MAMEUIFX

[VibrationsOfDoom]

Okay, after MUCH trial and error, I finally figured out what was wrong with MAME... For those of you having controller issues, here's a step by step on what to do....

First off, under NO circumstances should you have more than one version of MAME on the hard drive. Once I got 124a back on my hard drive and got my controller problems straightened out, I downloaded 125 to the hard drive. That's when the controllers went haywire again... Dunno why this is, but if you plan on installing a new version of MAME, DELETE THE OLD ONE ENTIRELY! I HIGHLY recommend making new directories for the high score files (more on this in a minute), roms and samples... And of course the highscore.dat file...

Secondly, when you DO try and fix an existing installation, first things first: ERASE ALL THE .CFG files AND the .ini files (mame32.ini found in the main folder, AND the mame.ini file found in the ini folder, PLUS ALL the .cfg files **YES, even the default.ini file**). In some rare instances (like one instance I had) you MAY not be able to keep your high score files. Worse comes to worse, delete those too. When you delete the main mame32.ini file, the system will scan your directories for all the mame roms, and reset everything back to default. Sometimes this will fix problems... Sometimes not, in which case I recommend step 3... (Of course, you DID check to see if the joysticks were enabled from the main mouse driven menu didnt you? If not, it's "options," "Default game options," "controllers," then check "enable joystick input."

After all this, I would unplug your controllers and completely uninstall the drivers. For my joystick (radio shack PSX to USB adapter with playstation controllers), it comes up in the system by default as a USB controller before the drivers are installed. RESTART THE COMPUTER before you do anything else. Then, once you've restarted the computer, plug in your joysticks and THEN install the drivers. THEN you should have no problems running MAME. I've done this a few times and it works...

Above all, the MOST important thing to remember is to NEVER HAVE TWO VERSIONS OF MAME ON THE DRIVE AT THE SAME TIME... Something the MAME team did to the controller drivers renders EVERYTHING useless, to where you can't even remap certain keyboard controls! For instance, you can't change the pause key to anything other than default, not even a keyboard command...

This might be just something wierd with my computer, but after many hours, these are the things that will get you able to remap the controller buttons and inputs. Hope this helps....

[VibrationsOfDoom]

One more thing: If you're afraid that next time you might not be able to fix controller problems in the future and you absolutely HATE the defaults, there IS a solution once you have controllers working: from ANY game, hit the tab key and hit input (general). This will make keypress changes for ANY game that you run after this one... This way, it's a universal set of settings (for example, I like my buttons arranged in the diamond shaped order, which means MY button 1 is really button 3 in MAME mappings). Pause buttons can be mapped out here, and any other unusual button mappings (including 4 way directional fire mapped to each joystick button, rather than a secondary joystick, which MAME never default maps properly anyway). At least this way if things get to where you cannot change inputs and you don't want to have to go through all the time and trouble to fix things, your defaults may carry you through....

[alien_mame]

Hi VibrationsofDoom,

For most people that is probably overkill.

The order in which I would do thing you mention is this:-

1) Delete the contents of the .cfg folder and try the games again.

2) Repeat te above, and kill the mame.ini and ini/mame.ini and try again.

3) Uninstall/re-install drivers, repeat steps 1 & 2

Also, I don't know whether or not you caught this:

[COOLDUDE]

I liked his information A_m!

Thanks for the nice info Vibs! We should make this thread a sticky because Vibs detailed explanation and with Alien mame's explanation, should help other people out!

[toufic]

Sounds like a farging conspiracy to me.

[VibrationsOfDoom]

Sounds like someone's desperate for posting credits...

[Rikki]

Ok so I've tried everything, deleted MAME, reinstalled it, tried different versions, everything i could think of but nothing works. For some reason it won't let me change the key inputs, on all versions. Like when I press tab and go into input (general) or (for this game) and then select for instance, the move up command and try to change it, it starts acting like my keyboard isn't plugged in but then I can still move the highlight tab up and down in the list. I only have one Mame version on my computer at a time and tried deleting the files and forget worrying about reinstalling game controller drivers, the emulator won't even read my keyboard when i try to input new controls.

If anyone can help me it would be great thank you

[alien_mame]

Just to rule out the REALLY obvious, you are pressing [Enter] when you highlight the control you wish to change so that you can enter your choice?

Cheers,

Ralph.
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