Double spinner configuration problem in MAME
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I recently upgraded my control panel connected to my RPi4 system running RetroPie with 2 GRS USB Button Hole Spinners, by ThunderStick. Each spinner has an individual read-out board that is connected to my RPi4 via a separate USB cable. I would like to play double-spinner arcade games like Arkanoid Returns, Blasteroids, Championship Sprint, etc. with the newest version of MAME (0.234), which I have running on my system.
I can see both spinners work properly by running cat /dev/input/mouse1 and cat /dev/input/mouse2 from the terminal. However, in the Pixel desktop, they both automatically control the horizontal direction of the mouse. Is there a way to have one of them control the vertical direction of the mouse instead? Perhaps with some kind of udev rule?
The issue I have now is, since both spinners control the horizontal direction of the mouse, when I configure the analog controls of a particular game in MAME, both spinners show up as "Mouse X". Therefore, both spinners control the same dial. The alternative is to use AdvanceMAME, in which the mapping of mouse devices can be configured to great detail. This indeed works, but AdvanceMAME is based on an ancient version of MAME. I would really like to use the most recent version of MAME, which runs fine on my system except for this double spinner issue...
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
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Do you have any control via configs?
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Spinners%2C-Trackballs%2C-Lightguns%2C-and-other-Mouse-Devices/ -
@iandaemon I have read that reference, but it only concerns the configuration of spinners, mice and trackballs in RetroArch, lr-mame2003 and AdvanceMAME. If there is a way to change the configuration of a mouse device through RetroPie itself, maybe that would solve this issue?
Normally, whenever I have run into problems, I look on forums etc. and usually you can find an answer. But I have not found anybody with this particular problem anywhere on the internet. I guess most people with 2 spinners connect them to the same read-out board and therefore don't run into this issue.
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I know with ipac boards you must set the spinner to an axis... X or Y.
It sounds like you need to actually configure the device itself to be Y. There's probably a way to do this in settings or if all else fails you could cross splice the wires for x and y. I would contact grs to verify the proper way.
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I managed to solve my issue by contacting GRS/ThunderStick support. If anybody else has this issue with a GRS USB Button Hole Spinner, apparantly the mouse axis that is controlled by the spinner can be changed by keeping both left and right mouse buttons which are connected to the spinner pressed for 10 seconds.
In my case this initially didn't work, it turns out the spinners I had purchased still had the old spinner readout PCBs. But GRS/ThunderStick support was nice enough to send me the latest version of the PCBs with FedEx, free of charge. It only took 5 days for the boards to arrive from their warehouse in Hong Kong to my mailbox in Amsterdam! So now I am finally able to play double-spinner arcade games as they are meant to be played :-)
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@gginelli can you take photos of the old vs new boards and identify any visual differences to help users determine which version they have?
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@mahoneyt944 Sorry, my explanation was not completely correct: It's the firmware that is updated, as far as I can see the PCB itself looks identical. But you can find out which firmware runs on your PCB, simply by pressing both mouse buttons simultaneously and keeping them pressed for 10 seconds. If this switches the mouse axis from horizontal to vertical, your PCB is running the latest firmware. Otherwise it still runs the old firmware.
Apparently there is no simple way to update the firmware yourself, they simply sent me a new PCB.
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