Having issues with Buttons 3 and 4 for players 3 and 4

[ricard2798]

I have been making a 4 players arpicade cab that has player 1 and 2 with 5 button setup, and player 34 and with a 4 button set up (for dungeons and dragons and other games). I also have been using a sd image from highscore saves. Anyways, my buttons 3 and 4 for players 3 and 4 are not working properly. i suspect its a configuration issue. I would appreciate any help that can be provided.

[dee2eR]

Have you turned on all the dipswitches on the four player adaptor? They need to be on for more than 3 buttons to work.

MAME inputs can (generally depending on the emulator) be adjusted directly through MAMEs menus.

You can test your inputs without worrying about emulator configs being wrong at the command line using the command

jstest /dev/input/js0

js0 is player 1. js2 will be player 3 and js3 is player 4.

[ricard2798]

I have all dip switches on. In addition, i am using the player 3 and 4 konami connectors.

Finally, i have no clue how to get to command prompt to run the input test. If i press esc, i just keep going back in menus, but never to a command prompt... if i use f4, i get a prompt to exit attract mode, and i get a command prompt, but the input test command is not recognized.

[dee2eR]

F4 is the right way to get to the command line. What happens when you try the command line? It's a perfectly regular Linux command, should work fine.

[ricard2798]

I have a feeling my arpicade u player adapter is not working properly. Let me illustrate my ordeal with the arpicade so far.

1-ordered one arpicade with adapter, once received, player one and 2 worked well, but tehre was no way to get player 3 or 4 to detect ANY inputs. returned for evaluation.

2-Received unit back. Player 1 and 2 worked well as before, player 3 and 4 have joysticks inputs, player 3 only had button 1 and 2 registering, player 4 has buttons 1 2 and 3.

I have even tried to jump the pins manually to eliminate the harness as the culprit.

I would assume setup is the issue, but the fact that in dungeons and dragons, one of the players had use of the third button, sort of hints that there is something else going on. I have tried to press tab, and remap the buttons for that specific game, and i cant get the menu to recognize any of the buttons that does not work.

Hope this information help you guide me better
(i am also open to make a wechat/skype, or whatever session to show my issues)

[ricard2798]

If i press f4 inside a fame, i get some really big sprites. If i press f4 in a menu, and i get to a service menu.

[dee2eR]

To get to the command line press f4 from the game select menu, then when the service menu loads press f4 again and agree to exit.

This version of advmame.rc should fix up the D&D controls. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ubelt9 ... sp=sharing it needs to go in /home/pi/.advance/ overwriting the one in there.

Finally, if you, can take a photo of the board in your cab, maybe I'll be able to see something that is not obvious from you description of what's happening.

Sorry I can't Skype, no mic or camera attached to my PC.

[ricard2798]

I have great news. The command prompt input test was a life saver! Without it I am sure i would have never figured out the input issues (one button was harness, the other was a switch in the button, the other button was wired incorrectly)... so now that i was able to bypass all games for inputs, now I can say that all inputs work correctly (one harness cable is still finicky, but that not related to the arpicade hardware or code.)

Ill try to update the dungeo and dragon file you sent, to see if i can make it work properly now.

One other question, lets say i dinf other games the inputs are not working properly, is there a step by step guide for me to fix it, like the fix you did for dungeons?

[ricard2798]

Ok, i downloaded the file you sent, but on my mem card image, i do not see the directory (or even an existing file with the file name provided) that you mention to update the file

screenCapture.JPG (142.48 KiB) Viewed 8172 times

[dee2eR]

For most MAME versions you can press either 'tab' on a keyboard or JAMMA 'p1 start+joy1 right' (default ARpiCADE shortcut) while a game is running to open MAMEs menus. From there you can edit the controls for just the running game (or for all games [in that MAME version] but you're best off only editing one at a time most of the time so you don't accidentally cause any issues in other games).

For non MAME games it varies. Most will be running in Retroarch, Retroarchs control system is based around a SNES pad and is very confusing (at least to me), there's a lot of settings that override each other as well... to open Retroarchs menus while a game is running in Retroarch press 'f1' or 'p1 start + p1b6'. For the Retroarch MAME versions you should use MAMEs menus to edit control settings (where possible).

If you do find issues please keep reporting them. They may not be fixed up straight away but in the next release or so when I figure it out down the line, but I do try to keep improving ARpiCADE and feedback helps a lot. With many 1000s of games supported and many ways people could have their cabs set up it's hard to test everything and pretty easy to miss (or sometimes accidentally break) things...

EDIT: (you posted while I was writing this)
the SD card is formatted with 2 partitions on it. By default Windows cannot see the second partition. You could copy the file to the partition you can see and then copy it over on the Pi... But it may be easier to just use the MAME menu as described above.

The D&D fix was for players 1, 2 and 3 - I missed buttons 3 and 4 when I adjusted the controller order of the four player build. You will need to set buttons 3 and 4 for the first three players, player 4 should be OK. If your cab has a test button you can access the games input test screen to test, it makes it easy to check your changes. Once you're finished editing and testing exit the game and reload to make sure the settings saved (they should) which will also get you back to the game from its test menu.