shbon

No, that's what I'm getting at. Let windows stop playing with itself first (after it couldn't find anything) and then plug in the Opti. This should bring up another found new hardware cycle... Edit: When it reports it can't find anything, cancel, it will say the device may not function correctly, blah, blah. Click OK, wait for things to settle and then plug in opti.

Found new hardware? What has it found? You've not got the Opti-pac plugged in at this point, have you! How did you respond to the found new hardware message box?

Possible to short something, but no damage should occur. So there is nothing in USB devices saying 'unknown device'? Only persuing this, because you've had it working once!!!

You're not uninstalling IT, just the driver it tried to install. Have a look at 2&3 from above.., it's possible XP has ballsed up the USB recognition process, trying to discount that. We're trying to delete the mess and start again...

The fact that it's recognised it once means it can do it again. Try this: 1. Unplug trackball from computer 2. From control panel, choose system, hardware tab, device manager button. 3. In USB controllers you'll probably see your 'unknown device' - that's the trackball 4. Uninstall it. 5. Reboot machine 6. Plug in trackball and see if you get it recognised. You might try repeating a couple of times before trying something else... Shaun

The in-menu stuff comes from gameslist.txt in GameEx/DATA. This is generated when you update MAME GameList. When you update gameslist, Gameex collects info from catver.ini, nplayers.ini, history.dat, mameinfo.dat, controls.dat. I think it generates its own copy of listinfo.dat (command line: mame -lx)? It then combines all this info into gameslist.txt. All of my files are in GameEx/DATA. You have to specify where these files reside via the gameex config app AdvancedMame section. I think some of the above files you have to provide yourself, but they're easily available. Shaun

You're wiring descritpion seems fine. I'd mail Andy @ Ultimarc, katuuuz, he'll put you right if you get no joy at arcadecontrols... It should just recognise it as a mouse. No external drivers are needed...

My unused Opti-PAC already has the jumper set in a right place - TO THE LEFT, so that there is an exposed pin TO THE RIGHT (when looking at the unit with the text the proper way up). The jumper is a simple shorting plug to connect certain pins together to form an optional part of the circuitry. Pull the red plug off with your fingernails (there's a little groove at the top to help you). Exposed will be three pins (prongs). These represent TWO optional configurations. By inserting the plug you're sort of joining a pair of pins together, making a connection, but leaving the other connection open (not used). Insert the plug on the other pins, connects those pins instead for the other option. The bottom set of pins TBALL represents the trackball. It is effectively a dip-switch!!! I've personally enjoyed your posts, so I hope everything turns out as you dreamt it would... BTW. There is a section in the install doc you mention (near the bottom) explaining A/LO A/HI settings!... Regards Shaun

Found a minor bug with the screensaver, no worries, but just reporting... If you have the screensaver OFF in config, but show Start Screensaver menu ON, you can reproduce the following behaviour: Load GameEx and start the screensaver (I was showing friends the functionality, but don't use it myself normally). The screensaver starts fine. When you exit the screensaver it exits fine, but after 3-4 seconds it comes back on again! It will do this repeatedly. You can even EXIT GameEx and reach the windows desktop and the screensaver will still fire up!!! After a couple of rounds of this, GameEx crashes and you get control of your machine back. Repeatable with latest version. Doesn't happen if screensaver set to 2 mins or whatever in config. Shaun

Hmmm... Are you sure about that for their current super model. http://www.happcontrols.com/joysticks/super_joy_e.htm The exploded seems to show a profiled actuator. The product writeup does seem to suggest you can just 'flip' http://www.happcontrols.com/joysticks/super_joy.htm Might be wrong though... Shaun

Neither am I, I haven't got one. My guess is there's a plastic plate on the underside of the joystick, held with retaining screws. It should swivel if you loosen the screws, allowing you to change the plate to a different angle... Edit: Looks like yours has an actuator instead of physical restrictor plate. The actuator is the little bit on the end of the joystick that 's making contact with the switches. I assume you can 'flip' this in some way so that it makes contact with two switches at once? Shaun

Not sure you can via an option, it annoys me a bit aswell... If nobody comes up with an answer and you use the Windows Media Player Library to play your stuff there's a fanastic kludge I found a while back! Create a playlist in WMP with no songs (or one song then delete the song) and use that as the jukebox playlist via the config app audio settings. Also set the Play Music/Radio on startup, but disable the Radio in Multimedia. This forces GameEx to 'play' your empty playlist!. Going to the Jukebox menu maintains the silence! Downside: GameEx will load WMP (and its database?) during startup. This slows my load down a bit, so I decided just to let the music play in the end! Unfortunately if you don't have music playing at startup, entering the jukebox still plays all tunes by default. Might need to be a feature request... Shaun

Might be the wrong 'type'. Some are designed to spin on and on, some aren't. Sorry, don't know much about trackballs but I did read it somewhere...

Probably 4 then. Flip it and see...

A few things to comment on here. The answer to your question is you need to use config/custominput.ini. Once setup, you need to enable custom keyboard inputs via the config app as NoLogic intimates. In another post, you talk about "needing a [separate] enter button". This isn't necessary. Most of this software your using, including the IPAC, has keypress mapping functionality that allows you to double up button usage and streamline the amount of buttons you actually need. For instance, my fire button (1SW1 / MAME=LCtrl) is setup as GameEx's ENTER key. My 1SW2 button (MAME=LAlt) is set up as the GameEx back button. Thus, most of the time I just navigate GameEx using the joystick and button 1 and 2... You also need to know about the IPAC SHIFT function and custom mapping winIPAC software. Do some research on these, if you don't know about them... Attached is my IPAC control panel mapping sheet. It shows how I've configured my IPAC to run across the different emulators and GameEx. It's slightly incomplete, but you get the picture. You need to plan this stage quite carefully to maximise the efficiency of the IPAC and your CP. Slow down a bit!!!! Shaun Control_Panel_Mapping.pdf

There's a Reset function. Game starts when you reset console. Default is F3. You can change this like you've done with fire, direction buttons etc... Shaun

By default GameEx will try to show the in game control panel when using the L key. (Doesn't look like yours is working though!). To change this you need to change the value of the Advanced MAME: Ingame CP View VK field via the GameEx config application. If you never want to see the CP ingame just blank the field. You can also reassign the VK (Virtual Key) to another value. Look in GameEx/CONFIG/EMULATORS/VKCodes.htm for translations... Shaun

On first inspection, it seems to work! Not sure why? Nice tip though!

A bit one sided on first read, but you'd expect that given its written by O&O Defrag! I'd say in balance that having a badly fragged drive is a valid test, but shouldn't be the only real world example. Defragging is more about good disk mgmt: doing it regularly and from the start of a drive's life. If a drive's got low defragmentation levels, ANY product, even the inbuilt XP version, will work well and keep everything running smoothly... My drive is automatically defragged in background by Diskkeeper so I don't normally have any fragmented files. O&O ain't going to better that! Concede that O&O can maybe handle a badly fragged partition better, but that's irrelevant to anybody who defragments regularly... Shaun

The IPAC actually has two GND terminals, but they don't really relate to P1 or P2. They are equivalent and connected. It doesn't matter which one you use. As long as the terminal you've attached all your ground wires too says GND you're fine. (The IPAC has more than one GND terminal because people sometimes don't do a complete daisy chain like you've done. They may have several independent grounding wires running to the IPAC) Shaun

I use diskkeeper aswell. Has O&O got something DK's not got?

Just a comment on your start_proj64.bat i think you can pass parameters into the batch file - %1%, %2% etc... Hence you could have a generic start.bat: start.bat "proj64" 2 and : set _j2k_home=%1% set _delay=%2% etc... or something like that??? Shaun

No, It'll be your little secret! The colors only represent wiring convention (a bit like the standard wire colors in a mains plug). The wires, as far as you're concerned for this project, are electrically equivalent, regardless of color! Shaun

Windows XP Pro... Not to put the wind up you, but http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-484854.php Try googling BugSolver.exe - a lot of HiJackThis stuff. Don't think it's part of Windows. (I might be wrong though...) EDIT: AlienAutopsy comes up a lot... EDIT2: I think you've got an Alien brand 'puter. Looks like their bug tracker software can cause problems ... http://boards.filefront.com/showthread.php?t=234442 Just disable it. EDIT3: Ah, I think I might understand. I think GameEx might do a taskkill equivalent on VPinball.exe to get rid of it and this is being 'caught' by your 'puters 'Dr Watson' type bug solving software... Conceivable? Shaun

You can bazooka the stubborn EXEs as suggested, but probably better to find out what's wrong in the first place. Does this BugSolver.exe need to be running. What happens if it's not running when you fire up GameEx? Also check VP works properly, independently of GameEx... Must admit though, that most of my tables are the old ones and hence I don't use vPinMAME that often... Shaun