Zinc controls

[massop]

Hey thanks for all the feedback.

Dont think there is no forum on earth that has this level of support and as friendly community.

I found the "old wrapper" and have gone back to using that. With that I have finally got this issue working.

Using the "old wrapper" is definitley much more simple to setup but I dont want to say too much about it as I dont know what the situation is with posting about it on the forums.

Regards

[fRequEnCy]

Hey thanks for all the feedback.

Dont think there is no forum on earth that has this level of support and as friendly community.

I found the "old wrapper" and have gone back to using that. With that I have finally got this issue working.

Using the "old wrapper" is definitley much more simple to setup but I dont want to say too much about it as I dont know what the situation is with posting about it on the forums.

Regards

Talk about it is ok but sharing the files are not. That's of course the files are NoLogic's work. Unfortunately they have been pulled and will not be shared here to respect his wishes. There are a few of us that were lucky enough to have some of his work.

[Adultery]

It's too bad nobody recreated this project though, because without his wrapper ZiNc is a pretty worthless emulator. It took a ton of testing to get it just right, and it's cool to hear that it still works as well as it ever did. His work with ZiNc and contributions to GameEx was and will always be greatly appreciated.

Glad you got it working massop.

[fRequEnCy]

It's too bad nobody recreated this project though, because without his wrapper ZiNc is a pretty worthless emulator. It took a ton of testing to get it just right, and it's cool to hear that it still works as well as it ever did. His work with ZiNc and contributions to GameEx was and will always be greatly appreciated.

Glad you got it working massop.

Recreating it could be accomplished if we only knew how it worked. I don't know the details of what it did since I never used it. Maybe list some of the details and we can whip something up. I would ask him personally but don't care to bother him with something he don't care to contribute to.

[Adultery]

I helped test it, so I could answer some of your questions. It was basically a wrapper that passed a cfg based on the game bios. Each game had it's own cfg, and since chd games didn't work using either plugin it launched joy2key in those instances. It was AutoIT script.

I'd be happy to further answer any questions you have about it as best as I can.

Seems to me that joy2key should be replaced with the much better xpadder, and the game list may or may not need to be updated.

I believe the wrapper also passed data to GameEx to build the ZiNc list.

[massop]

Yeah it is an autoIT script that launches the .INI's which in turn feed the config options to Zinc.

I dont think Joy2Key is implimented in this one however unless its a hidden process in the wrapper and even then I see no mention of it in the script (I do have n00b script understandings though).

All the Zinc games have a standard set of controls

KN1, RZ, S11, S12, ZN1, ZN2 which corresponded to the amount of buttons a game uses. with the wrapper you set the config for each system then applied it to the games INI file. This function is working for me.

I do have a new problem though and I really want to cry.

it seems no matter what ROM I choose to play Star gladiator executes. I notice that the game number for star gladiator is "1" and this is in the wrapper.

$ini_01 = IniRead( $CmdLine[1] , "GAM" , "Number"		, "1" )

its my understanding that this line of code should read line 1 from the specified INI and return the digit after "number" so having "1" there would always launch 1.

Does anyone know what the command is for retuning the value after "number"? I tried $number but that messed up everything.

Its hard to explain my issue without referring to specific files or code.

[fRequEnCy]

Yeah it is an autoIT script that launches the .INI's which in turn feed the config options to Zinc.

I dont think Joy2Key is implimented in this one however unless its a hidden process in the wrapper and even then I see no mention of it in the script (I do have n00b script understandings though).

All the Zinc games have a standard set of controls

KN1, RZ, S11, S12, ZN1, ZN2 which corresponded to the amount of buttons a game uses. with the wrapper you set the config for each system then applied it to the games INI file. This function is working for me.

I do have a new problem though and I really want to cry.

it seems no matter what ROM I choose to play Star gladiator executes. I notice that the game number for star gladiator is "1" and this is in the wrapper.

$ini_01 = IniRead( $CmdLine[1] , "GAM" , "Number"		, "1" )

its my understanding that this line of code should read line 1 from the specified INI and return the digit after "number" so having "1" there would always launch 1.

Does anyone know what the command is for retuning the value after "number"? I tried $number but that messed up everything.

Its hard to explain my issue without referring to specific files or code.

Actually $CmdLine[1] is reading the 1st parameter after the executable. Normally would be the rom name. So this is looking for a file called whatever your rom is named. GAM would be the section. Number would be the key. 1 would be the default. Look at the following:

IniRead ( "filename", "section", "key", "default" )

It's hard to give support without seeing more code. But since this is impossible it makes it that much harder.

[Adultery]

Joy2key is only called in kn1 games (the chd ones), and the exe for it should be in the folder for that bios.

The game list should be a txt file in the archive. That's where the wrapper makes the transition from game to number, as is required by zinc. Cross reference your game by that list.

PS: you updated your list and enabled zinc support right?

.:edit 2:. If there's no procedure call for joy2key that's not the final version of the wrapper and your kn1 games won't work.

[massop]

Ahh o.k.

I think I got the older version. Thanks for the info fRequEnCy, that gives me a lot more understanding on how that works then.

I have Zince setup as a seperate emulator (Thats where I am using the old wrapper) and using the intergrated version (Without wrapper), when you say enable zinc support do you mean enable zinc in the Advance MAME setting?

oh, and how do you update lists? (thought game ex did that automatically every time you turn it on)

I completley forgot how serious this Zinc setup thing was.

On the brink of folding on this one as 1 week later I still dont get it.

Anyone got the contact number for the author of Zinc? I wanna have a word with them

If anyone is gona try to make a new wrapper thingy I would be glad to help though my code skills are not great,

[Adultery]

I think we should work on a dll instead of a script, but I don't know if that'll even work.

I know the integrated support wrapper works, I still use it on my rig. You just put the wrapper in as the zinc.exe and away you go. Give it a try, if you have the wrapper that is.

[Draco1962]

I checked on the old hfc essentials page and noted that "This ZiNc wraper was added to pass configurations for your controller on a BIOS basis through the Advanced MAME setup in GameEx" per NoLogic's description of the ZiNc tools. That may be a place to start if someone was so inclined to create a new wrapper. One question I have, having not used ZiNc or Model 2 emulation - how much better are the games through these vs. just using MAME? I know that there are some that do not work in MAME or are not that great and do better in the other emulators just from reading the various posts.

[Adultery]

If you can get past the huge pain in the ass that is mapping controls, ZiNc is a must have. Too many good games rely on that emu, and the MAMEdev team has done next to nothing to get them running better. Like they say over there, playing these games is just a nice side effect.