Off Topic Control Panel Question about linking buttons...

[Visitor Q]

Player 1 will have a 7 button layout; I will also have a spinner with 2 buttons and a track ball with 3.

My question is, should I link button 1 player 1 to button 1 on the spinner and button 2 player 1 to button 2 on the spinner?

I would also link button 1 player 1 to button 1 on the trackball etc...

The reason behind this would be that I would not have to configure as many games in mame to use certain controls with games that are setup to use certain controls. The downside to this as I see is less customizable options and what I mean by that is this. If I would decide to play PSX, a game that used all 8 buttons I would not be able to link to a close button if it was already hard linked to another.

To give you an idea of what my control panel layout will look like, I have attached a picture.

Thanks.

[headkaze]

You will possibly need to have different configurations for other emulators. What encoder does your CP use? IPAC? KeyWiz? Either way they normally come with software that allows you to re-program your buttons. For example the IPAC has a program called WinIPAC that allows you to setup profiles and re-program them.

Another way to do it is to use a program like AutoHotkey.

[Visitor Q]

You will possibly need to have different configurations for other emulators. What encoder does your CP use? IPAC? KeyWiz? Either way they normally come with software that allows you to re-program your buttons. For example the IPAC has a program called WinIPAC that allows you to setup profiles and re-program them.

Another way to do it is to use a program like AutoHotkey.

I plan on using a IPAC2 if I link and a IPAC4 if I don't link, it is not built yet.

The default setup for the CP above is the following.

Player one joystick and the 4-way joystick are linked together, does not apply if using U360s (duh).

Player1 button 1 and 2 are linked to the two buttons to the left of the spinner.

Player1 button 3,4,5 are linked to the three buttons to the right of the 4-way.

Player1 button 6 and 7 are linked to the left side pinball buttons.

Player2 button 1 is linked to the front pinball plunger button.

Player2 button 2 and 3 is linked to the right side pinball buttons.

Buttons to the left of the trackball are the mouse buttons.

I am trying to decide if I should keep it hard linked like that or make each button have an individual press, with the IPAC4 I would have more than enough slots to do this as it supports up to 56 devices.

Thoughts?

How will CPWizard or any youâ??re other programs work with hard linked buttons? I am buying all Electric Ice buttons so I want to be able to light up the buttons on the CP that are only in use at the time for that game in Mame. Will I have any problems configuring this in CPWizard hard linked or not?

My thoughts are thisâ?¦

Linked = Less work to configure

Not Link = More Control over the Control Panel

I really value your opinion so please reply back, thanks again.

[headkaze]

Well it doesn't sound like it's sharing buttons that you would ever need separate, so I would probably leave it as it's default then. The only think I would want is to be able to use those 3 buttons next to the trackball for Player 1 PS2 and N64 games. I believe you could use a program like AHK to convert those 3 mouse buttons to keys anyway. But you can worry about that after you get your CP.

I believe CPWizard can handle linked buttons as long as you set up your keys right in Mame. CPWizard will read all the cfg's and if you have a ctrlr file it will use those settings too.

Awesome looking CP BTW

[Visitor Q]

Thank you again for your thoughts.

I have really have gone around and around with building my control panel gather tons of information, I should change my nick to "head hurts".

I have more or less decided to just make each button its own key press because once it is hard linked, the only way for me to change it is to open the CP and rewire. Without hard linking, the only think I have to do is reconfigure and I can always link buttons that way.

I beleive I am making the right choice here.