bkenobi

You might want to look into XPadder. With that, you can convert the steering wheel controls to keypad actions which might make navigation in GameEx acceptable. I used a combination of AutoHotKey scripts, XPadder, Custom GameEx inputs, Batch files, etc to get the controls to work the way I wanted them in my main and driving cabs.

The MAME team has update the format for CHD's at least a couple times in the last few years. I don't recall what MAME versions the switches occured at, but I know that my 0.99 set would certainly fail if I tried to run it under the latest MAME. I don't know that there is any improvement in gameplay when going from one CHD format to another so I don't know if upgrading is worth it. For at least one of these upgrades, it was possible to use the CHD tool that comes with MAME to "fix" your files. I believe I just obtained a new set instead, but fixing may be easier depending on your connection.

NM

TMNT 2 - battle nexus is available on multiple platforms (Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Windows). Can I assume that you are using the Windows version rather than trying PS2, for instance? Two thoughts here. If you are using the Windows version...PPJoy is probably the best option. That will create one or more virtual joysticks that can be mapped to keyboard or other joystick physical inputs. When you use the physical inputs, Windows will see them as both the original and the virtual joystick. If you set up TMNT to look for the virtual joystick, you should be good. If you are using the Windows version, you could try the PS2 version. I know some people have had good luck running PS2 on their systems over MAME versions. If I had a choice, I'd prefer the Windows version, but this might be a viable backup option. One down side is that you may still need to use PPJoy depending on how your PS2 emulator handles input. Some emulators will only allow input from the keyboard from a single user (just like you are experiencing now). PPJoy was originally designed as a parallel port joystick utility. It has been extended to work with keyboard and gamepads as well, but many of those features are hacks or add-ons. That being said, PPJoy has a lot of capability that you should definitely check out.

IIRC, AimTrak only has 1 button enabled by default. You can use several more, but that might be something worth checking. There is a second header with more buttons, but the primary header and wiring bundle only includes the first button. If you bought a complete gun kit, this shouldn't be the problem.

When I configure my guns, the axis isn't always picked up correctly by MAME. Most of the time I find that it will pick up both x- and y-axis. The buttuns aren't a problem for me. When I do configure the guns (when the config breaks), I attempt MAME config and then find the mouse and keyboard or log in remotely to fix the config file. MAME holding the config is the problem I've always had with guns. For whatever reason, it drops the config for no reason I can determine.

The problem is 2 fold. 1) Getting the gun to work. This can be challenging with the way MAME is built without having a raw interface if you are using older guns and drivers. If you use an AIMTRAK, this probably won't be an issue since you can tell it how you want it to appear in windows. No drivers, just an HID device. 2) Keeping the gun working. If you don't change anything, this is not an issue. If you update MAME periodically, then you might have problems. When I had things working, it was when things were left alone. As soon as I changed anything (seemingly), it broke the guns. They are currently working fine, but making changes to other things tends to break the guns from my experience.

FWIW, HK's method is how I got my guns working again. Supposedly (from reading a few threads at BYOAC), the newest versions of MAME will work with guns again, but I haven't tried it. Since I compile my own version of MAME anyway, I just used HK's approach.

Never played with the guns with non-MAME emulators. It was hard enough in MAME that I didn't even try elsewhere. Well, I did try in Model2, but that was a failure.

I got my guns working again for the party I had last weekend. Course, no one played with them, but they were available. I had an axis set up wrong on one gun and the game I was primarily testing on...doesn't even work in MAME correctly yet. In the long run, if you don't have guns now I'd suggest staying as far away as possible! They are fun, but probably the single most frustrating thing I've run across in emulation!

ZiNc was awesome before MAME could play them at full speed. I still have ZiNc configured cause I don't think my PC is up to the task. I'd second trying them in MAME before messing with ZiNc though. Setting up the controls = SHIT. DEFINITELY easier in MAME!

CFG Magician can help with remapping buttons like this. It's not ideal, but may be an option. Also, you can use the Wingman tool to remap the HID ID. That can be automated if it's consistent.

Yup, just checking.

Future use, or are you expecting all users to go back and edit all threads they ever created?

FWIW, I think the titles that are not included in those sets are Japanese/Brazillian/etc that also have a Universal/US counterpart. As such, the same video could be used for both (although the language/text might appear different for obvious reasons). If so, you could possibly use SkinyMatch to duplicate the videos for the additional region title that you are trying to find a video for.

Check out CFG Magician by Tempest. It can do tons of things including what you are asking for.

Saw that a while back, but there was no movie trailer. Now that I see it, looks like it could be a fun movie.

Very true. I only own one at the moment because the ones I want are rare and expensive (compared to my desired price point). I get to play them once a year when I go to the NW Pinball show in Seattle (this weekend FWIW). That's where I played the VPin machines and was able to compare them to the originals next to each other, effectively. I think the VPin is an awesome concept and is much better than playing on a PC with the ctrl buttons and space bar, but it falls short of my vision, unfortunately. Now mind you, if I were given one or could pick one up for the right price, I'd be all over one. But, when I have looked at the cost of parts to build my own, I always come back to the fact that I could buy one or two real pins for the cost. Monitors have come way down in price, so the number of real pins is certainly less now, but the rational is still there. Anyway, yours looks great and should provide a lot of fun play especially with groups! And, not insignificantly, the maintenance on the VPin is much less than a real pin so it should be GREAT in the long run (when parts become even more rare)!

I'm torn on Pin cabs. I love pinball and the idea of having all the good ones in a physical cab is awesome! But, when I've played them, they generally fall short of my expectations as far as game play. I wish I enjoyed playing them, cause this is the type of project I really want to build. Unfortunately, I know I would be disappointed in the final game play. <sigh> Nice implementation though!

If anyone was curious what the original pin looked like... http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2344 http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=5733

I'm not a theme virtuoso, thus this is probably a simple question. I am running 4:3 on my systems. I see the images you are uploading are 4:3 but the actual theme is 1920x1080. Is there a simple switch in the theme editor to make this theme 4:3 (like you are uploading) where everything will line up like you have it? I assume you are probably just screen capture and stretching for the images you are uploading.

A lot of times performing a manual update will correct this. I had this problem a while back and it turned out that the automatic update install was hanging because it needed some manual input. Once I performed the manual update, everything was good to go.

Was this uploaded somewhere? I just checked both the theme competition thread as well as the main web site in themes and I don't see it. Did you change your mind about uploading if for now?

While everything you have posted looks awesom... have to admit, I'm a little disapointed. I thought this would be available in 4:3. All the systems you are using in the theme are 4:3 (or 3:4 for vertical MAME) and all the screen shots were 4:3 as well. Is there a way within the theme to force things to stretch? Or, will GameEx load it correctly automatically in 4:3?

Yeah, include MAME and the most common console and handheld systems from the big manufacturers (Sega, Sony, Nintendo, Atari, etc). The more obscure stuff is awesome, but my guess is that many people would find these take up a lot of space that they won't necessarily see the benefit from. Of course, if it were that big a deal, those people could always just modify the theme to remove the ones they don't need. A couple questions on the Game Gear. Is there a reason the system is squished? Who is that character? I've never seen the star guy, so I guess I wouldn't consider him to be the marquee character for the system. Really looking forward to the release. Awesome!