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GPWIZ49 & SET49MODE SOFTWARE SETUP

NOTE:  In order to view the ToolTips in the coding sections (aqua background), you must have javascript enabled.  This page assumes you already have MAME and your frontend of choice configured and just wish to add support for automatic GP-Wiz49 mode switching.

INTRODUCTION AND SCREENSHOTS

When GroovyGameGear introduced the GPWiz49™ Interface, it was widely regarded amonst the arcade gaming community as the greatest thing since sliced bread, and with good reason.  Let's take a moment and look at some of the reasons for its popularity.

First, the joystick has these features:

The interface itself is no slouch either, having the following features:

But wait, there's more!  Not only does the stick support DRS™ modes, but RandyT included not one, but four different ways of changing DRS mode settings, as follows:

gpwiz49 screenshotGPWiz software confirmation screen

So with all this going for it, what's not to like about this interface?  Well, until Oct05, how about the following:

All of this has changed with the Oct05 introduction of SirPoonga's set49mode software.  At last, there is a software integration solution worthy of the interface.  What makes it so outstanding is the following:

The purpose of this page is to explain how the software works and how to use it with a frontend.  I will provide specific instructions for EmuLoader and basic instructions for MAMEwah, but the general theory can be used with any frontend that can either pass the gamename to a batch file, or launch an application prior to launching MAME™ (or other emulators).

While the procedures are basically useless without a GPWiz49 interface and 49-Way joystick, I would like to point out that the software can be run without them, so if you have ordered one and want to get a head-start before it arrives, or want to see if you like how the software works, or are just curious, feel free to try this out!

THEORY OF OPERATION (AND SOME ADVANCED CONCEPTS)

This is meant as an overview of the software.  If you're impatient, feel free to skip ahead to the Set-up paragraphs and come back to these sections later.  There is nothing discussed here that can't be quickly fixed later if you need to change a setting.

This is meant as a simplified explanation of the program operation.  One of the really nice features of the set49mode program is that very few files are involved and they are all manually editable.  The software can be considered to have two "modes" Setup and Run.  For the most part, everything can be done in the background and the only files the casual user will need to be concerned with are gamemodes.ini and override.ini.  Here is how the modes work in practice (although I may be leaving some steps out (intentionally) and may have some things out of order:

Below is a summary of the various background files used by set49mode.

LIMITATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS

PRELIMINARY SET-UP

Yes, I am finally going to tell you how to get started doing cool stuff with GPWiz49 and set49mode.

First off, this is optional, but if you are using WinXP, I highly recommend installing the "Open Command Window Here" Powertoy from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx.  This will let you right-click on a folder and have a command prompt pointing to it. I think Win98SE already includes this feature (although you might need TweakUI to add it).  I'm not sure about other OS's.  I will assume from here on that you have it installed.  If you choose not to install it, you will have to navigate to the proper directory using "CD" commands as covered in the batch files below.

Other ways of adding this are shown here (Win2k), here (Win2k), here (Win2k), and here (Win98 up).  In case all this fails (and for me in one case it did), you can simply copy cmd.exe from \WindowsRoot\System32\cmd.exe to the applicable folder and double-click that.

GPWIZ49 SOFTWARE SETUP AND TESTING

<sarcasm>Alright, this is a very tricky installation, so please carefully follow all of the steps below exactly as shown</sarcasm>:

Actually, you should do some testing to verify the software works as intended.  If you want you can double-click on the GPWIZ49.exe program and verify that the mouse and the GUI can be used to set modes, but since the purpose of this exercise is to set-up command line support, that is all I am going to cover.

If you have an actual GPWiz49 interface and joystick, you should plug it (them?) in now and open Start>Settings>Control Panel>Game Controllers (or Gaming Options), select the GPWiz49 interface, and verify that the joystick responds as intended.  If you don't have one, don't bother and just imagine all the fun you are missing out on.

Now, right-click the C:\gpwiz49 folder and select "Open Command Prompt" (or otherwise open a command prompt at the C:\gpwiz49 prompt) and type the following (bold) commands followed by the enter key.  NOTE:  The following tests assume you have the GPWiz49 software configured to display confirmation prompts.

This concludes our scheduled testing of the GP-Wiz49 interface.  Of course, additional testing may be required, especially if you have high scores to break!!!

SET49MODE SOFTWARE SETUP AND TESTING

The screenshots below show the initial and folder selection screens of the set49mode software (click twice to enlarge).  Note that you will only see these screens when installing or upgrading the software (after a new MAME or controls.ini release).  In normal everyday usage, you will only see the GPWiz49 software confirmation screens.  (And if you have the pending version of the GPWiz49 software that disables these, you won't even see them, for true invisible behing-the-scenes goodness . . .)

set49modeset49mode folder selection 

The first step in the installation is to verify you have the .NET framework installed as explained above under "OPERATING SYSTEM AND SUPPORT FILES."

Next, create a new folder (recommended C:\set49mode).  Download set49mode as the attachment in this message thread and extract it to the new folder.  Also download controls.ini from http://fe.donkeyfly.com/controls/controls_dat.php and extract it to the new folder also (unless you already have it on your system and are using it elsewhere).

Finally, right click on your main MAME folder and select "Open Command Prompt" (or otherwise open a command prompt at the C:\mame prompt) and type in mame -listxml > listxml.xml and press enter.

Now double-click the set49mode.exe file and you will see the screen on the left above.  In the taskbar of the set49mode window, click "setup" and select "File Locations" from the drop-down list.  You will see the Setup File Locations form as in the screen on the right.  Click the upper box with the three dots and navigate to and select your GPWIZ49.exe file.  Click the middle box with the three dots and navigate to and select the listxml.xml file.  (This would be C:\mame\listxml.xml if you followed the example above.).  Click the lower box with the three dots and navigate to and select the controls.ini file (recommended C:\set49mode\controls.ini unless you had the file already installed somewhere else (C:\johnny\data files\controls.ini, for instance)).  Finally, click the Save button and the window will close.

Next, in the taskbar of the set49mode window, click "setup" and select "Default DRS Mode" from the drop-down list.  A new window will pop up with the available selections.  This is the mode that set49mode will use if it can't find any information on a game.  Generally, 8-Way is used, but you can select something else as desired.

If desired, you can also view and edit any of the support files from the "setup" taskbar option, and refresh them into the program by pressing F5, but we shouldn't need to do that now.

Next click on the button labeled "Create Gamemodes.ini" and click "Yes" on the "Are you sure?" confimation window.  Once this finishes, the software is ready to use.  NOTE:  To keep the software current, you should create a new gamemodes.ini whenever you download a new version of controls.ini, or change any of the set49mode support files.  You should also generate a new listxml.xml file and create a new gamemodes.ini file whenever you change MAME versions.

Close the set49mode window and let's do some testing ! ! !

Right click on the C:\set49mode folder and select "Open Command Prompt" (or otherwise open a command prompt at the C:\set49mode prompt) and type the commands in bold below (or other games of your choosing), followed by the enter key.

set49mode 1943 (You should see the GPWiz49 8-Way confirmation prompt appear (cool, huh!!!))
set49mode pacman (You should see the GPWiz49 4-Way confirmation prompt appear.)
set49mode qbert (You should see the GPWiz49 Diagonals confirmation prompt appear.)
set49mode galaga (You should see the GPWiz49 2-Way-H confirmation prompt appear.)
set49mode defender (You should see the GPWiz49 2-Way-V confirmation prompt appear.)

Now to integrate it with MAME . . .

BATCHFILE SETUP AND TESTING

NOTE:  The following suggestions are optimized for EmuLoader 4.7 (and up).  EmuLoader 4.7 has very robust batch file support.  It will run the default.bat file first, but it will also search the directory for any <gamename.bat> file and run that instead.  So for example, if you wanted to use an older version of MAME for Battlezone, you would simply copy the default.bat file and rename it as bzone.bat, then edit the file to point to the older MAME version.  MAMEwah will work with a default.bat file, but would be just as happy with a mame.bat file in the MAME directory, or just calling set49mode directly prior to launching MAME, but I will get to that later. . .

Create a new folder, recommended C:\mamebat.  Open notepad, copy the text below (aqua background), paste and modify as required (see ToolTips), and save as a text file named default.bat.

To test the batch file, right-click on the C:\mamebat folder and select "Open Command Prompt" (or otherwise open a command prompt at the C:\mamebat prompt) and type default followed by a working rom name and press enter.  The GPWiz confirmation window should pop up and then the game should start in MAME.

PRELIMINARY FRONT-END INTEGRATION

This is an often overlooked setting, but is important.  Typically, you will want the GPWiz49 interface to be in 8-Way mode prior to launching your frontend.  There are two ways to do this, depending on how you use your PC:

EMULOADER INTEGRATION

Launch EmuLoader (4.7 or above).  Text shown is for 4.7.4.

From the taskbar, select Advanced User>Alternate Batch Files.  Ensure the MAME tab is selected, and click the enabled checkbox.  Click the icon following default file and navigate to C:\mamebat\default.bat (if you followed the example) and click "open."  For our use, we only need the Name parateter sent to the batch file, so ensure only it is selected (add/delete as required under Parameters), and click the Ok checkbox at the top of the form.  Next, from the taskbar, select the File>Preferences>General>Games tab and click "Use Custom Options by default."  Finally, if you want to hide the annoying Command Prompt Window, select the File>Preferences>General>Advanced User tab, under the "MS-DOS Box State" option, select either "Hidden (not recommended)" or "Minimized".

You can also set Alternate Batch File settings for Zinc, Daphne, AgeMAME, or PinMAME if you want to use custom batch files with these emulators.

That should do it, and EmuLoader should now switch GPWiz49 modes prior to launching a game.

KYMAERA 2.02

I was unable to get this working properly with Kymaera.  I did get Kymaera to run the batch file, but it did not seem to be passing to romname to the set49mode software, although MAME launched with the correct romname.  This means that the software is okay if you know what mode the game should use and have a mouse or trackball available.

MAMEWAH INTEGRATION

Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with MAMEwah.  I have set it up and used it previously, but it is not my frontend of choice (no offense to it or MinWah), so I am not very familiar with it.  I have consulted with MinWah on these settings and have personally verified they work, as described using Versions 1.61 and 1.62B5.  I will post file names and settings for these versions.  BTW, if you are also new to MAMEwah, I found this guide very useful in getting it working.  (You might also want to review the support files at Jcrouse's site.)

NOTE: There are some differences between the methods below.  I set-up Version 1.62B5 fairly quickly with the intention of  verifying that the methods work.  Therefore, I happened to be running at a desktop resolution of 1024x768, a MAMEwah resolution of 640x480, and a MAME resolution of 800x600.  Method 1 will run the GPWiz49 software (usually) at MAMEwah resolution of 640x480.  Method two will run the GPWiz49 software typically at desktop resolution of 1024x768.  Generally I think Method 1 would be preferred because it allows you to keep the {autodosbox} flag for MAME.

OTHER FRONTENDS

I will try to test some additional frontends and post test results and configuration settings on this page.

CONCLUSION

Well, that's about all I have to say.  Hopefully this page was helpful for you.  If you see anything major that I got wrong, know of a better way to do this, or if you just can't get it to work, shoot me an E-mail  and I will either fix the page or try to help you out.L

Document made with Nvu