MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: MAME and my steering wheel dilema...please help :(

OK, time for a more comprehensive and detailed post about what I am trying to accomplish....

I will start off by asking a simple question....Can any of you who are familiar with MAME, explain exactly what happens if I set FORCE_DIRECT INPUT to 1 in a new compile?

The reason I ask is because there may be another way for me to apply steering spring tension to my ffb wheel without all the xinput shenanigans.

Let me explain....This is kinda long so please bare with me:

A while back, a gentlemen by the name of Racer_S who is an admin over at the TocaEdit forum, wrote a custom dll file for me simply called "dinput8.dll". This is a directInput file that allows a program called fedit to run in the background while doing other tasks.

Now before I get ahead of myself, let explain exactly what Fedit does....Fedit is a utility for Windows, that lets the user test various force feedback effects in their steering wheels. One of the effects you can test and run, is a virtual spring effect that gives your wheel a nice centering spring effect that feels similar to old arcade non-ffb racing cabinets such as Pole Position.

The catch is, fedit stops delivering these force feedback test effects to your steering wheel upon clicking away from the fedit window and maximizing another program such as, say, MAME.

So...Racer_S came up with a way to eliminate this from happening, by writing a custom directInput dll file I mentioned above. I can apply a spring effect in my wheel using the fedit program, and the dll file will STILL continue to deliver the effect to the wheel even while clicking away to other programs.

BUT.....for some odd ball reason the directInput.dll file he created is NOT acknowledged by MAME, and all effects from fedit simply vanish as soon as I start a game in MAME. Very very frustrating.

So gentlemen....Now you know the reason why I want to know what is going on with MAME and whether or not this "Force DirectInput to 1" option ramirez suggested earlier would work and allow MAME to "see" my DInput.dll file. Any ideas guys?