advmame space war buttons configuration

paulace55

Hi,
I posted a couple years ago with this same problem, and at the time there weren't any solutions, so I was wondering if that has changed in the interval. My problem is that I'm trying to play the vector game Space War in advmame (latest version as of 3/12/20) in Retropie v 4.2. I have an arcade cabinet with 2 digital joysticks, 14 buttons. The game plays fine and looks and sounds great, but in order to set the physics of the space you're playing in at the start of a game, the real arcade machine has 10 buttons that let you choose stuff like whether shots wrap around the screen, whether the sun pulls or pushes you, whether you drift or not, etc.
If I use the Tab menu in advmame, I can indeed set buttons on a wireless keyboard to simulate those 10 buttons. But when I exit the game, the configs for those buttons are lost....not the configs for the joysticks and 3 buttons that move the ships (thrust, fire, hyperspace) - those remain. But the settings for the 10 other buttons disappear.
I've played around with the .rc file alot, for this game and others, for both controller configs and display settings, but I don't know how to write something to account for those 10 buttons.

These are an example of the lines in my .rc file for spacewar:

spacewar/input_map[p2_button2] joystick_button[0079_0006_2,3]
spacewar/input_map[p2_right] joystick_digital[0079_0006_2,0,1,0]

That's how I've been writing configs for buttons and joysticks in the .rc file. But I can't figure out how to write something that tells advmame about those other 10 buttons (and the reset button, though I know that's been discussed already). I've played with permissions for the .rc file, thinking maybe I just wasn't allowed to save these changes, but no luck there.

I do notice that when I'm in the Tab menu setting the buttons up for this one game, those 10 buttons are by default: 0_pad, 1_pad, etc. Does that mean anything - is the rom set up to only use keypad numbers?

I've done configs in the .rc file for all the other games - but this one has eluded me. Anybody have any ideas what, if anything, can be done? caver01?

Thanks, in advance.

quicksilver

Have you tried using lr-mame2003-plus? About a year ago it got a huge update that put its vector emulation on par with advmame. Configuration might be easier.

paulace55

Thanks for replying, @quicksilver. No, I use lr-mame2003 for most of my games, but haven't looked into the "plus" version of it. I love the look of advmame on the vector games, so I've been using that. But I'll look into lr-mame2203-plus and see what advances they've made in drawing vector games.

I did have a sort of breakthrough, though. After my last post, I was wondering about why the default controls for those 10 buttons in the Tab menu were number pad numbers, as opposed to regular keyboard numbers. I have a USB keypad (just the numbers) and hooked that up to my arcade machine through a USB port I put in the front, and lo and behold - Space War works just like that. I just have to have the USB keypad hooked up to select the game physics. I was hoping to be able to use buttons on the arcade control panel to do that, and I still don't understand why I can't save button configurations with either the Tab menu or the .rc file.....but I can live with this USB keypad solution.

I learned a long time ago that the workings of the universe aren't contingent upon my understand of them (thankfully).

grant2258

The game is mapped like that in the driver to the keypad in 2003 anyway best to use the tab menu. It doesnt bind these to any joystick buttons.

paulace55

@grant2258 I didn't know how flexible the key mappings were. Its default mappings in advmame are to the keypad numbers, but I didn't know if I could change them or not. It appears not. I could just change them temporarily, but it never held when re-starting the game, whether using the Tab menu or the .rc file.

grant2258

Well the biggest problem its mapped to IPT_OTHER see here. https://github.com/amadvance/advancemame/blob/fa0e6e536b50c1ea81c31089e85b0afb5465fe92/src/drivers/cinemat.c#L371-L386 I would post an issue on the github if i was you and maybe they can advise you on this port how to remap IPT_OTHER

paulace55

@grant2258 Thanks Grant. I can't understand what's in that link, I'm afraid....beyond my pay-grade. But I'm OK with using the USB keypad to make it work.