How to Setup A TrackBall on MAME - Works with PC & Pi

[@Rainbowalpacas]

With missile command, you have 3 sets of missiles. Controlled but the different buttons lol. You had plenty of shots left

[@gordons-alive4940]

Thanks. Some of the mame cores in retroarch worked with the trackball right away. I wanted to use the newest version, though.

[@eon2k210]

great videos. all the best drew...

[@drewtalks]

Thank you so much 😀

[@AvoidsPikes-]

THANKS!!!👍 I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong!

[@ThePsychoKillers]

Amazing. Been trying to get this to work for 3 days. Now it works, but can I ask, how do you increase sensitivity for trackball. When I play marble madness, the marble moves really slow. Anyway to speed it up?

[@davegrubb3897]

You sir, have saved the day! Much appreciated!

[@don.c.1056]

🕹️🕹️🕹️ Great video Drew-ski-low. 1 request tho, are twist arcade sticks available for retro games like Ikari Warriors and Commando for Pi, Pandora or a mod for a 1upArcade machine. Thanks 🕹️🕹️🕹️

[@drewtalks]

That would be cool!

[@kupakai5]

Those wires you cut are for left, middle, and right mouse buttons. The black is the common ground (it has 3 spades), and the each of the other colors are for the button. I forgot which color was for what. The LED on the bottom of the ball turns off momentarily when you click on any of the buttons.

[@kupakai5]

I just checked on my arcade machine. Yellow is left click, white is right click, and red is the middle button.

[@drewtalks]

And you just push the ball down to register that?

[@kupakai5]

@@drewtalks No, you need to connect those tabs to your own buttons and those buttons will be the mouse clicks. Instead of having buttons with the trackball, they are just providing a way to connect the buttons through the trackball to the PS/2 connector.

[@drewtalks]

@@kupakai5 gotcha so the only benefit is having 1 device versus 2?

[@kupakai5]

@@drewtalks I have the right and the left buttons attached to the side of my cabinet so they are just extra buttons if I ever get around to setting them up for games.

[@bimmyfrizzo3988]

I was just looking up a tutorial on how to set up the analog stick on my cheap xbox 360 controller and so far no luck! I didn't watch the whole video but I just played with the control set ups myself and luckily I got it perfectly right on mame. Now I'm not gonna touch it at all!

[@Gre4tOne]

I just bought a trackball 🖲 for my arcade cabinet / works great as a mouse cursor (I wanna play C&C / Settlers…) BUT how can I manage to set the mouse buttons to a button on the gamepad???

[@daltontyson]

No config file. I only have retropiemenu and there's no retroarch-core-options.

[@MrEd20901]

love that you used the Puma stick.

[@drewtalks]

no doubt!

[@KnickKnack07]

The ball stops way too fast for many arcade games of the 80s, or even Golden Tee. Trackballs for computer use are designed to be more precise, meaning they are designed to stop "rolling" immediately when you stop moving it with your hands. Most golf, or that bowling game are designed to give the trackball a big push and have it keep going

[@drewtalks]

Yeah

[@MrZeus305]

My Pie doesnt say in game mouse ot in the mame settings when you hit tab doesnt say trackball y analog and idea trying to set my trackball

[@molarmedic]

I can see the mouse in the retroarch GUI move. I can get it to show mouse in the inputs (but not by moving the mouse, only by pressing esc on the keyboard it shows up). I can't get it work in the game. Virtualman images or Wolfanoz (both using retroarch 1.8.4 and I can't seem to get either one to update to newest 1.8.8, they crash on update via script or install from source options). Pi4, GRS trackball/spinner w/usb board, mame2016 and 2003, edits done to config per this vid. sometimes the retroarch core options will disable mouse, but did check to see it was enabled before trying troubleshoot. In game controls show mouse as well. but no go in game. What am I missing??????

[@ArcadeCabNBud]

just saw a game in there i like, good video

[@crashoverride576]

Do you know of any other ways to get this to work? I've tried everything that you've suggested and my trackball and spinner still don't work. I bought a glens retro show trackball and spinner with the 12 in 1 board. Everything lights up like they should but my pi 4 isn't reading them so they don't do anything. Any other ideas is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[@jackw973]

will this also work putting it in the mame 2003 plus ?

[@Colin_Ames]

Good video. Thanks!

[@drewtalks]

Glad you liked it!

[@RichTheTown510]

Thank you!

[@donaldgallant2100]

Hi. Are there any pi3b images that are spinner and trackball ready? I'm having problems configuring my usb spinner I installed on my Tankstick to the MrHarias image I have.

[@drewtalks]

check arcadepunks

[@mranbel]

Got a bit of a problem....Using my playstation classic and project eris (retroarch and emulation station) I have my x arcade tank stick and the track ball works out of the box buy the ball and the reticle are not aligned. The ball which shows up as the mouse point is not aligned to any of the game reticles and therefore on something like missile command i can hit the edge of the screen with the ball/mouse way before the game reticle and then i can't move anymore. Anyone know of this problem and a solution?

[@mikem2499]

In the config info I notice there's a mame2016_media_type = "rom" line in place of mame2016-trackball_device = "mouse" shown in the video. Is what is shown in the Config Info updated info or should we use what is in the video?

[@Stella-ri5ex]

Wouldn't a wireless trackball work as well?

[@DoubleDguitar]

I have the same one and a Magstick Plus in my vertical unit. So much fun. You can make the Led lights glow red by touching one of the ground lines to the red line. I soldered them together and the brightens is tamed with the red light. Love your channel bro.

[@drewtalks]

Very cool! great tip

[@kupakai5]

As I mentioned in my comment, those wires are for mouse buttons, and the green led turns off whenever there's a click. I think what you are seeing is that when you connected the two wires, you've permanently have one of the mouse buttons pressed and the trackball turns off the green and you are seeing the red tracking led's that are always on that were being overpowered by the green when that was on.

[@DoubleDguitar]

Steve Moon yes, I read that online before getting it. Since not using any buttons from the Ps2 connection, it makes no difference. In fact, wiring them to a switch will allow going back and forth.

[@CMCAdvanced]

hey, is this still the best option?

[@zdp-189]

I just thought of looking now for a plug and play USB trackball I can kind of just sit on my desk when I want to emulate certain trackball arcade games (playing Namco's Armadillo Racing got me thinking how cool it would be to have this, instead of me usually somehow configurin' Xbox One like controllers or mouse/keyboard to work with these games.

[@divasmom65]

Does anyone know if this could be wired to work with the 60 in 1 Icade board?

[@Dkline08]

Do you have ome on how to do this with batocera

[@josecn9251]

Hi!, Great video, whats the model and brand of your trackball?, Do you use pi4?, Whats the name of your image ISO?. Thanks.

[@drewtalks]

link in description

[@Art-ng3gl]

Bro! Thank you so much the only guide on KZbin that makes sense if only you could help me with configuring my aim track light gun I’m subbing anyways!

[@drewtalks]

Thank you yes I have videos on the aimtrack.light gun too

[@AndrewHelgeCox]

Do you need to spend a lot of time tuning the sensitivity for each game to get close to the original feel of its arcade machine?

[@drewtalks]

I bet if your a purist then yes

[@shawnbrasuell8951]

can you use the trackball to play Track & Field to get a lot of speed?

[@bartkimberley8336]

Great vid DT.. Does the mame_current_mouse_device_enable = "enabled" statement needed? Mine was set to disabled.

[@drewtalks]

maybe not if yours is working then no

[@jimbotron70]

Are there numerical values to input in order to approximate as much as possible the original trackball behaviour?

[@drewtalks]

yes within the emulator settings

[@jimbotron70]

@@drewtalks Cool, so which are for let's say Marble Madness?

[@SkymanSound]

hi how do this with recalbox ?

[@mikek6049]

Good work. World class bowls is one of the most played games on my trackball arcade cab. Also check out shuuz and shoot the bull. Would love a guide getting a config for this on coin-ops in an existing pack (without borking rest of games controls). Thanks.

[@drewtalks]

right on will check it out

[@mikek6049]

@@drewtalks don't get me wrong visually shoot the bull is nothing (iirc it's 1982 zx spectrum 8bit visuals) but that along with shuuz is perfect up to 4 player drinking game fodder with friends.

[@carlosplazaaguilera]

Please how to use multimouse, for two players trackballs games and lightgun two players ones. Thanks!!!

[@atari-staffroom]

Great vid. I know you have a wiimote lightgun setup but try playing lightgun games with a trackball. It is a fun experience 😄

[@ΛΟΥΚΑΣΜΠΕΡΤΖΟΒΙΤΗΣ]

I have a question, there is a cheap spinner on AliExpress (Arcade Asteroids Video Game LED Joystick Controller For Cabinet Machine) will it be worth buying and will i be able to connect it to rp 3 ? Thanks

[@drewtalks]

Not sure on that particular unit but you should have to set it up in a similar manner to the trackball

[@rklimson1]

Is there a way to change the sensitivity or speed of the trackball? Mine works great in Golden Tee, bowling, etc. but Marble Madness barely works as you have to move the trackball really fast continually just to get it to move slightly, and it’s nearly unplayable. Thanks!

[@drewtalks]

Yes press tab on a keyboard or whatever your hotkey is to go to options in Mame, go to "analog controls" and it is in there

[@MrJaz8088]

I have that TrackBall, i covered the LED's so bright, now better and i have a few other's, if you want a better Trackball that's affordable then X-Arcade, Maker's of the Tank Stick has a Separate Trackball's with decent Buttons you can re-use

[@drewtalks]

good to know!

[@kennywaller7098]

Does anyone have any idea how to get the trackball working on a Pi4? I'm 99% sure I'm using the same image that he's using in the video and I followed these directions to the T but I can't get it working. It works perfectly on my Pi3 using a VirtualMan image but I can't get it to work on any of my Pi4 images. I've tried it on the Wolfanoz 256 Pi 4 image and the Wolfanoz 1TB Pi 4 image with no success on any trackball game. I've switched the emulators to MAME 2016 and MAME 2003 but still nothing. I must say though, it's so much fun to play Golden Tee on my Pi 3 using the trackball! Thank you so much for the set up instructions Drew, you have a gift when it comes to explaining these things and making it simple for a newbie like myself!

[@mooncloud6563]

I'm just having trouble getting more sensitivity on it

[@byronkobialko3442]

Would a trackball mouse work with this pack?

[@drewtalks]

yes

[@byronkobialko3442]

@@drewtalks thanks

[@DontPaniku]

I bought that trackball on Amazon but mine came broken. One of the rollers was bent. I'm afraid to order again.

[@gordons-alive4940]

You can do it!

[@DontPaniku]

@@gordons-alive4940 I deedit! This time it wasn't broken. I put some silicone lubricant on the rollers and it works like a charm.

[@janX9]

@@DontPaniku Lubricant? Don't your hands get all greasy? So now that there is lubricant on it, how long does it spin for? I'm wondering if it would be any good for Golden tee golf or if I should just get a free spin model for that.

[@DontPaniku]

@@janX9 You don't put it on the ball. You put it on the roller pins. If you want to play Golden Tee buy a 3" ball. You need the heft for that game.

[@janX9]

@@DontPaniku thanks for the tip.

[@larazaalatino6310]

Does it work with Mame on PC and can you play Arkanoid??

[@jimbotron70]

Yes, of course. However for Arkanoid you'd ideally need a spinner, not a trackball.

[@mikegrabowski7513]

does it work on the pi4 I have a problem getting trackball to work on pi4

[@drewtalks]

Yes that is what I am using in the video

[@mikegrabowski7513]

@@drewtalks thanks

[@hotnspicyproductions226]

Can you use a mouse trackball?

[@danleary123]

No reason why not

[@janX9]

*WARNING!* This traball doesn't spin freely. So it may not be any good for Golden Tee Golf. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm interested in first hand experience.

[@drewtalks]

Yes it is not as free spinning as others but expect to pay a lot more

[@janX9]

@@drewtalks Recommendations? Preferably with PS/2 or USB

[@drewtalks]

@@janX9 Yes I put a link to it in the description

[@carlbarton7296]

The most important thing is how to set sensitivity. Can anybody explain how. Marble madness is unplayable, and so are many others. Thanks

[@jrami223]

Dude way 2 fast!

[@floraarc9518]

I just wanna use a normal mouse!

[@drewtalks]

you can!

[@DoubleDguitar]

I have the same one and a Magstick Plus in my vertical unit. So much fun. You can make the Led lights glow red by touching one of the ground lines to the red line. I soldered them together and the brightens is tamed with the red light. Love your channel bro.