Just added Wiki page for Spinners and Trackballs

caver01

I usually jump in and help folks who post messages about trying to setup arcade trackballs and spinners. Until recent updates to lr-mame2003 (thanks @dankcushions!) the best option was to use AdvanceMAME. This can be a tricky configuration for some folks, but I have had a lot of success over the past year, and although I have posted several tips for people who had questions, I decided to share the love and add a wiki page. I hope I did an OK job.

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Spinners-and-Trackballs

I just recompiled 2003 to test the recent updates for mouse support, so I may have more to add with respect to lr-mame2003, but for now, this should help folks get their spinners and trackballs up and running in AdvanceMAME.

caver01

@caver01 It looks like lr-mame2003 is a good option for single-player (EDIT: and now, 2-player spinner) games (non-vector) that use trackball/spinner.

However, anything that requires multiple spinners for head-to-head action (like Championship Sprint, Blasteroids, Off the Wall (sente) -- these games map player 1 spinner (x-axis). If you have a second spinner on the y-axis, it won't work (EDIT: It does now!). Player two controls are ~~simply not~~ seeing ~~any~~ analog action. EDIT: It looks like an even more recent update to lr-mame2003 will allow Player 2 spinner to work with the y-axis! This is very good news.

That's OK, because the wiki I wrote above still applies, and you can get almost any combination of mouse inputs to work in AdvanceMAME. Still, it's a great start for mame2003!

caver01

I fixed a couple of typos in this wiki page. Normally not a big deal, but one of them was the index number on the fourth mouse. I had it as device_raw_mousetype[4] ps2 when it should have been device_raw_mousetype[3] ps2 (we have a mouse defined on 0,1,2,3, not 0,1,2,4). Anyway, if someone was following along in their config and needed that fourth mouse, it should be on index 3 for the rest of my config edits to work. Sorry. Hopefully I caught it before anyone ran into problems.

caver01

Updated the Spinners and Trackballs wiki page with following changes/additions:

Called out lr-mame2003 as first choice for spinners and trackball support with references to the core option and links back to that wiki page. With the most recent updates, lr-mame2003 is now a very capable choice when it comes to analog input. It is even 2-player friendly!
Described AdvanceMAME as an option for more advanced configurations (where one might reach the configurable limits of lr-mame2003.
Added a section describing the use of the advm tool in the AdvanceMAME binaries collection to check/test/troubleshoot mouse input for AdvanceMAME. This can be handy for fine-tuning a config or for checking the mouse index of a given control from AdvanceMAME's perspective.

briankross

@caver01

Great work, awesome resource! I'm almost embarrassed to ask, but since I've been using a pre-made image of RetroPie v3.8.1, I'm assuming I need to update lr-mame2003 to use a trackball. Does this involve manual compiling or does this have something to do with the setup script I hear about every now and again.

Again, sorry if it's a dumb question. Until now I haven't had to unveil updating and want to do it right the first time.

caver01

@briankross You can update binaries now. For a while, it was just source, but it's all caught up now.

I am not sure if you have to update the retropie script first or not. In other words, does it get the latest binary when you update an emulator from binaries, or will it simply fetch the same file it already has if you don't first update the retropie script? I just don't know. Updating the binary is so quick, you can just try it and find out.

caver01

To be clearer, you need to go to the RetroPie menu, open RetroPie setup and navigate through the text-gui menus and update emulators from binary, find lr-mame2003 and update it from binary. It should take a moment, then just escape back out to Emulation Station and try it.

With the updated RetroPie script (4.x) it's a different set of menus. I think in the long run, 4.x might make more sense.

briankross

@caver01

Okay I'm tracking now, I did this for apple2. It sounds like I'm not necessarily updating RetroPie, just the emulator, that I can do I think, I'll give it a shot.

Thanks again.