HS not exiting Mame game sometimes and also keeps scrolling down w/o any input

[jevansoh]

I'm having a major problem with HyperSpin.

First, sometimes Mame games won't exit.  I can go into a game from HS and exit and sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't.

Also, now once I start HyperSpin it will "HyperSpin" the games down, scrolling down down down even without any input from any of the joysticks or gamepads or keyboard.  I can press "up" on a gamepad/joystick/keyboard and it will register and allow me to go up, but as soon as I let off the up button, it starts scrolling down uncontrollably again.  This is without any delay and I'm not talking about the normal scrolling that happens if you don't press a button for a while, although it does scroll at the same speed.

I'm ready to pull my hair out over this because it's totally unusable like this.

I'll gladly pay $50 via PayPal to the first person that can help me figure this out.

Thanks,

--Jason

[Spawk]

Man... I am not a mod or anything but seriously, I think you can stop with the $ stuff. Most of the people around here do it for a "love of the hobby". If you really feel like someone went above and beyond to help you, then by all means, PM them with an offering or something. Just my opinion.

Now to the problem... basically you should never ever use the joystick navigation options in HQ. The keyboard ones are fine!

There are 2 basic "schemes" people use for HS:

1. for an arcade cabinet

2. in with their HTPC setup

People running arcade cabs are not affected by this because they are hooked to an i-pac or similar which is using keystrokes anyway. For those of us (like me) who are running in their HTPC will want to control HS with xbox or ps3 controllers are left to find an alternative to navigate properly. You have 3 options: The easiest one is to use the "Startup Script". Using a keymapper has some advantages though. RL supports 2 main keymappers. Xpadder and JoyToKey. They each have thier own quirks though and either can be a little difficult to setup in their own way. So much that it leads to the third option, use a keymapper not supported by RL. I don't suggest this though.

 

[jevansoh]

Thanks for the info and your opinion, Spawk.

I don't want to do anything to hurt the community or anything that is against the rules.  I got the idea from the RetroArch forum and it seems to work well there.

I will take your advice and just not offer $ any more, though.  I just feel guilty for having so many problems and needing so much help and don't know how else to pay back folks for their time.

Any way, I do have a dedicated arcade cabinet and I do use an i-pac.  That's how my joysticks work.  Through the keyboard encoder/i-pac.  I don't have joystick support enabled in HyperSpin because I was told early on it doesn't work.

I also use the startup script and Joy2Key for Xbox 360 control.  My startup script loads Joy2Key and I have it working properly....When it all works.

The problem isn't happening all the time, neither problem, but it's random and I don't have a clue where to look.

For instance, when I first fired up my cabinet today, it was scrolling down down down and was stuck scrolling down no matter what I did.  I even exited HS then restarted it and it was still doing it.  15 minutes later (after I exited HS) I started it up again and tried my best to get the problem to happen again, entering and exiting games over and over, and I did this for an hour or so with no problems. 

Same thing with exiting games from Mame.  I loaded Dr. Mario yesterday and it just would not exit.  It happened on one game today, too.  I forget which one, though.  But the other 40 times or so I entered/exited a game, it worked fine.  Go figure.

Thanks for taking your valuable time to assist me.  I really appreciate it.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks again Spawk,

--J

 

[Kondorito]

Hey J, how are you?

If you are sure that the joysticks checkboxes are not enabled in HyperHQ, and you have audio/speakers/earphones plugged in your cab (old bug that messed the controls), then I would think that this scenario is because of a fake contact created by the IPAC (be it in the board, the cable or the stick).

If it only gets jammed in DOWN (and this might also affect the MAME exit shortcut), you could try disconnecting the DOWN plug, and try handling Hyperspin and MAME with the other controller (Player 2?), see if that resolves it. If it does and you can play around with no more DOWN issues over a couple of days, then you will need to see what is creating the problem, and to isolate it, replace each one of the DOWN-related pieces from cheaper up (meaning that you could try testing switching the connector with the UP one for example and see if then it starts going UP, before trying to replace the stick for a new one).

Just thinking out loud. Hope this helps

[jevansoh]

Hi there, and thanks for responding.

What do you mean exactly by having audio/speakers/earphones plugged in your cab?  What is the bug exactly?  I have speakers plugged in to my sound card and do have audio, but what is the bug you mentioned exactly?  I'm not sure I understand.

I'm sure I don't have joysticks enabled in HyperHQ.  I just double checked a few minutes ago.

I see what you're saying with the joystick maybe being stuck.  I'll have to look into that.

I'm not so sure I know what to do to check it first, though.  I bought my cabinet/had it made for me, so I'm not really familiar with the i-pac.  What's the first/easiest thing I should check exactly?

Thanks a bunch,

--J

[Kondorito]

If I recall correctly, when no sound was outputted (user has soundcard, but no speakers/earphones plugged in) the controls went a little bit crazy, and the graphics glitched. If you have sound out, then no worries

I am not an IPAC user, so I just know the basics of it.

What I would try?

I would disconnect the cable that goes from the joystick to the DOWN slot, and the cable that goes from the joystick to the UP one, and switch them over (on both ends). So basically you will end up having the cable that used to be for the down move, controlling now the up one and viceversa. Turn on the machine and see if you are able to reproduce the error, but this time instead of going down, it goes up. If it does, then you know for sure that the problem is the cable. If it still goes down, then cables are fine, and the problem might be either on the DOWN input from the board, or on the DOWN from the stick. To test this, you can switch again the cables, but this time, only change one end (so it will be set as the UP from the joystick goes to the DOWN plug in the board, and the DOWN from the joystick goes to the UP in the board). Turn on the machine and try to reproduce the issue. If it goes DOWN, then you know for sure that the problem is in the IPAC board and joystick is fine; if it goes UP, then you know that the problem is the joystick DOWN.

 

[jevansoh]

Ok, got it.  I will try this later and report back.  Thanks for giving me a suggestion as to what I can specifically do to test.

The only bad thing is...It's an intermittent problem, so it might take a while to know if the problem gets reversed or not by doing this because the last several times I've opened HS, the problem hasn't happened.

Thanks a bunch!!

--J

[Kondorito]

No problem. Glad to be of help

If its intermittent, then do one step at a time, and let it be (play with games and stuff as usual, until you see the issue surface), and then move to step two.
I had a similar problem a couple of years ago in my cab, and it ended up being a problem with the right hammer of my battop stick. Changed the chip and worked like new.

Nevertheless, I must say, that if you are not sure or comfortable in messing around with the ipac components, then before trying anything, you could contact the seller for advise (maybe you have some sort of warranty that might get voided if you manipulate the insides of the cab, I don't know).

[jevansoh]

I have messed with it and messed with it and cannot reproduce the problem at all.

However, I'm still having trouble exiting emulators.  I don't think the two are related, do you?

Any suggestions on where to begin looking for the exiting problem?

Demul is one that just hangs and will not exit no matter what, every single time.

Others are random and sometimes exit and sometimes they don't.  They do exit more than they don't, but it's still reproduce-able.

Thanks,

--J