Key to Joy?

**emphatic** · July 13, 2006

I'm using the X-Arcade dual (works like a keyboard) in my cabinet, and I want to play Virtua Tennis (PC Game) but I can't configure the controls for both players using keys. Is there a program that "fools" a game into believing that a gamepad is connected (sort of a virtual gamecontroller with assignable keys)?

I saw that GameEx has mouse emulation now, perhaps Gamepad emulation is possible as well?

Emph

**Tom Speirs** · July 13, 2006

I'm using the X-Arcade dual (works like a keyboard) in my cabinet, and I want to play Virtua Tennis (PC Game) but I can't configure the controls for both players using keys. Is there a program that "fools" a game into believing that a gamepad is connected (sort of a virtual gamecontroller with assignable keys)?
I saw that GameEx has mouse emulation now, perhaps Gamepad emulation is possible as well?
Emph

That's not an easy task to code, don't think it will be in GameEx anytime soon. Might be something out there, but you'd have to somehow get windows to think a gamepad is connected, which is probably way too low level for me. Probably nothing out there, as it would only really be needed for cab users. Of course GameEx can do joy to key though, and as you said key to mouse, but its really easy to control the mouse in windows.

**headkaze** · July 13, 2006

The program you are looking for is ppjoykey. You will need to set up some batch files to run it before the game. Read more about it here. I can say that Virtua Tennis is an awesome game for a cab, I've had two people on the arcade controls and two people on the wireless game pads, and it's really cool.

It is low level stuff, it actually uses a joystick driver, so you setup Virtua Tennis to use a joystick and the keys are mapped through the driver.

**emphatic** · July 13, 2006

The program you are looking for is ppjoykey. You will need to set up some batch files to run it before the game. Read more about it here. I can say that Virtua Tennis is an awesome game for a cab, I've had two people on the arcade controls and two people on the wireless game pads, and it's really cool.
It is low level stuff, it actually uses a joystick driver, so you setup Virtua Tennis to use a joystick and the keys are mapped through the driver.

Thanks a lot headkaze, I'll check it out!

Emph

**jedah** · July 16, 2006

Hi Headkaze,

I wondered if you could explain a bit further about how you set up Virtua Tennis. I have setup a virtual joystick but when I try to find it in the Virtua Tennis config it dosent show. What type of joystick (virtual) did you setup to use.

Cheers

J.

P.S. Emph I have an X-Arcade (2P) too. How did you get around Virtua Tennis not recognising Left Alt on the keyboard mapping for Player 1. Hope that makes sense.

**emphatic** · July 17, 2006

Hi Headkaze,
I wondered if you could explain a bit further about how you set up Virtua Tennis. I have setup a virtual joystick but when I try to find it in the Virtua Tennis config it dosent show. What type of joystick (virtual) did you setup to use.
Cheers
J.
P.S. Emph I have an X-Arcade (2P) too. How did you get around Virtua Tennis not recognising Left Alt on the keyboard mapping for Player 1. Hope that makes sense.

Jedah: This is how I've set up Virtua Tennis with Joy2Key(Or what it's called):

Install 1 Virtual Joystick with 10 buttons and 4 axis(You don't have to change any settings in the setup, just keep on clicking 'next').

Launch the other included app from the start menu group that comes with the virtual controller folder (I'm writing this from memory, so I can't be more specific, but you should get it) that's called Joy2Key or something.

Select your Virtual Controller and map it to your second X-Arcade controller (some of the Virtual controller's buttons doesn't work with Virtua Tennis, so you might skip the first buttons , trial n' error)

Save an .ini file that you can load up (sorry, but you need to open up this app and load your .ini every time you wanna play Virtua Tennis with 2 players)

Keep this app open

Launch Virtua Tennis config and select player 2 controls (this is normally greyed out when you only have your X-Arcade and no virtual controllers connected)

You should now see that the Virtual Controller is selected as device.

Map your player 2 controls in Virtua Tennis.

Save & Close.

About the Left Alt, I used my two bottom buttons for the "action buttons" in Virtua Tennis. I don't know why X-Arcade is mapped to those buttons as default, they only cause problems with a lot of games. A remap of you X-Arcade doesn't involve a lot of work, so that's the easiest solution, really.

Emph

**jedah** · July 24, 2006

Thanks for your reply Emph,

I have only just seen it. Unfortunately I still cant get this to work. I understand what your saying I just cant get the Virtua Tennis config to display the virtual joystick. This is what I have done . Can you see if you can spot a mistake anywhere.

I first open up the Parallel Port Joystick option in the Control Panel. I Then Press add a virtual joystick (on the option that says Parallel Port and change it to Virtual Joystick. Default is LPT 1) Once that is done I go to Joytokey and make sure it is switched to virtual joystick 1. I then configure all the buttons on the X-Arcade, Save the .ini and minimise the program. But when I open the Virtua Tennis config it only allows me to choose the keyboard? The virtual joystick does not show.

If anyone has any clue as to what I am doi6ng wrong please tell me as I am losing hair over this.

Cheers

J. :unsure:

P.S. I am sure I have setup the virtual joystick properly because it shows as a Game Controller on the Control Panel Also I have tested the buttons and they are working.?!?!?!?

**emphatic** · July 25, 2006

Thanks for your reply Emph,
I have only just seen it. Unfortunately I still cant get this to work. I understand what your saying I just cant get the Virtua Tennis config to display the virtual joystick. This is what I have done . Can you see if you can spot a mistake anywhere.
I first open up the Parallel Port Joystick option in the Control Panel. I Then Press add a virtual joystick (on the option that says Parallel Port and change it to Virtual Joystick. Default is LPT 1) Once that is done I go to Joytokey and make sure it is switched to virtual joystick 1. I then configure all the buttons on the X-Arcade, Save the .ini and minimise the program. But when I open the Virtua Tennis config it only allows me to choose the keyboard? The virtual joystick does not show.
If anyone has any clue as to what I am doi6ng wrong please tell me as I am losing hair over this.
Cheers
J.
P.S. I am sure I have setup the virtual joystick properly because it shows as a Game Controller on the Control Panel Also I have tested the buttons and they are working.?!?!?!?

Sorry, but that looks correct to me.

Emph

**emphatic** · November 27, 2006

jedah: I know it's been ages since you posted this, but if you still want to get Virtua Tennis running with two players, here's the trick to get it working that I didn't realize until the friendly support team at X-Gaming pointed it out to me:

Virtua Tennis can only use 2 Axis Game controllers. By default, PPortJoy creates 8 Axis Virtual Controllers. You need to manually change the axis to 2. Then you should be able to see them in Virtua Tennis.

Emph

**headkaze** · November 28, 2006

Virtua Tennis can only use 2 Axis Game controllers. By default, PPortJoy creates 8 Axis Virtual Controllers. You need to manually change the axis to 2. Then you should be able to see them in Virtua Tennis.

Good point Emphatic. I totally forgot to mention that!

**lingpanda** · December 9, 2006

Good point Emphatic. I totally forgot to mention that!

Can someone provide me a complete step by step tutorial on getting this setup with virtua tennis please. I'm totally missing the boat on this one.

**emphatic** · December 9, 2006

Can someone provide me a complete step by step tutorial on getting this setup with virtua tennis please. I'm totally missing the boat on this one.

1. Install PPJoyKey.

2. Setup 1 or more Virtual Joysticks that has ONLY 2 axes. You don't have to change ANYTHING else in the setup of those Virtual Joysticks (perhaps you need to set the correct number of buttons, I'd go with 20 buttons).

3. Do this (cut from another forum, original post by Headkaze):

You need 3 batch files... one to launch PPJoykey in the background and one to launch Virtua Tennis and one to launch them both. I place both the PPJoyKey.exe and the ini file for the settings into the Virtua Tennis folder.

--- vtennis.bat (the batch file you run from your FE) ---

@ECHO OFF

start ppjoykey.bat

start virtuatennis.bat

EXIT

--- ppjoykey.bat ---

@ECHO OFF

ppjoykey.exe .\vt.ini

EXIT

--- virtuatennis.bat ---

@ECHO OFF

VIRTUA_TENNIS_PC.exe

taskkill.exe /F /IM ppjoykey.exe

EXIT

4. When you have created these .bat-files, you will notice that you don't actually have the vt.ini as in ppjoykey.bat. To create this, launch ppjoykey.exe and select your Virtual Joystick #1 and map your controls to it, then save the ini to "vt.ini". If you need to map more than one controller to a Virtual Joystick, just map out another and save it as "vt2.ini" or whatever and change your ppjoykey.bat to:

--- ppjoykey.bat ---

@ECHO OFF

start ppjoykey.exe .\vt.ini

start ppjoykey.exe .\vt2.ini

EXIT

Now you will open 2 instances of ppjoykey.exe

Hope this is sufficient for your needs, Lingpanda!

Emph

**lingpanda** · December 10, 2006

1. Install PPJoyKey.
2. Setup 1 or more Virtual Joysticks that has ONLY 2 axes. You don't have to change ANYTHING else in the setup of those Virtual Joysticks (perhaps you need to set the correct number of buttons, I'd go with 20 buttons).
3. Do this (cut from another forum, original post by Headkaze):
You need 3 batch files... one to launch PPJoykey in the background and one to launch Virtua Tennis and one to launch them both. I place both the PPJoyKey.exe and the ini file for the settings into the Virtua Tennis folder.
--- vtennis.bat (the batch file you run from your FE) ---
@ECHO OFF
start ppjoykey.bat
start virtuatennis.bat
EXIT
--- ppjoykey.bat ---
@ECHO OFF
ppjoykey.exe .\vt.ini
EXIT
--- virtuatennis.bat ---
@ECHO OFF
VIRTUA_TENNIS_PC.exe
taskkill.exe /F /IM ppjoykey.exe
EXIT
4. When you have created these .bat-files, you will notice that you don't actually have the vt.ini as in ppjoykey.bat. To create this, launch ppjoykey.exe and select your Virtual Joystick #1 and map your controls to it, then save the ini to "vt.ini". If you need to map more than one controller to a Virtual Joystick, just map out another and save it as "vt2.ini" or whatever and change your ppjoykey.bat to:
--- ppjoykey.bat ---
@ECHO OFF
start ppjoykey.exe .\vt.ini
start ppjoykey.exe .\vt2.ini
EXIT
Now you will open 2 instances of ppjoykey.exe
Hope this is sufficient for your needs, Lingpanda!
Emph

Ok thanks for the reply. I have a problem. In my Vt config. Im unable to set keys for player 2. Players 2-4 are shaded out. Do I need to uninstall vt and start over?

**lingpanda** · December 10, 2006

Ok thanks for the reply. I have a problem. In my Vt config. Im unable to set keys for player 2. Players 2-4 are shaded out. Do I need to uninstall vt and start over?

Ok fixed it. Re-read the thread. Thanks again.

**emphatic** · December 10, 2006

Great!

Emph

**lingpanda** · January 12, 2007

Ok I have a problem. I had this working fine on my old HDD. All I did was move everything over to the new HDD. After recently trying to play 2players. Virtua Tennis no longer works for the 2nd player. I can launch the bat files outside of gameex and play virtua tennis fine. Only when launching inside GameEx is when 2nd player will not work. What am I missing?

**emphatic** · January 12, 2007

Ok I have a problem. I had this working fine on my old HDD. All I did was move everything over to the new HDD. After recently trying to play 2players. Virtua Tennis no longer works for the 2nd player. I can launch the bat files outside of gameex and play virtua tennis fine. Only when launching inside GameEx is when 2nd player will not work. What am I missing?

Try reinstalling PPJoy. When I converted my hdd from FAT32 to NTSC I got this problem as well. A reinstall fixed it.

Emph

**Allochtoon** · July 4, 2007

I've got a problem.

I added 3 virtual joysticks, all three with 2 axes and 7 buttons. They all work in the input configuration program of Virtua Tennis. When i try to multiplayer in the game only the first player (none of the virtual sticks) is recognized. What gives?

Thanks in advance!

**bkenobi** · July 4, 2007

That's been my experience with the ppjoy virtual joysticks. I never figured it out, so I went with Joy2Key and later to XPadder. These will not send joystick inputs, though. So, you will have to configure the emu with keyboard inputs if you go that route, which probably puts you no closer than when you started...

**dalomarius10** · October 28, 2007

Am i missing something? I downloaded PPJoy. I added 2 Virtual Joysticks. I try to map then and it says, Cannot Read Mappings from joystick driver...???

**headkaze** · October 28, 2007

Did you place ppjoykey.exe and your config ini file in the same folder as Virtua Tennis along with the batch files?

**dalomarius10** · October 28, 2007

har har, no. Will do, thx =]

**dalomarius10** · October 28, 2007

Ok, i got it all set up.. the problem im having now is, i cant edit the buttons in the VTconfig.exe When i try to re-assign a key for the keyboard, it freezes.... i have to press control alt delete to get out of it. I've had this problem with other games as well. do not know what it is, anybody have this issue before?

**headkaze** · October 29, 2007

Ok, i got it all set up.. the problem im having now is, i cant edit the buttons in the VTconfig.exe When i try to re-assign a key for the keyboard, it freezes.... i have to press control alt delete to get out of it. I've had this problem with other games as well. do not know what it is, anybody have this issue before?

There are a couple of ways to go about this. I had the exact same problem on my cab, so I what I did was configure it on my other PC then copy the VT config over to my cab. Another way is to edit the VT config file with a hex editor although that would be alot more complicated to do.

**dalomarius10** · October 30, 2007

headkaze, im ready to try anything.... i can get a hex editor but do you know what values and where to edit? =]

Edited September 25, 2012 by Draco1962
This thread is now closed. If the problem re-occurs, please start a new thread.

Key to Joy?

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