Jump to content
SpesoftPinballXConvert-It

All my products and services are free. All my costs are met by donations I receive from my users. If you enjoy using any of my products, please donate to support me. My bare hosting costs are currently not met so please consider becoming a contibuting member by either clicking this text or the Patreon link on the right.

Patreon

If neither of those of work for you, you can donate any amount by clicking here.

[RESOLVED] Cannot set up trackball or lightgun in GameEx

Greego

By Greego
in General

 Share

Recommended Posts

Greego Super Member!

Greego

Posted
Posted

When I initially setup GameEx a couple of weeks or so ago, I set up my lightgun and trackball without much difficulty. However, I had to completely re-install Windows followed by a re-installation of GameEx on my pc last week due to an error message that wouldn't allow me to boot up GameEx any longer. In any event, my non-trackball and non-lightgun games play just fine but every since the re-install, I cannot register or set up my trackball/lightgun through GameEx.

I can set up both lightgun and trackball in Mame from the desktop. however, when I boot up GameEx, the changes I made in Mame from the desktop do not transfer into GameEx. When I try to set them up in Gameex, using the Mame menu (by pressing Tab and going to General Input or Input for This Maxchine), my track ball and lightgun movements are not even registered. Strangely, if I highlight Trackball X or Y axis and move the trackball accordingly, another, lighter highlight line appears below the one used to set up the trackball or lightgun and it will move up and down the menu list when I roll the trackball but it does not get registered as an input for setting up the X or y axis movement for the lightgun or trackball. In other words, when I highlight Trackball X, press enter on the keyboard and then rotate the trackball to the right in order to set up the X axis for the trackball, another, lighter highlight line may appear instead and that line may simply move up and down the list of items in the menu instead of being registered as the X axis movement for the trackball.  My ini file is listed below and I have set up the batch file similar to how I did it when I initially set up GameEx. Matter-of-fact, I have even tried copying and pasting my old Mame configuration file from my initial Mame/GameEx setup (the one in which the lightgun and trackball easily registered and worked inside of GameEx) but even that did not work. Again, below is my ini file. Can someone help me?

 

  Reveal hidden contents
Greego Super Member!

Greego

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Just to be on the safe side, I decided to also include my Mame configuration settings.

 

  Reveal hidden contents
Greego Super Member!

Greego

Posted
  • Author
Posted

 

My Setup Wizard looks a bit different than the one displayed in the link. I have the Setup Wizard 3.0.0. by default, under Gamepad Device to use under the Input Settings section, "-use all attached devices-" is selected. Matter-of-fact, everything in the section has "yes" selected. 

 

I am pretty sure it is something very simple such as you suggested, most likely since I wasn't having these issues the first time I set it up. Thanks.

DazzleHP GameEx God (Top Rank)

DazzleHP

Posted
Posted

Load the Setup Wizard,

Choose Custom.

Click the 'Next Arrow' (->)

Then, "Clear All' OR/THEN select Input Settings.

Examine this page carefully. You should start with changing "Trackball Support".

Reboot GameEx and go from there. ;)

 

 

 

Greego Super Member!

Greego

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 3/30/2017 at 4:42 PM, DazzleHP said:

 

 

Expand  

Thanks, guys. 'precitate it...

 

Hey, before any one of you mark this as resolved, is there a way I can sharpen up the resolution of Mame through Gameex? I am not sure how to do it through Mame. I have Mame64 and the information online seems to not coincide with the menus in Mame63. In GameEx display settings in the Set Up wizard, I selected "Gameex won't change resolution" which, if I understand correctly, means GameEx will default to my display's Native resolution which is 1920 X 1080. I am running a Nvidia GeForce 750 ti graphics card as well.

 

I don't know, I recall these games looking much sharper in the arcade 30 years ago. I figure with the technology I am working with now, the graphics should look much sharper. It is quite pixelated. I can still enjoy them but, the online videos I have seen show much sharper graphics.

The graphics only look pixelated for my Mame games which I run through the GameEx Aracade Edition. My Nintendo and N64 games in the GamEx standard edition look fine.

tthurman GameEx God (Top Rank)

tthurman

Posted
Posted

So did Dazzle's solution get you fixed up?  I haven't used a version of GameEx with the new wizard, which keeps me from being much help.

As for the resolution, a modern display is going to be pretty much pixel perfect, but will not create the vibrant color the CRT did.  That and the phosphor glow I believe create an illusion of sharpness, that is really more of a blurring together that LCD technology doesn't inherently create.  If anything I've always felt the LCD produced a much sharper picture, which takes away the effect I grew up with in 80's arcade boom. 

Do you have your display set to "just scan" so you're not over or under scanning?

 

  • Like 1
Greego Super Member!

Greego

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Well, I had to pretty much re-install GameEx again. I find it is necessary sometimes (although a major pain) when I run into a hiccup because there seems to be no great way to troubleshoot all of these moving parts when something goes wrong and lets face it, this isn't the busiest forum on the internet. :) Although somewhat of a pain, just starting from the top seems to be the path of least resistance sometimes when I ran into trouble.

Once, I re-installed GameEx, I focused on the Input Settings screen and made sure the Trackball support was on but what I noticed was that some of the things that seem to have had "yes" on as a default answer after my last re-install, automatically had "No" selected as default. I am not sure exactly what did it but I just worked through that Input Settings section as you two suggested and I came out on top somehow. I think it was making some things "No" when they said "Yes." Basically, when she says "yes" she really means "no..."

 

I think I am like 98% there now. I can't believe it after all of this time. Check out my new, beautiful GameEx/Mame arcade cabinet below.

 

I put more work into it than actually raising my own kid and my career. All I need to do is add Dragon's Lair and tweak the resolutions and I am done completely. Keep in mind that all I knew before starting this project was console gaming and I had never even built a PC before. I built the PC, the cabinet with no help, added the peripherals, hunted down the games, etc. It has a lightgun, spinner, and steering wheel that can be placed on the spinner and pedals for driving and reloading in Time Crisis.

It was about two months of mind-numbing and mentally abusive work.  It meant a lot to me though since I love gaming but got too busy with my career to continue console gaming so it's nice to be able to get a short game of Centipede or Arkanoid in at the end of a long day without having to commit to a 30 minute stage of some single-player console game. Also, since I grew up so poor, I could only afford to watch other kids play these games in the arcade when I was growing up so this cabinet set up is a symbol of how hard I have worked.

 

BTW, what do you mean by "pixel perfect?" Are you saying that my graphics may be as good as it gets? My display is actually a flat screen TV. I wish I would have shopped around a bit for a actual monitor but I was spending so much time learning about all of this stuff that I didn't want to agonize over a monitor selection.

 

 

Arcade Cabinet.jpg

  • Like 3
tthurman GameEx God (Top Rank)

tthurman

Posted
Posted

oh, nice cab, and poster :D

Really just that with flat screens in their native resolution, the pixel is nearly perfect, no picture altering effects like a tube would produce. 

When I last played my setup it was on a Sammy LNT4071F, I thought it looked great (minus the input lag) but like audio, that's subjective.  Someone like u-man that strives for the 100% authentic look would hate my Sammy, and it fairness his setup is quite nice.

I would think that if your display isn't over or under scanning the picture, and is running at native res, then yes out of the box that's it, pretty much.

 Now if you want to delve into HLSL, you could possibly obtain what your looking for, or at least closer to it.

 

  • Like 1
Greego Super Member!

Greego

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks, Thurman. I guess if the graphics are as really good as a gets or can only become marginally better, I won't bother tinkering with it any more. I am really noy bothered by the level of pixelation bevause it is only prominent in more graphically detailed games like Street Fighter but I am stilll able to enjoy them.  I just wanted to get them as close to the original versions as possible. 

I watched that video. I may try dabbing around with that to see what it can do. Thanks again.

tthurman GameEx God (Top Rank)

tthurman

Posted
Posted

Yeah, I haven't played with those settings either, honestly up until recently I probably didn't have the CPU for it.  I can't recall which release of MAME it was introduced in, but it's seemingly a quite popular feature.

DazzleHP GameEx God (Top Rank)

DazzleHP

Posted
Posted
  On 3/31/2017 at 2:18 AM, tthurman said:

So did Dazzle's solution get you fixed up?  I haven't used a version of GameEx with the new wizard, which keeps me from being much help.

As for the resolution, a modern display is going to be pretty much pixel perfect, but will not create the vibrant color the CRT did.  That and the phosphor glow I believe create an illusion of sharpness, that is really more of a blurring together that LCD technology doesn't inherently create.  If anything I've always felt the LCD produced a much sharper picture, which takes away the effect I grew up with in 80's arcade boom. 

Do you have your display set to "just scan" so you're not over or under scanning?

 

Expand  

I love what you did there! ^_^

*Ahem* carry on y'all

Greego Super Member!

Greego

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 3/31/2017 at 2:24 PM, tthurman said:

Yeah, I haven't played with those settings either, honestly up until recently I probably didn't have the CPU for it.  I can't recall which release of MAME it was introduced in, but it's seemingly a quite popular feature.

Expand  

 

 

So when I went into the video options in Mame, I noticed an option for the HLSL. It was turned off. Since you had showed me the video above, I decided to just turn it on to see what happens. And it did smooth out the lines and make the graphics look more sharp but, unfortunately, I did not think I like the trade-off...

When I turned on the HLSL, although it became less pixelated,  the graphics appeared less colorful and bright. Also, I noticed that the picture overall appeared more grainy but not necessarily in a bad way but I just preferred the very clean looking colorful graphics that came with the pixelated look so I think I am just going to stick with "pixel perfect" for now. I may tweak around with stuff using the video one weekend in the near future though.

tthurman GameEx God (Top Rank)

tthurman

Posted
Posted

I would suggest you dig in a bit more if you found anything about it you liked.  I'm certainly no authority on the subject of the scan line/retro look, and the grass roots of these enhancements go far beyond the official MAME implementation.  As always with this hobby, many have been pursing varied angles on it for quite some time, and much of it continues to move forward.

  • Like 1
Greego Super Member!

Greego

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 4/1/2017 at 3:35 AM, Tom Speirs said:

Look at the MAME "prescale" setting for less blurriness too.

Expand  

 

 

Well, that did it, my friend. It looks really good after adjusting the prescale settings in the ini. Looks a lot more authentic now. Thanks.

This is great since I have some company that is about to come over to play games on my new setup and I also have some company coming over tomorrow so this is right on time...

Greego Super Member!

Greego

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Well, that's it. I got Dragon's Lair 1 and 2 well as Space Ace running through GameEx now. I got it all done just as my company was ringing the doorbell on their arrival. 

With the tweaked graphics, I am now officially done with my setup. Of course, there are always small things to do such as getting bezels around some games that don't have them but I still consider the setup 100% set up since all of the other stuff will be icing on the cake. I have GameEx and Mame essentially doing what I want them to do at this point and how I envisioned it at the start of my build.

 

I really didn't have high hopes for getting Dragon's Lair running so I almost fell from my stool when I clicked it inside of GameEx and it started right up.  My friends and family were really impressed by it all.

 

  • Like 1
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...