shaunopp

I want everyone here to say a little prayer in hopes that a Streetfighter IV PC version makes it out this winter so we can all play it on our cabs. Anyone else heard any rumors about release dates, system reqs etc...? http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3167970

I've tested the plugin pretty thoroughly now, in addition to testing the regular mame controller types I tested custom .um and .ugc files which worked great. The only game that didn't cooperate was Crazy Climber but it turns out that it has a weird mame configuration. For example, even though it's double 8-way joysticks you have to manually program Right and Left joystick directions manually specifically for Crazy Climber, you can't just rely on your default P1/P2 joystick configuration. Other double 8ways like Robotron don't seem to have this issue. The point I'm making here is that if it appears that the Plugin isn't setting the map correctly double check that is isn't a mame issue. Great job Headkaze, this is invaluable for people who have U360's w/Vista and your time working on it is greatly appreciated. Make my gaming life much more

So, here's the full scoop. There's a small shop by my house that sells old Dreamcast games cheap. I stumbled upon Soul Calibur and a couple other games I thought would be good in a cab for a couple bucks and I figured I'd grab'em and use with nulldc. I thought I could easily create self-booting .cdi's from them but apparently I missed the memo about that not working. Since that wasn't working (and I legally own a copy anyway) I grabbed a couple files online, one in .cdi format and the other cue/bin. Cdi seems to work fine but not the cue/bin. I found utilites like bin2boot and bin2boot gui which are supposed to convert the cue/bin's to .cdi's but they didn't work. I also tried mounting the cue/bin file and and creating a .cdi from it but obviously that didn't work either. What I don't understand is that if the cue/bin files don't work, why are they so prevalent online? I guess my solution is A.) Buy a legal version of the game. B.) Grab it's equivalent online but stick to self booting .cdi's.

I don't think an .img file will do me any good with nulldc. I haven't been able to get anything to work but a couple .cdi files that I already had. I've tried creating new .cdi images from an original disk with Diskjuggler but no luck with that either, null dc just sits on the music screen and hangs.

Anyone with experience making self bootable .cdi images from an original DC disk or converting BIN/CUE file to self bootable .cdi's? Utilities like bin2boot and bin2boot_gui are supposed to work for the latter but didn't for me. Haven't been able to successfully turn any of my other Dreamcast discs into bootable .cdi's either.

Edit:This comment is for beta 1.6 After setting Map Keys to: No and Advanced Config to: [Mappings Off] Exit {ALT+F4} hitting the ESC key in game exits nulldc back to GameEx normally. Is there a way to skip the date/select screen on startup in nulldc?

Thanks for the idea Brian, that would work if I didn't use my 2 Rumblepads as Player 3 and Player 4 for MAME. If I assigned keys across the board they'd conflict.

Since ePSXe was just updated I just updated and ran across a question that's been buggin me for awhile. Has anyone has been able to set up custom controls on a per rom basis? I thought I had it figured out as you can control the config through the command line but the controls are edited from the menu in-game and near as I can tell not part of the config. I like to use a gamepad for certain PS games and my actual arcade controls for others and it's a pain to reconfigure with each game.

That's great headkaze, seems to work suhweet!! I'll let you know if I find any snafu's but so far so good. Thanks for getting this figured out!

Excellent, tried this quick over lunch and everything worked well with a variety of games. Will test more tonight.

Oops, sorry about that. Correct log below. Running vanilla mame .122

Log file from test below. Ran a variety of games with different controls, Tron, Qbert, Space Invaders, Marvel vs. Street Fighter, Robotron, Galaga, Pacman etc...

Hey Headkaze, thanks for the updates. I've given this the go-through, results below: The UltraStik test utility works perfectly. I was able to run it side by side with Ultramap and set every map type, including customs successfully. Not sure what the 'Set Flash' and 'Set Ram' do. Upon launching GameEx joys successfully changed to joy4way and successfully changed to mouse upon exit. Upon launching any Mame game, the joys stubbornly stayed in 4 way mode. Tried changing Mame's default to joy8way in the init file, didn't work. Tried custom rom entries, ie. robotron=joy4way and robotron=testcustom.um, didn't work. Initially in addition to staying in 4 way mode the joystick was drifting rather sharply. Found the following entries in the mame.ini file for digital joys: joystick_map auto joystick_deadzone 0.3 joystick_saturation 0.85 Removing them fixed this problem but the joy remains in 4 way mode. Tried leaving just joystick_map setting on auto and set to 0 and 1 but didn't seem to have an effect. Turned on debug mode and tested 4 games, none of them show a joystick type, only rom names along with their clones in hash marks. Oddly, the 1943 dialog showed before the game launched but was blank. See below: /xmvsfu/xmvsf (Xmen vs. Street Fighter) /pacman/puckman (Pacman) /robotron/ (robotron) blank (1943) Not sure how you implemented loading of .ugc files, so I didn't test that. That's all I got. The utility works perfectly. Note for others testing that the change isn't reflected in the dropdown menu in UltraMap, the only way to see the joy has been remapped is to look at the crosshair in UltraMap and move the joystick. Custom map with directions inverted below. Seem to be getting closer.

--> Insert evil laugh here <---

Yes, alpha channels purty please. While we're at it, full control of sizing, positioning and what menu items appear. Just some suggestions, happy to get whatever though. GameEx is such a cool tool it makes me sad not being able to give it a fully tricked out theme. Don't underestimate the power of eye candy, if you build it they will come.

Anyone else noticed GameEx waits for the Video Preview to play to completion before launching a game? I see the launching info immediately onscreen and can hear the video preview playing in the background but the game only launches after the video preview has played to completion. Not a show stopper but annoying.

Thanks a lot Brian, now that I know you have twins I'm going to feel guilty every time you answer one of my questions! Stealin' time from the kids. It's all about balance, we all have x amount of time to spend on our hobbies vs other obligations. Contrary to 'sad news' I think it's actually good news that he realized his family obligations are suffering and is fixing it.

Why all the drama and cryptic 'That's all I can say on this forum'? I thought he died or something. He's just stepping back and refocusing his priorities, good for him!

Yeah, mine 'dim out' like that on 3 different cabs i've built with them and hitting the button fixes it temporarily. Kind of a pain though. I like the chrome trim and illumination but not the button action, just not the same. Anyway, nice cab!

Nice cab Zombie, well done! How do you like your Ultimarc buttons? I notice in one of the pics one appears dimmer than the others. This is a problem I've had with mine, and I've rewired them a couple times. I haven't been entirely happy with the feel of them for button mashing games like Joust either. The spring action seems different than a regular concave Happ button. Thinking of swapping mine out for Groovy Game Gear ones which seem to be similar to the traditional Happ ones. I think they're great for 'admin' type buttons but not as good for games.

Just gave this new version a thorough testing and it is changing some UltraStik mappings, unfortunately it's not changing them per the mameinfo.dat or PlugInUltraStik.ini. I started with my UltraStiks in 8 Way Easy Diagonal modes programmed with Ultramap and confirmed they were working. I copied all of the files from the attachment above to the GameEx-->PlugIns folder. I also built a custom map with UltraMap, named it testcustommap.um (it has all directions inverted for easy testing), confirmed that it worked and moved it into the GameEx-->PlugIns-->UltraStikMaps folder. I then turned on the Plugin and fired up GameEx. No matter the game, it appears to stay in joy4way mode. I tried changing all of the defaults in the PlugInUltraStik.ini file to joy8way and/or easyjoy8way and this had no effect. I also tried a custom entry (for the robotron since it's the easiest to tell if 8 way is working) robotron=joy8way which had no effect. I also tried my custom map on several roms (robotron=testcustommap.um) but that had no effect. The plugin does accurately change to 'mouse' mode upon exiting GameEx. Seems like you're close, it's obviously changing the UltraStik maps, just not accurately.

Sorry for the late reply on this, just got back from a week long vacation yesterday. I've given this some pretty thorough testing and it still doesn't seem to work. This thread is getting a little confusing since there's many versions of the files floating around so let me try and take some inventory and clarify what is here. Stickied File - Oggalz originally posted an updated (improved) version of Cupid's UltraStik plugin which seems to work well for non-Vista users and is currently posted under the user plug-in's section. This version should be updated by the mods to include the GPL licensing info, a version of which is found in this thread. Page 1 of this thread - Oggalz posted a beta Vista version for testing in this thread. This zip file DIDN'T contain the PlugInUltraStick.ini (apparently so those with the plugin already installed wouldn't overwrite it) but DID contain a file named libusb0.dll that isn't in the original (presumably for the Vista version?). Page 2 of this thread - First Oggalz posted a revised version which included the GPL licensing, .ini and source files. Later on page 2 he posted another revision which contains a new setControls.exe and ICSSharpCode.USB.dll. Page 3 of this thread - Oggalz posted a revised version which contains another new setControls.exe and ICSSharpCode.USBlib.dll. TimmyB also posted a revised setControls.exe file along with a USBHIDDevice.cs file. Ok, hopefully that clarifies all that is posted so someone coming across this has some idea what to download, hopefully once resolved it can be rolled into a release of GameEx. The 5 main files are: ICSharpCode.USBlib.dll libusb.dll PlugInUltraStik.dll PlugInUltraStik.ini SetControls.exe The most complete .zip file is the first one on page 2 of this thread. As far as I can tell these should just float in the GameEx-->PlugIns folder. TIP: The zip file contain libusb0.dll, you must change the name to libusb.dll or you'll get exception errors or hang setControls.exe. Timmy mentions this above but he calls them usblib0.dll and usblib.dll (i think this was a typo on his part). Below are results from my testing. I copied each set of files progressively from this thread and tested each, none of which worked for me. From within GameEx, the UltraStiks did not switch maps with each Mame game change, whatever it's set to in UltraMap is what it stays. When in debug mode, the dialog boxes in GameEx showed that it was trying to set the controls differently (ie. it would say joy8way for 1943) but the mode isn't changed when debug mode is turned off. Another oddity was that the dialogue box notifying me of the joystick change wouldn't show until I exited a game and many times it was wrong (ie. it said it was setting analog for pacman and 1943 rather than joy4way and joy8way). Manually changiing the .ini file (ie. pacman=joy4way) made no difference, it still reported it was attempting to set to analog. This was the same for all versions including TimmyB's. I am able to see and change my UltraStik maps with UltraMap no problem and they both show in device manager without ! problems. Trying to change modes via a command line yielded the following results with no effect on the mode of the joysticks: Detecting Ultrastiks... 2 Ultrastiks found * Ultrastik #1 - Vendor ID:d209, Product ID:0501 * Ultrastik #2 - Vendor ID:d209, Product ID:0502 Done. This was for both setcontrols.exe mouse and setcontrols.exe debug. And if libusb.dll is named libusb0.dll I received exception errors and/or crashed setcontrols.exe I have no idea what the USBHIDDevice.cs is or where it should go, maybe TimmyB can clarify. That's about all I got. Not sure what the problem is. Thanks TimmyB for trying to fix, it's a key feature for everyone with UltraStiks so it's much appreciated and hopefully we can get it resolved.

All your base are belong to us!!! Haven't seen a post from Spoonch in awhile and it cracks me up everytime. Sorry Spoonch you need better translation software, your posts are gibberish.

Personally I blame Tempest for the spike in posts.

The fact that you didn't Google 'xpadder' or type xpadder.com into a browser before asking for a link leads me believe that you indeed like things simple. As kenobi says GameEx requires that you press a modifier key to trigger alpha paging. You'd somehow have to rig up your second controller so that when the joystick was moved up or down it would trigger the alpha key + movement. Xpadder will do this. IMO it seems like a long way to go to avoid pressing a button while you scroll. Is it really THAT much simpler? We're talking one button here. Tom, it may be nice if GameEx had a tick box pref for alpha paging to be 'always on'.