[LUA] Should field:set_value(...) happen immediately in-game?

[Jakobud]

I'm toying around with the ioport fields in LUA. For a game (captavenu) I wanted to see if I could change some dipswitch values.

I tried this:

manager.machine.ioport.ports[":DSW2"]:field(12):set_value(4)

This represents the DSW2 tag's Difficult field, which has a mask of 12.

I was assuming the above method would change the field's value to 4. (Changing from "Normal" to "Hard" difficulty in this case). But it did not do anything. I did this in the -console in the terminal as the game was running. The dipswitch value didn't change in game and there was no feedback at the terminal.

printing out the port seemed to give me the correct object/table:

print(manager.machine.ioport.ports[":DSW2"]:field(12))                                                                   
sol.ioport_field*: 0000014a928424c8

Is there something I'm misunderstanding about how to use set_value ? There is something here I'm missing I think.

[cuavas]

You need to set the user_value property to change the value of “configuration” fields (DIP switches, adjusters, machine configuration switches). set_value changes the temporary override value for “control” inputs.

Keep in mind a lot of games only read DIP switches on boot, so it may not take effect immediately anyway.

[Jakobud]

Ah that makes sense thank you. I didn't see that was a read/write property.

So, regarding your last statement, you are saying that during the boot sequence, when the dipswitches are read, changing them at this point may or may not stick because the machine hasn't "fully booted" yet?

[cuavas]

I’m saying that if you change the DIP switches after the game has booted, it may not notice the change until you reset it.

[Jakobud]

Ah okay thank you! You rock