Keywiz help

[Maxpower1509]

I picked up an old cabinet with a P3 pc and I think a 1.5 Keywiz. Works fine. I updating the pc with a W10 and launchbox. Software works great but how do I configure it with the Keywiz? I’ve spent hours looking online. Keywiz software works when I press up / down etc but not in launchbox. Thank you for any help. It’s driving me nuts.

[Maxpower1509]

Such a helpful forum

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, Maxpower1509 said:

Such a helpful forum

Thanks.  And welcome to the community.  There are a lot of knowledge members in the Community who can and will help when and if they can.

Myself, I've never heard of KeyWiz nor knew what it was when you mentioned it.  As I suspect is the same for many users on the forums.  A quick search shows me it's a keyboard encoder.

LaunchBox is more of a keyboard and mouse application.  It'd be pretty difficult to navigate it with just a keyboard.  Looking at the documentation for KeyWiz, their board doesn't appear to have any mouse-oriented inputs (i.e. trackball connections or mouse left/right-click).  Also, LaunchBox doesn't have any custom keyboard mappings.

BigBox on the other hand does have custom keyboard mappings, making it work great with a cab using a keyboard encoder.

 

If your cab has a Shazaaam! Button, you can press and hold it, then press Player-1 Button-2 to Tab around in LaunchBox.  But that can be a pain for navigating within LaunchBox.

Some things you can do:

• (using a mouse or somehow..) select a game
• Assuming your cab has a Pause button
  • press and hold Player-1 Button-1 and then press Pause
  • If all goes well, this will launch the game

 

• Select a game
• Assuming your cab has 2 player controls
  • press and hold Player-1 Button-1 and then press Player-2 Button-1
  • If all goes well, this will select all games
  • Not super practical. But can be done

[Maxpower1509]

Thank you for your reply. I don’t know how you could use launchbox without a keyboard encoder for an arcade box. I’m happy to buy it but not if it doesn’t work. Trying Big Box to see if it works. 
 

[JoeViking245]

6 hours ago, Maxpower1509 said:

I don’t know how you could use launchbox without a keyboard encoder for an arcade box.

Some encoders can Xinput or keyboard input (or 'output' if you prefer). But yeah, you have to have an encoder to convert the buttons and joys to something.  Mine has an older keyboard encoder, but also has a trackball that works the mouse movement and 3 buttons that are left/middle/right mouse-clicks.

But even still, for LaunchBox navigation I'll use the keyboard and mouse.

 

6 hours ago, Maxpower1509 said:

I’m happy to buy it but not if it doesn’t work. Trying Big Box to see if it works. 

TBH, you won't be happy with LaunchBox if all you have are the buttons and joys.  It really is designed for mouse and [full] keyboard. But once your system is all setup in there, Big Box really shines on a cab [with using just the control panel].  I think you'll find though, with any frontend, you will need a keyboard and mouse to set things up.

In Big Box, a lot of the keyboard mapping is pre-setup.  But you can of course customize it to your liking/needs.  Use the player-1 joy for moving around and player-1 Start for Select.  I'm not sure if it's the default setting, but my Back button is Pause on my cab.

I don't know if you can change them in the free trial version of Big Box or not (I would think you could?), but if nothing else, you can see [and change?] the default keyboard mapping under System Menu < Options < Keyboard Mappings.

[Maxpower1509]

Thanks for your help. I used big box for a while and it worked. Just need to get the game’s scrolling faster. Like if you’re on A and want to go to S it takes forever. So I’ll buy it. I only want arcade games and nothing else. Again thank you.

[JoeViking245]

7 minutes ago, Maxpower1509 said:

Thanks for your help. I used big box for a while and it worked. Just need to get the game’s scrolling faster. Like if you’re on A and want to go to S it takes forever. 

My pleasure.  Should be able to move the joy left/right to bring up the 'alphabet', move left/right to "S", then [continue to] scroll up/down.  

 

There're some things you can also to do or look at that may help with scrolling faster. About halfway down is the Big Box Troubleshooting section. But the whole thing is probably worth reading.

 

[Maxpower1509]

Awesome thanks. I did try moving the stick around and different buttons but nothing. I’ll read that and have a play over the weekend.