Help: Only 4 of 5 joysticks working in MAME

[trevor]

Hello everyone. I've tried searching for the answer to this question, but have come up with nothing.

I have a MAME machine with 5 USB joysticks in it -- 4 for players, 1 for function and player start buttons. All of these joysticks show up in Game Controllers in the Control Panel, and all are working 100%. With my previous frontend (MameWAH), everything was fine. After installing GameEx, 1 random joystick of the 5 will not respond in MAME or any other emulator, though it will work for menu selection in GameEx. At this point I chalked the problem up to being GameEx's fault, however, launching an emulator seperately results in the same problem, even if GameEx hasn't been run yet.

The only thing that changed from a 100% working system was the installation of the v1.1 .NET Framework and GameEx. Will upgrading the .NET Framework to the newer 2.0 release fix the problem? Does GameEx change some system files upon installation?

One more peculiar thing is when I setup controls for the 1st Player joystick in MAME. Normally, pressing the joystick in a direction results in a setting like "j3:sticky+", but now sometimes it results in "o k o k k o o k j3:sticky+". I know that you can press left-right to bypass the ROM legal screens in MAME (therefore typing "OK" if you don't have a keyboard plugged in). Again, I never had this error until I installed GameEx. Is this a bug with GameEx's configuration option of "Bypass Disclaimer/Warnings" (found in Advanced MAME Settings)?

Sorry for the load of information. I will diagnose this further when I get home and go on an uninstalling and testing binge, but until then, any thoughts?

Thanks!

[Tom Speirs]

Hello everyone. I've tried searching for the answer to this question, but have come up with nothing.

I have a MAME machine with 5 USB joysticks in it -- 4 for players, 1 for function and player start buttons. All of these joysticks show up in Game Controllers in the Control Panel, and all are working 100%. With my previous frontend (MameWAH), everything was fine. After installing GameEx, 1 random joystick of the 5 will not respond in MAME or any other emulator, though it will work for menu selection in GameEx. At this point I chalked the problem up to being GameEx's fault, however, launching an emulator seperately results in the same problem, even if GameEx hasn't been run yet.

The only thing that changed from a 100% working system was the installation of the v1.1 .NET Framework and GameEx. Will upgrading the .NET Framework to the newer 2.0 release fix the problem? Does GameEx change some system files upon installation?

One more peculiar thing is when I setup controls for the 1st Player joystick in MAME. Normally, pressing the joystick in a direction results in a setting like "j3:sticky+", but now sometimes it results in "o k o k k o o k j3:sticky+". I know that you can press left-right to bypass the ROM legal screens in MAME (therefore typing "OK" if you don't have a keyboard plugged in). Again, I never had this error until I installed GameEx. Is this a bug with GameEx's configuration option of "Bypass Disclaimer/Warnings" (found in Advanced MAME Settings)?

Sorry for the load of information. I will diagnose this further when I get home and go on an uninstalling and testing binge, but until then, any thoughts?

Thanks!

I don't think your gamepad issue could be anything to do with GameEx installing files or the .net framework. I know you say nothing else has changed, but I can't personally see how the GameEx or the .net install could affect it. Did you update your version of MAME or drivers or anything else you can think of?

In terms of the Bypass, it currently has no way of checking whether the keys have beem accepted by MAME, so sometimes sends the key strokes a short while after the games have started. The high process priority setting in MAME could also cause a problem with this and make GameEx send the keys a lot longer. If your using a MAME build that does not need the bypass you can turn it off, or its safe to turn off anyway.

[trevor]

Upon further investigation, the problem was with AdvanceMAME and other select emulators like ZSNES. The first 4 joysticks Windows assigns are the only ones that work with those emulators. I don't know if those emulators only support 4 joysticks (though ZSNES has 5-player MultiTap support), but I'll investigate that on their sites, or just use other emulators.

As for the "o k o k o k" problem, that is resolved by disabling "Bypass Disclaimer/Warnings" in the GameEx configuration and setting the appropriate bypass settings in the MAME .ini file.

[Tom Speirs]

Upon further investigation, the problem was with AdvanceMAME and other select emulators like ZSNES. The first 4 joysticks Windows assigns are the only ones that work with those emulators. I don't know if those emulators only support 4 joysticks (though ZSNES has 5-player MultiTap support), but I'll investigate that on their sites, or just use other emulators.

As for the "o k o k o k" problem, that is resolved by disabling "Bypass Disclaimer/Warnings" in the GameEx configuration and setting the appropriate bypass settings in the MAME .ini file.

Thanks for taking the time to post back, I really appreciate how most folks on this forum do by the way.

Glad you got it figured it.

[lingpanda]

Upon further investigation, the problem was with AdvanceMAME and other select emulators like ZSNES. The first 4 joysticks Windows assigns are the only ones that work with those emulators. I don't know if those emulators only support 4 joysticks (though ZSNES has 5-player MultiTap support), but I'll investigate that on their sites, or just use other emulators.

As for the "o k o k o k" problem, that is resolved by disabling "Bypass Disclaimer/Warnings" in the GameEx configuration and setting the appropriate bypass settings in the MAME .ini file.

What bypass settings do you change in mame? Can you list the ini settings you changed?