Mame losing arcade controls bit by bit

Robotgreg

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Hi

I've had my mame cab for a long time and over the years it's gradually losing some of the controls.

So what I mean is that it won;t let me do all the other functions through the buttons and joysticks on the arcade cab but I can still do these on the keyboard. I've not changed the default mapping at all.

So it's lost the tab key, being able to move games between menus (press 1 and A) and just now I can only navigate in one direction between menus when last week could go either way so seems to be getting worse. I can still start and quit out of a game OK but firstly it's frustrating having to use a keyboard for some of the "utility type" functions and secondly I fear more functions will get lost as time goes on.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this and any solutions please?

Cheers for any help

Greg
 
joe34

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hey greg hope u are good dude

im wondering if your cfg (config) file you have there which has the mame controls in it, is read only or not? if its not read only, then it could mean over time some of the controls were lost for whatever reasons (by mistake etc), and then saved

so im thinking the solution might be, to get the controls properly mapped and saved in the cfg again, and then when its all done, setting that file to read only, so they wont be lost again in the future

joe342020-07-23 16:16:51
 
big10p

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Anyone who uses it who doesn't know what they're doing will tend to button mash at some point (especially kids) which will ALWAYS end up breaking something, unless you bullet-proof your input config setup.
 
strykr

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Robotgreg said:
Hi Joe 34

Good thanks and cheers for the quick reply.  I'll send you a pm to save blocking up the group here.

Cheers

Greg
Click to expand...

Share the fix greg, in case it happens to others, in fact im sure i had similar in the past tbh.
 
Robotgreg

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Not finalised yet but had a look at the cfg file and it does seem that some of the joystick mappings have disappeared so think Joe34 is spot on that this file needs updating and then making read only.
 
tronads

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I have a different take on this...I don't think the mapping has been lost in the mame cfg file at all, reason being - he says he can still use a keyboard to press the missing buttons/functions. If they were missing in the mame config, then the keyboard wouldnt work either.
The JPAC is to the PC simply a keyboard.
I would be looking at running the JPAC utility software and looking at the hotkey mapping in there, and maybe even running a keyboard testing utility (or even notepad) and seeing if anything lights up on movement/button pressing combo's.

tronads2020-07-24 08:26:19
 
Robotgreg

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Thanks Tronads and will go down that route if the cfg file doesn't sort it but I think Joe 34 is right as I can still use the arcade controls to play games just not some of the menu utilities. And it's not just

gone wrong, it's happened bit by bit as if it's been written over.

Also I looked in the cfg file and some of the inputs were DIK_G for example
and others had DIK_G, JOYSTICK_UP so looks like that second bit has got
lost from some.
 
RygarR

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When I first started using MAME about 10 years back, I had an ancient, second-hand J-PAC.

After several years of faithful service, the shortcuts started to fail.

In the end none of the combination presses worked, eg. you couldn't press P1 START + P2 START to exit to the frontend, and you couldn't press P1START and P1B1 to coin up.

In a way, this was quite cool, as once the game you wanted was loaded in, it played just like a PCB. However, it wasn't very practical in the long run.

I remember downloading and running the diagnostic programme, but by that point was unable to change anything :-(

Hopefully, Greg's is salvagable!

tronads said:
I have a different take on this...I don't think the mapping has been lost in the mame cfg file at all, reason being - he says he can still use a keyboard to press the missing buttons/functions. If they were missing in the mame config, then the keyboard wouldnt work either.
The JPAC is to the PC simply a keyboard.
I would be looking at running the JPAC utility software and looking at the hotkey mapping in there, and maybe even running a keyboard testing utility (or even notepad) and seeing if anything lights up on movement/button pressing combo's.
Click to expand...
 
Robotgreg

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Uggghhh!!!

it's all f**ked!!!

First of all the keyboard wouldn't work and now the pc won't boot coming up with a black screen and system disk boot error.

The PC was making a funny grating whirring sound at times and before that a clicking sound.

A real shame as last few weeks really been getting back into the vids and going through to find undiscovered gems. Found Super Astro Fighter which really enjoyed but now it seems like I've got much more serious problems than just worrying about trying to use the controls instead of keyboard.

I guess it's just cos I've used it more that it's worn out but hope by trying to bugger about with it to fix the controls, hasn't caused it to break.

So looks like PC is buggered but maybe also JPac and cfg file. Will see!!!
 
big10p

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That clicking sound is the HDD in it's death throes, probably. At least it'll give you the opportunity to upgrade to an SSD. Nice and quick load times.
smiley1.gif
 
tronads

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Now's your chance to buy a cheap SSD (less than 30 quid now for a 240gb) and upgrade to Rick Chunksin's Image.
You might also want to replace the cmos battery in the PC...its possible its lost the hard drive settings and that's why you can't boot.
 
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