which is why you have to update the .rc file?

caver01

@1500points Yeah, you cannot map analog inputs via the GUI. However, once mapped using the .rc file, you can adjust sensitivity in the GUI and it should save that per ROM in the .rc file.

1500points

@caver01 said in Ultimarc A-Pac with 5k Potentiometers:

@1500points The path to that utility is alongside the other AdvanceMAME binaries, so it will depend upon which version of advmame you are running, but here is an example:

F4 to command
/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/bin/advj

that takes me into the utility.
The pots do register in the utility. :)
example....

pot 1
joy 1, [-------], 0/0 [-number here changes with pot /], 0/1 [ xxxx ]

pot 2
joy 1, [------], 0/0 [-xxxx /], 0/1 [number here changes with pot ]

pot3
joy 2, [-----], 0/0 [-number here changes with pot /], 0/1 [xxxx /]

pot4
joy 2, [-----], 0/0 [-xxxx /], 0/1 [ number changes with pot /]

How would that equate to what you would write in the advmame.rc?
I understood what you explained for mouse in the spinner thread, but what is the proper nomenclature for a joystick axis?

caver01

@1500points said in Ultimarc A-Pac with 5k Potentiometers:

what is the proper nomenclature for a joystick axis?

I dunno! Isn't this exciting? You will have to figure that out and tell us!

Look at the link I posted above to the AdvanceMAME documentation for advmame. In there you will find all of the input command examples. I expect you are going to have to map inputs for the Joystick, but I use a keyboard controller and mouse inputs, so I don't have any experience to share besides that. It would appear that you have 4 pots showing up as two Joysticks (two axes each), so that is a start. You also have your PC examples. You are definitely going to be setting up inputs for paddle, and adding to those lines references to your joystick indexes and axes that you determined with the advj test.

Sorry, I wish I had more answers, but this is about as far as I can get you. The way forward is trial and error, and possibly online searching for analog joystick input mapping in advancemame.

1500points

@caver01 said in Ultimarc A-Pac with 5k Potentiometers:

@1500points said in Ultimarc A-Pac with 5k Potentiometers:

what is the proper nomenclature for a joystick axis?

I dunno! Isn't this exciting? You will have to figure that out and tell us!

Look at the link I posted above to the AdvanceMAME documentation for advmame. In there you will find all of the input command examples. I expect you are going to have to map inputs for the Joystick, but I use a keyboard controller and mouse inputs, so I don't have any experience to share besides that. It would appear that you have 4 pots showing up as two Joysticks (two axes each), so that is a start. You also have your PC examples. You are definitely going to be setting up inputs for paddle, and adding to those lines references to your joystick indexes and axes that you determined with the advj test.

Sorry, I wish I had more answers, but this is about as far as I can get you. The way forward is trial and error, and possibly online searching for analog joystick input mapping in advancemame.

I will be able to get back to this in a week.
I did some googling and found some info about gunconf which led me to try the word "joystick" in the .rc info. so i modeled it like the mouse entry.

I did try the paddle and dial entries for the 4 players as joystick[1,x] etc. but all that got me was warlords no longer opening to the game.

You would think configuring joystick axis' wouldn't be an unknown....google is sparse.

Thanks for all the insight thus far.

caver01

@1500points It's not an unknown. The correct commands/syntax is on the advmame documentation site.

1500points

@caver01 said in Ultimarc A-Pac with 5k Potentiometers:

@1500points It's not an unknown. The correct commands/syntax is on the advmame documentation site.

Oh! Somehow I didn't notice that section.
It is still a bit cryptic to my skill level so I studied it and tried this, by comparing what the joystick test showed.

so the string I used was based on joystick [joy,control,axis]
p1 paddle set to joystick[1,0,0]
p2 paddle set to joystick[1,0,1]
p3 paddle set to joystick[2,0,0]
p4 paddle set to joystick[2,0,1]

Now the player control does move by the paddle, BUT it isn't gradual.
When you move to the right, the player keeps moving right until it hits end of movement.
When you move to the left, the player keeps moving left until it hits end of movement.

MAME/PC doesn't behave like that, the player movement is paced to match the amount of movement of the pot.

1500points

UPDATE- I restarted the Pi and tried the paddles again.
Discovered I'm having a flakey issue with just one of the pots. it is jumpy and acting weird.

the other 3 player pots are working correctly as expected. kinda cool!
I'll report back in a week or so when I can get back to the project.
Thank you!

caver01

@1500points Sounds like mixed news but maybe progress. I look forward to your final results, as I expect others who use analog sticks on gamepads might benefit from knowing how you have them configured in AdvanceMAME when all is said and done.

1500points

Having trouble walking away from the test bench!....
I switched it up a bit. Installed Kaboom with Stella.
In the TAB menu with a mouse.
Stella does see the A-pac as 2 input devices.
I was able to map the paddle 0 to one of the pots.
but the movement isn't smooth and controlled.
Twist one way and bucket keeps going to edge of screen, same with other direction.
I'll have to experiment but it ALMOST works!

Learned a TON today. woot!

1500points

@caver01 said in Ultimarc A-Pac with 5k Potentiometers:

@1500points Sounds like mixed news but maybe progress. I look forward to your final results, as I expect others who use analog sticks on gamepads might benefit from knowing how you have them configured in AdvanceMAME when all is said and done.

figured it out. it popped in my brain when we were out to eat.
There was still axis info in the TAB gui for the player 2 analog. set all the dec and asc entries to keyboard keys d and g.
Now the paddles work properly, all 4!

caver01

@1500points that’s awesome! When you get a chance, would you post the relevant entries from the .rc file?

1500points

@caver01 Sure enough, I will do a proper write-up from beginning to end next week. and post it. Nothing worse than finding something from a google search and it is a bunch of haphazard comments. :)

1500points

I'm back to this and just about ready to organize the content from start to finish.

I about have my homebrew Warlords cocktail built and running.
I need to figure out how to get Warlords working in lr-mame2003, since I discovered Advance MAME comes up with a goofy error when I set it to autostart to that rom in retropie.

caver01

@1500points Don't get your hopes up with lr-mame2003 right now. It has only ever allowed 1 mouse device to work--multiple mouse devices were all controlling a single XY set. You could split x and y to players 1 and 2 for certain games, but no way could you have 4 analog inputs. A recent update now broke some of this functionality, so only the first mouse device detected seems to work.

biglouieuk

This is great information, Ive been researching my build of a 4 player Warlords for a few months now. You seem to have learned a lot of stuff here! Watching to see your ground breaking progress, not many of these being built with 4 spinners! :-)