Altirra 5200 mouse deadzone problem

[mr_me]

I've got it set up as follows:

 

5200 Trackball (port 1)

Axis 1 -> Mouse Move Horiz (absolute)

Axis 2 -> Mouse Move Vert (absolute)

 

Absolute seems to work best of all the options although there is no adjustment options. And only faster movements respond, slower movements don't, as if there is a deadzone. I tested with Missile Command and Centipede. I'm using Windows-7-64b. I haven't had any luck with mouse and other 5200 emulators either. I contacted the Altirra programmer by email but got no response. Anyone ever get a response from the Altirra programmer?

 

 

 

[phaeron]

It's only been a couple of days since you emailed me.

 

I haven't done a lot of testing on the 5200 trackball mode and never had a real one. Looking at the schematics, Altirra probably isn't emulating it correctly -- it's treating the trackball like a stick in that moving the mouse shifts the analog inputs, but it looks like the trackball decays toward center position over time. That's why it feels like you have a big dead zone -- you're having to slowly swing the analog inputs all the way back from one extreme to the other.

[mr_me]

My experience is that the Altirra 5200 trackball/mouse driver works fine if I move the mouse quickly, I don't notice any position decay. If I move the mouse slowly then the Altirra trackball does not move at all.

 

I tried Altirra 800 CX-80 trackball with mouse and it works well (although there is no adjustment options). But I can't use the Altirra CX-80 trackball/mouse with 5200 games.

CX-80 Trackball V1 (port 1)

Axis 1 -> Mouse Move Horiz (default)

Axis 2 -> Mouse Move Vert (default)

 

On a side note, for those that have an actual 5200 Trak Ball and 5200-dapter USB adapter, the 5200-dapter web site suggests setting up Altirra to use the 5200 Trak Ball as a joystick.. This is different but should work.

[phaeron]

If you aren't already, try 2.80-test29 -- I redid the 5200 trackball support: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/246939-altirra-270-released/?p=3488085

 

To adjust the speed, switch the binding mode from default to relative.

 

I can't do that much about small deltas getting lost. The problem is that the games that support trackball drop very small deltas, partly due to the need to suppress noise when reading the trackball. This causes some movement of the trackball to be lost and the effect is worse when you are moving slowly. The latest versions try to merge small movements to mitigate this, but it's never going to be as clean as the joystick or quadrature-based trackball connections.

[mr_me]

I was using Altirra v2.7; I thought it was the latest; downloaded from the virtualdub web site.

That new version fixed the problem. The mouse/5200-trak-ball works very well now. Thanks very much.

 

edit:

btw I've used VirtualDub before; it's awesome.

Edited April 12, 2016 by mr_me