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Armadillo Racing controls
#315502 - 10/08/13 05:56 PM
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Hey guys, I have a trackball that works great with all MAME games on my cab but .....Armadillo Racing it is just not right. I spin the ball forward and he goes all over the place...is this a problem with the driver or is there a certain way controls need to be configured?
It looks like a really fun game I'm dying to play it!
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Trnzaddict]
#315503 - 10/08/13 06:23 PM
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Looks like it was changed in .148u1 the controls.
0.148u1: hap improved Armadillo Racing control. Replaced Trackball with Stick. Added 8-way Joystick and Player 2 and button 2.
I think it should stay with the trackball in my opinion. 
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| RATMNL |
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: joey35car]
#315504 - 10/08/13 06:27 PM
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You could override that per game, can't you?
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"Those voices in his head might not be real, but they have really good ideas!"
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: joey35car]
#315949 - 10/16/13 04:26 PM
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> Looks like it was changed in .148u1 the controls.
>
> 0.148u1: hap improved Armadillo Racing control. Replaced Trackball with Stick. Added
> 8-way Joystick and Player 2 and button 2.
I haven't played it, but didn't the original use a trackball?
It irks me when they hack games so they won't work with the original controls (like the toggle that's added to the shifter switch in all the driving games that had hi/lo shifters).
Seems to go against the philosophy of MAME documenting how the original game functioned.
Apologies if the game actually did use an 8-way stick.
Edited by BadMouth (10/16/13 04:26 PM)
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| Sune |
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: RATMNL]
#316000 - 10/17/13 01:03 AM
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> You could override that per game, can't you?
You can, but if a game was designed to be played with a joystick it's going to suck using a trackball.
S
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Sune]
#316002 - 10/17/13 01:30 AM
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> > You could override that per game, can't you?
>
> You can, but if a game was designed to be played with a joystick it's going to suck
> using a trackball.
>
> S
But Armadillo Racing cabinets have a massive two-handed trackball with plenty of momentum. That needs to be approximated somehow, and a joystick would really take the fun out of it.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Matty_]
#316003 - 10/17/13 01:32 AM
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> > > You could override that per game, can't you?
> >
> > You can, but if a game was designed to be played with a joystick it's going to suck
> > using a trackball.
> >
> > S
>
> But Armadillo Racing cabinets have a massive two-handed trackball with plenty of
> momentum. That needs to be approximated somehow, and a joystick would really take the
> fun out of it.
How do you decide which one of your sock puppets to use before you post?
S
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Sune]
#316005 - 10/17/13 01:42 AM
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> > But Armadillo Racing cabinets have a massive two-handed trackball with plenty of
> > momentum. That needs to be approximated somehow, and a joystick would really take the
> > fun out of it.
>
> How do you decide which one of your sock puppets to use before you post?
Mainly by mood and time of day. But your ad hominem doesn't change the fact that I'm right: Armadillo Racing uses a two-handed trackball for control, and changing it to joystick doesn't reflect the actual hardware. If the hardware transforms the trackball input so it looks like a stick to the software, that needs to be emulated. This would both document how the system works and allow it to be played naturally.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: BadMouth]
#316006 - 10/17/13 01:43 AM
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If the trackball controls would have worked I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have replaced them. It could be changed back if someone could figure out how to implement it correctly but iirc it was completely broken/unplayable.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Trnzaddict]
#316014 - 10/17/13 05:21 AM
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I can't believe people still play this game haha, Daytona USA original i can understand why, the best racer ever, i liked it since the 1st day i played it, the beginner track can be very addictive.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Chimp]
#316015 - 10/17/13 05:28 AM
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> I can't believe people still play this game haha, Daytona USA original i can
> understand why, the best racer ever, i liked it since the 1st day i played it, the
> beginner track can be very addictive.
Armadillo Racing is awesome, don't knock it!
(Also plenty of people never saw it in an arcade and MAME is their only chance to enjoy it.)
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| RATMNL |
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Matty_]
#316035 - 10/17/13 10:57 AM
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Man, this stuff needs fixing
I soooo wanna destroy my trackball on this
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"Those voices in his head might not be real, but they have really good ideas!"
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Trnzaddict]
#316039 - 10/17/13 12:22 PM
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Ok, I'll put it on my TODO to recheck the implementation of this.
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| R. Belmont |
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Matty_]
#316060 - 10/17/13 05:52 PM
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> Armadillo Racing is awesome, don't knock it!
> (Also plenty of people never saw it in an arcade and MAME is their only chance to
> enjoy it.)
It's a great ice-breaker at parties.
The trackball IIRC works a lot like the mouse on the original Macintosh; you get a series of digital left/right/up/down inputs and the speed of those inputs varies by how fast you roll the ball (and if you roll it too fast you start getting inputs in the opposite direction). The pedals in Prop Cycle use a similar but much simplified setup.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: R. Belmont]
#316081 - 10/18/13 12:58 AM
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> > Armadillo Racing is awesome, don't knock it!
> > (Also plenty of people never saw it in an arcade and MAME is their only chance to
> > enjoy it.)
>
> It's a great ice-breaker at parties.
>
> The trackball IIRC works a lot like the mouse on the original Macintosh; you get a
> series of digital left/right/up/down inputs and the speed of those inputs varies by
> how fast you roll the ball (and if you roll it too fast you start getting inputs in
> the opposite direction). The pedals in Prop Cycle use a similar but much simplified
> setup.
I envisioned it as this: picture three spinners on their sides, one pointing straight upwards, and the other two pointing at 45 degree angles to the left and right, respectively. All three spinners rest against the underside of the trackball. This way, the game could calculate the Armadillo's direction and "velocity" by the amount of spin the player gives one spinner over another by virtue of the direction and force applied to the trackball. This could not be possible with a trackball alone, which is more suited for position calculations.
Is this anything close to reality? If so, that's mighty clever - and I assume would require some equally clever reverse engineering to emulate with any degree of accuracy.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Shoegazr]
#316084 - 10/18/13 01:16 AM
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> I envisioned it as this: picture three spinners on their sides, one pointing straight
> upwards, and the other two pointing at 45 degree angles to the left and right,
> respectively. All three spinners rest against the underside of the trackball. This
> way, the game could calculate the Armadillo's direction and "velocity" by the amount
> of spin the player gives one spinner over another by virtue of the direction and
> force applied to the trackball. This could not be possible with a trackball alone,
> which is more suited for position calculations.
You used to be able to get three-axis trackball-like input devices for SGI and Sun workstations. I think they were called "speedballs". They were expensive, temperamental and unreliable. However, to the best of my knowledge Armadillo Racing uses regular two-axis optomechanical pickups, with the axes at 45 degree angles. It's just a trackball at an angle, albeit a big, heavy, two-handed one on nice, smooth bearings.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Matty_]
#316086 - 10/18/13 02:43 AM
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> > I envisioned it as this: picture three spinners on their sides, one pointing
> straight
> > upwards, and the other two pointing at 45 degree angles to the left and right,
> > respectively. All three spinners rest against the underside of the trackball. This
> > way, the game could calculate the Armadillo's direction and "velocity" by the
> amount
> > of spin the player gives one spinner over another by virtue of the direction and
> > force applied to the trackball. This could not be possible with a trackball alone,
> > which is more suited for position calculations.
>
> You used to be able to get three-axis trackball-like input devices for SGI and Sun
> workstations. I think they were called "speedballs". They were expensive,
> temperamental and unreliable. However, to the best of my knowledge Armadillo Racing
> uses regular two-axis optomechanical pickups, with the axes at 45 degree angles. It's
> just a trackball at an angle, albeit a big, heavy, two-handed one on nice, smooth
> bearings.
Thanks, that's interesting. Clearly some real thought went into the control design and if the YT videos are any indication, it seems to work really well.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: Matty_]
#316114 - 10/18/13 10:57 PM
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Interesting. Now I can see where it would be complicated to translate standard trackball movement.
If anyone ever catches wind of someone interested in working on a better solution for the shifters on the driving games instead of a TOGGLE, point them in my direction.
A few years ago, I made a spreadsheet of all the affected games and how MAME handles the input vs the true behavior (based on repair manuals).
MAME Shifter Spreadsheet
The affected games are in green.
A few more have had the toggle added since then; after MAMETesters reported the lack of a toggle as a bug. 
I've learned just barely enough to remove the toggle and roll my own, but I can't foresee having the time to learn how to code something clean enough to be accepted and maintained.
Thoughts on how I think it would work from an end-user standpoint here, but it is riddled with people who don't get it and trolling.
here
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: BadMouth]
#316115 - 10/18/13 11:12 PM
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I don't see a spreadsheet?
Anyway, it's rough simulation of the mechanical part, in the same way we simulate an auto-center spring(or whatever way that works mechanically) in a game with steering wheel.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: hap]
#316119 - 10/19/13 01:55 AM
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> I don't see a spreadsheet?
>
> Anyway, it's rough simulation of the mechanical part, in the same way we simulate an
> auto-center spring(or whatever way that works mechanically) in a game with steering
> wheel.
Sorry, was rushing earlier and messed up posting both links.
Spreadsheet
Discussion among woodworkers, EE hobbyists, and a troll that goes nowhere
(keep in mind that discussion was started before doing the research to make the spreadsheet)
Someone has a build that accomplishes this in v.106, but he didn't seem to have any interest in submitting his changes for newer builds.
RacerMAME
Fixed original post.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: BadMouth]
#316121 - 10/19/13 02:20 AM
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Most people's primary concern is the Toggle on the Hi/Lo games.
Not too many people care if mame shows 4 switches for a 4 speed shifter that really only had 3 switches in it and defaulted to 1st if none were pressed.
Changing it may better represent the original hardware, but then you'd probably get complaints from people saying the input for 1st gear is missing.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: BadMouth]
#316411 - 10/26/13 02:47 PM
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Ok, the toggle on hi/lo gearshift can now be turned off by editing the game cfg file. I won't add it to the MAME internal UI though.
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Re: Armadillo Racing controls
[Re: hap]
#316432 - 10/27/13 01:21 AM
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> Ok, the toggle on hi/lo gearshift can now be turned off by editing the game cfg file.
> I won't add it to the MAME internal UI though.
That is HUGE for those of us using real shifters.
THANK YOU!!!
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