thejamestownoasis

thanks- I don’t know why the default config- especially after using the xarcade config- doesn’t have the mouse there. I know I did not have to go through this initially, it just worked. truthfully, it made sense it “had” to be mame, as the trackball and buttons worked everywhere else, just as they should since they are seen as a keyboard. thanks again all. james

BTW: my regular mouse used to work concurrently (for better or worse) - now it does not work either- although it did, earlier today. anyway, I tried some machine specific settings - like turning the mouse functionality “on” as it was “off” - no joy. I tried mouse because I believe that’s how mame “sees” my trackball. EDIT: VICTORY!!! Looks I needed to “save machine settings” after selecting the mouse!!! thanks so much for everyone’s help- it’s so easy when you know what you’re doing! James

So- like xarcade states- since the trackball works just fine on my desktop, and even in the mame UI, the problem HAS to lie with the mame setup. Right? again, I have all the buttons set up for GT, the trackball just does not function. I feel like I’m at least making progress. any ideas on the trackball situ? thanks again James

Thanks all- I now- inexplicably- am able to program the buttons just fine in mame (through the “tab” menu). I do it specifically through the GT machine because for the life of me, I don’t know how to program the buttons for general use so it works with all/“most” games. Anyway, still no joy on the mouse. Trackball works fine moving in browsers and on the “tab” menu, but zero functionality in games. oh, and I broke LB- says I’m missing something in the root folder. I tried to delete and re-install and get the same message. so now I just go directly through mame. oh the joy. thanks James

Thanks I’ve tried this to no avail. I’m to the point now where I would - literally- pay someone money to fix this. I am mentally exhausted over this and my sanity is fraying. Anyone in the Milwaukee metro area who wants to make some $. Seriously. I cannot take this anymore. The worst thing about problems like this is not even knowing enough about what you‘re doing to know what the problem IS. I cannot program the tankstick in MAME for the LIFE of me. And the trackball also refuses to work in the game, although it moves the cursor around the screen, which I can use to click on things outside of MAME (say a browser screen) and move over options within the “tab” screen, within MAME. So when I start Golden Tee, it cannot be used, within the game. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling MAME. Deleting the “config” file. Re-applying the “x-arcade” controller file in the controller folder. who knows what else. I would absolutely love watching someone who knows what they’re doing figure this out in minutes. sigh. James

And when I delete this file, btw, what happens? Does the xarcade create a new one autmatically? I read I need/should place the config file off their (xarcade’s) website in the config folder. I have done that too with no luck. thanks again

Thanks so much- I have done this with no luck, unfortunately. I had the tv/display volume turned down and was not noticing that the cpu was booting out the xarcade stick and now after minimizing lb/mame, I can see that it’s saying that the stick is “usb not recognized/faulty”- even though the trackball still works and at least one of the buttons does (I say this as I believe the trackball and buttons/joysticks are work on the separate usb connections). So it could be a usb/xarcade issue??? I just don’t know what my nephew could have done to cause THIS issue?? I just wish I could “reset” the x arcade stick...SO frustrating. Ugh. James

nothin?

Hi all- I have had LB with my XArcade tankstick running just fine for a around a year now- but I still post as a NOOB cuz I'm just plain stupid with this stuff. Anyway- I joke that every time my brother's son comes over he breaks something- or many times- multiple things. This time it was my LB/MAME setup. The controls just won't work. I tried a restart and re-inserted the two usb connections into my cpu. No joy. I use "tab' on my connected keyboard to enter the controls area and I think this is where I get lost. I mostly use this for Golden Tee Complete, so for instance, I will just go into the controls area for the game, double click on a given command, and then just "tap" the key I want. I thought it was this simple but it doesn't work. When I first set up the arcade stick all worked just fine, so I wish I just knew how to "reset" mame, and the Arcade stick, if necessary, It's really all I need to do, for my purposes. Shameful I cannot figure this out and would desperately appreciate any advice. Thanks so much James

Hello- I have had some help here in the past so I figured I'd try again. Poor, novice, still noob, here. I started MAME and got the XArcade stick with trackball, 95% for Golden Tee. I finally was able to get it working...finally. But now a few other issues, sorry if these end up being mostly mame questions... 1. How do I "reset" the controls in mame/Arcade stick? I'm concerned that I have somehow altered them and now in games, a character will "jump" and "fire/slash/etc" in one button push (say Arthur jumping and throwing simultaneously in Ghosts n Goblins). I am confused by how to set this up because do I now need to know how the xarcade buttons are mapped in order to assign the keys??? I am probably over-complicating this, but I just cannot get my mind straight as to how to accomplish this easily. I remember the default config seemed to work fine with most everything. Exp: I know when I bring up the button mapping screen I can "map" a given command to a given button on the XArcade, but how do I know what that button DOES? I need to know where the "typical" mame buttons are and then map them onto the XArcade controller, right? Hence my desire to just restart everything. Sigh, sorry. 2. High scores. Should not these be saving automatically at this point in MAME? Most machines just seem to reset with every start up. I would especially like to see this with GT...and THAT is very odd. IT will (seemingly) save some rounds, but they are clustered around hundreds of other "drone scores" of others that should be LONG erased by now with better scores. Does that explanation make sense? 3. Some games just will not work: NFL Blitz for example. I know I had to chase down the CHD file for GT- is that the case with some/many of these new(er) games, too? Thank you so much for the help, I really wish I could just PAY someone to give me a tutorial on this stuff- most of the youtube videos just don't do it for me for some reason, espeically with the XArcade involved. James

Wanted to thank everyone for their help - specifically Retro808. Since switching to the front USB ports the problem has completely vanished. I don't even want to question it at this point- I switched my WIFI USB dongle to the back and IT too gets booted off, so I know it must be something with Windows 10 or the BIOS- I simply do not want to dive into it right now. Somewhat off-topic, but related. I wonder why I'm having such a HELLUVA time mapping buttons in MAME. For instance: I simply want to map a "PAUSE" function, so I (right or wrong) hit "TAB" to open the configurator, select the UI option, and then- with some measure of success- I'm able to assign a task to a button. BUT, I simply want to put in a pause function using TWO buttons (to avoid accidental pausing of course) and I cannot get this done. I was able to eventually program the "Player 2" button for pause, but of course that won't work on most games. Can someone speak to what I'm doing wrong please? Thanks James

Of course this is not over. I’m back to problems and it may be what was causing this in the first place, and definitely a problem I was having in the past. Both the joy/buttons and trackboaRd USBs are getting booted out of windows 10. They will just randomly disconnect. Now, I haven’t been around to witness it, but I can hear from upstairs that they sometimes reconnect on their own. The only way for me to alleviate this while playing is to pause with the BT keyboard, pull out the TS USBs, re-insert them, and then go back in the MAME. This of course is not workable. After reading, I went into my Win 10 power management area in CP and disabled the “put usbs to sleep” option. Didn’t work. I then went into the device manager and then, individually (per USB port) disallowed Win 10 from disabling the USB’s to save power. Didn’t work. I read that some have seem success by uninstallling their usb drives and then restarting their CPU, but when I go to uninstall them I get concerned because windows “warns” me that I’m going to be uninstalling them. Should I try this or is this a bad idea. ??? I just don’t know what to do. It’s just one thing after the other. I had this problem months ago, simply moved to new usb ports and it went away. Now, again, I’ve done NOTHING and it just pops up again. The damn thing just cannot stay connected, right? so frustrating. It infuriates me that so many others just have this working without all of this BS! Thanks James

Plugged it all back in. THE DAMN THING IS WORKING! you cannot make this shtuff up! Unreal- I’m terrified to reinstall everything “nice” again! thanks again so much! James

Tried in other computer. works perfectly fine. I’ll try again, but I have already tried 3 different usb ports already! Something with a driver? thanks james

I hear ya. Sometimes things just break I suppose. I’m going to try it on my other CPU too and see. I’m just frustrated and overcomplicating this. As we have discussed: it’s a keyboard, forget all else, it should- at the very least- produce characters on regular text fields. BTW: do they have a phone number, lol? They seem to do everything possible to NOT want to address twchnical issues over the phone. thanks again so much- I’m going to plug it into my other cpu now just for laughs. james

Yeah, nothing. Again, when I plug in the usb it will make the tone and I don’t get the malfunction message. this shouldn‘t be this difficult, right? With the TS being recognized as a keyboard is there something I need to be doing in LB to have it set up correctly? Hitting “tab” while in GT and trying to set up the TS is absolutely fruitless. All the same- again- clicking on a field in google for instance, tapping on the buttons should yield characters, correct? This, even though there’s another keyboard connecte via bluetooth? maybe it IS the board? It should simply work outside of mame just as everyone has suggested. (?) it’s just crazy that it just completely stopped working out of nowhere. james

opened it up- connection definitely wasn't seated well. Plugged it in again, and then re plugged the usb back into the computer- at LEAST it made the "connection sound" and I didn't get the message. BUT, still nothing. Tried another game, fearing I might have messed up the controls for GT...again, nothin. Was going to re-start and see what I get. Thanks James

opened it up- connection definitely wasn't seated well. Plugged it in again, and then re plugged the usb back into the computer- at LEAST it made the "connection sound" and I didn't get the message. BUT, still nothing. Tried another game, fearing I might have messed up the controls for GT...again, nothin. Was going to re-start and see what I get. Thanks James

checking it now, thanks

"the last usb device you plugged in malfunctioned and windows does not recognize it"

thanks did that- dloaded their program and tried it. Nuttin

I did just see a "failed usb" message on my desktop for the first time. gulp James

gotcha- sorry, I didn't realize the "bumper" buttons were separate- I thought that was just the mouse, my apologies! James

-by the way: I don't see a single screw anywhere on the tankstick cabinet. not the sides, top or bottom. I'm sure I'm sure there must be something obvious that I'm missing- are they under the rubber feet? I have a sneaky feeling that the controller is ok, unfortunately. thanks James

so what then are the odds that the side button works but all the others are shot if it/s a bad board? This all just seems so highly coincidental to me. It works perfectly fine, I don't use it for 3 days, and then it just stops working. Again I'm confused as if the side button is "3" how come I do not see a "3" when I hit it when I'm in a text field? This is so depressing for a guy like me, lol. It's so unlike anything else that is "broken". I would pay someone $100 to get this workin in 10 minutes but I cannot even do that, lol. thanks James