Adding a spinner

Hardware requests and suggestions to improve your RaspberryJAMMA experience

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Bubbak
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Adding a spinner

Post by Bubbak » Wed Dec 19, 2018 3:00 pm

I just bought a usb spinner from Groovy Game Gear and having an issue configuring it.. When I plugged in my usb trackball, it just worked. I didn't have to do anything. I was hoping the spinner would be the same way. I didn't do my own setup of this system, I am working with an image from HSS. I'm not sure how to get out of attract mode to get to any of the control menus. I didn't see any setting for selecting a control in the attract mode menu. Where should I start?

Matt68061
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Re: Adding a spinner

Post by Matt68061 » Wed Dec 19, 2018 7:23 pm

Howdy, It could be dangerous for me to help with this but I will give it a try; :shock: Please do not take offense as I will try to be pretty detailed. I do not know what your experience with this stuff is.

Do you know what MAME version of the games your are trying to get this going on? I presume games like Tempest, Arkanoid, etc... (look in your roms folder the rom will either be in Mame172 or Mame106 (AdvMame)).

My HSS image is a couple years old and am sure it has changed some. I have been using several different images actually. Assuming you are wanting to do this on a Windows machine.

If Mame172, you will need to go to the "hidden" partition of the SD card and edit the mame.cfg file. (also referred to as mame.ini file it is the icon that looks like a sheet of paper with a light blue gear on it) See below how to navigate to that folder. May not be as simple as you were probably hoping.

You will want a decent text editor. Notepad++ is what most folks seem to use. I recommend you download that prior to attempting any of this.

You may be asking...how do I access the "hidden" partition... I use a program called Paragon ExtFS to mount the drive. It will show up in the "My Computer" just like your C: drive.. It will assign the partition a drive letter that you can then open. Free version works fine. There are many Youtube vids on how to use it. Download the program...plug your SDcard into the computer and it should assign the Arpicade a drive letter.

Open that. Open the 'home' folder. Open the "pi" folder. Open the Mame172. move to the mame.config file and right click on it. Select "open with...Notepad++ you will then see the full config file where you make the adjustments.

You will need to change the lines below.
1. "multimouse change 0 to 1"
2. Change "dial device to "mouse" (not 100% sure on this...depends how your usb spinner is recognized...hopefully others will proof my work)

#
# CORE INPUT OPTIONS
#
coin_lockout 1
ctrlr
mouse 1
joystick 1
lightgun 0
multikeyboard 0
multimouse 1
steadykey 0
ui_active 0
offscreen_reload 0
joystick_map auto
joystick_deadzone 0.3
joystick_saturation 0.85
natural 0
joystick_contradictory 0
coin_impulse 0

#
# CORE INPUT AUTOMATIC ENABLE OPTIONS
#
paddle_device keyboard
adstick_device keyboard
pedal_device keyboard
dial_device mouse
trackball_device mouse
lightgun_device keyboard
positional_device keyboard
mouse_device mouse

THEN...when you fire up the ArPicade be sure to have a keyboard attached to one of the USB ports...much easier. Lets use Tempest as an example...as long as this ROM is in your Mame172 folder... (first you may just want to test your spinner in Windows as it should move your cursor left/right on the desktop) ALSO...before going to the next step see if it already works in Tempest....If not, proceed.

when you start the game hit the TAB button on the Keyboard. Select "Input(General)" Select Player 1 Controls. Scroll to "Dial Analog" and hit enter. Move the spinner and it should say "Mouse" or "Mouse 1" something like that depending on how many devices you have plugged into the Pi. Hit Enter. Now "Return to Previous Menu."

Now Select "Input this machine). You will scroll down to "Dial Analog" hit enter on the keyboard and move your spinner. You should see it change on your screen to "Mouse 1" or (again...something like that....depending on your other devices hooked up to the Pi. Hit Enter...scroll down to "Return to Previous Menu" hit Enter. Scroll to "Return to Machine" and try the spinner. Hopefully it worked.

I will have to follow up for the AdvMame (106) directions. You need to edit the .rc file. That is a different animal.

Let me know if you need help with that. I sure hope this helps and did not totally confuse the hell out of you. :lol:

Good luck!

Bubbak
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Re: Adding a spinner

Post by Bubbak » Thu Dec 20, 2018 12:37 am

Thanks for the help. I just got the latest image from HSS right before he shut down to move. On the Groovy game site, they talked about master/slave for panels with trackball and mouse. I didn't get their adapter cable, so this setup may be a tad different than what they talk about. I'll pull my card and check out which versions have which games in it and look to adjust accordingly. When you mention "hidden" partition, are you referring to the windows read partition or is there another one? I was hoping the device would have been plug and play (I'm lazy :lol: )

Matt68061
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Re: Adding a spinner

Post by Matt68061 » Thu Dec 20, 2018 4:13 am

Yeah... its rarely as "easy" as it should be.

Im the last guy that should be explaining this... but the ArPicade cade has two (more actually) sections (partitions) on the SD card. The one that a Windows computer sees is called the "boot partition" Located there are things you want to get to easily like the ROMS folder and basic config files.

The other partition is "hidden" because a Windows computer will not read it without special software. You CAN access this right from the Pi but can be tricky as it is in Linux...which might as well be Chinese to me...but I am slowly learning.

You can really jack things up if you arent careful.

ALWAYS make a copy of your image and/or SD card prior to doing any of this stuff. There are many, many YouTube vids on how to do that.

There are SO many helpful members here and on the KLOV forums. We can surely get you squared away!

Bubbak
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Re: Adding a spinner

Post by Bubbak » Thu Dec 20, 2018 1:36 pm

Thanks.. I've played around with the Pi for awhile, although never got real good at it. I've got a few media centers running on Pi's.. This is the first arcade setup. I did a backup on the card last night, but I didn't get back to it to go any further. I looked through the rom folders and Tempest and Arakanoid are in the Mame 072 folder.

Before I pulled the card, I booted up the system and called up tempest. I tried hitting the Tab key on my keyboard, but it didn't bring up any other menus or settings. I've got to learn the keyboard commands to get around the system.

dee2eR
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Re: Adding a spinner

Post by dee2eR » Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:52 am

You'll probably have an easier time getting the spinner to work in a non-Retroarch version of MAME (MAME 078 is a Retroarch core - it's very good at remapping analog games to normal joysticks but not where I would start for real analog inputs). AdvMAME or MAME172 are probably your best bets. Not entirely sure which version you're trying as you wrote 072....

On the current ARpiCADE version I imagine AdvMAME is the easiest/quickest to get going with a spinner + trackball (2 mice at once), I only have a trackball so I could be wrong. I'm assuming you're having trouble using both the spinner and trackball at once? If the trackball works on it's own the spinner should too as they're both just a mouse (well, the spinner is half a mouse). 2 mice at once adds some complications but I have had multiple mice working independently in AdvMAME before when testing Aimtraks/Wii-Motes.

Looks like next year when/if I have some spare cash I need to invest in a spinner and a servo-stick or 2 (and 49 way...) to better look into this stuff.

Bubbak
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Re: Adding a spinner

Post by Bubbak » Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:33 pm

Thanks for the info. I guess its 078 its set up in. I can move the rom to a newer version of Mame, but does that mean I need a different version of the rom? The trackball is working by itself. I haven't tried unplugging the trackball and trying the spinner yet. The spinner games I've tried so far are all set up to use the joystick, so I didn't think it was a conflict between the mouses..

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cool_factor
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Re: Adding a spinner (SOLVED)

Post by cool_factor » Thu Dec 12, 2019 12:40 pm

Having this exact same issue. Tempest and Arknanoid (and Revenge of DOH) from my HSS image are in the 078 ROM folder and spinner is not working.

Small update. Moved both ROMs to advmame. Arkanoid is working, not sure what settings should be for spinner (using spin trak) hitting TAB shows a digital speed of 15? (SOLVED) Was changing wrong setting.

Tempest loads and can coin up but the spinner is not working with it. No clue what settings to change.

SO, its working, apparently Tempest doesnt like the USB keyboard to be plugged in. Unplug the wireless dongle and it works!

thomas87
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Re: Adding a spinner

Post by thomas87 » Sat Dec 03, 2022 9:10 am

Bubbak wrote:
Wed Dec 19, 2018 3:00 pm
I just bought a usb spinner from Groovy Game Gear and having an issue configuring it.. When I plugged in my usb trackball, it just worked. I didn't have to do anything. I was hoping the spinner would be the same way. I didn't do my own setup of this system, I am working with an image from HSS. I'm not sure how to get out of attract mode to get to any of the control menus. I didn't see any setting for selecting a control in the attract mode menu. Where should I start?
That's really great. Could you share the pic of the spinner through gbwhatsapp that you recently bought? Because I am interested to buy it.

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