But… I do have a quality powered USB hub on the shelf, no harm in trying it out.
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Try placing a 4.7k resistor between the input pin on the ipac where you have your escape key connected and the +5 pin on one of the trackball headers.It's MAME quitting, the system goes back to the VMMENU front end as if an ESC key had been pressed. So it could be a crash as opposed to an un-commanded game exit, I suppose.

Collective load is the issue I'm hinting at.
The default power supply is ok for the Pi itself and a few non-demanding peripherals but not enough for what we are asking of it maybe?
I got a wart with more oomph (can't remember the amperage at the moment) for mine to see if any of this is the culprit of the slowdown issues too but haven't had time to get at this project again.
Not with this, but I did have a self-powered USB hub that would drop out when I put a higher load on it with a device that was power-hungry. I added an adapter for power, and it worked great.I wonder what the current draw of the DVG is. The other USB connections are pretty piddling in terms of power: effectively a keyboard and half a mouse and an audio dongle.
But Dylan's suggestion is intriguing, I'll give that a shot.
Was worth a shot (and maybe I'll try a 10k later), but crashed out in 5 minutes. Thanks though…Try placing a 4.7k resistor between the input pin on the ipac where you have your escape key connected and the +5 pin on one of the trackball headers.
Example:
View attachment 789956
You can go up to 10K if you need, but I would start with 4.7K
I suspect the built in pullup resistor on the chip in the ipac is too weak. The wiring to the "Esc" switch is picking up noise and causing a false trigger.
I had a similar problem with a Pi3 I had set up with a one touch shutdown. The damn thing kept shutting down randomly until I put a pullup resistor between the input pin and the 5v pin to hold the input up until it was pulled low with an intended button push. I about pulled out all my hair before I figured it out. After putting the resistor on, it was rock solid
Dylan
Was worth a shot (and maybe I'll try a 10k later), but crashed out in 5 minutes. Thanks though…
Have you tried running it with the esc button completely disconected and programmed out on the ipac config?
D
Yeah, I thought about that. It's on the list, but obviously I'd rather avoid having to rewire this box yet again.The other suggestion I would have is to remove the ipac completely and replace it with one of the cheap zero delay usb jobs you can grab on Scamazon to see if it's truly an ipac problem. Or maybe sub in a hacked usb keyboard controller for testing(or just try a plain usb keyboard by itself... cant recall if you did that already). Just grabbing at straws here now. It really sounded like the same issue I has had with direct input on my Pi picking up noise.
D
You know, I might have done that a while back. I had the game quit key moved to p at the same post, I think, and thought I'd fixed the issue for a while. If I'm remembering what I did, I did take Esc completely out of the key set at that point. I'll try it again.
I've had a number of issues where I had unwittingly mapped multiple functions to the same key using the ipac software.
For the crazier multipanel stuff I built I actually had a spreadsheet to keep track of it all because it got so nutty.
For a PC build it's really easy to do of course but I wouldn't have any idea where to begin for sorting out the Pi- apart from bringing the laptop up and plugging the Ipac into that and starting fresh.
I've had a number of issues where I had unwittingly mapped multiple functions to the same key using the ipac software.
For the crazier multipanel stuff I built I actually had a spreadsheet to keep track of it all because it got so nutty.
For a PC build it's really easy to do of course but I wouldn't have any idea where to begin for sorting out the Pi- apart from bringing the laptop up and plugging the Ipac into that and starting fresh.
I wondered if this might be a possibility.I've had a number of issues where I had unwittingly mapped multiple functions to the same key using the ipac software.