Wiimote + Classic Controler + MAME OS X

In a sudden craving for some old school arcade games I thought I have a look at MAME OS X. After playing for a while with the keyboard I got a bit frustrated with it and really wanted a gamepad. I think I have an USB gamepad, but couldn’t remember where I left it. While looking for it I came across my Wii’s classic controler. So I ended up hooking up my Wiimote with the classic controler extension to my Macbook Pro and I’m please to say that this works great

Now you need some software/driver to get your Wiimote connected. There are several programs out there, at first I tried DarwiinRemote, but it doesn’t work with MAME OS X, because MAME OS X expects a HID-like controller. DarwiiRemote does excellent key-mapping, but this isn’t picked-up in-game by MAME OS X. However I found that another program, Wiiji does work. It basically turns your Wiimote + most extensions in a HID device.

So here are the steps to set it up:

• Download Wiiji from Sourceforge;
• Install Wiiji. The installer will ask for you admin password, since it is a kernel extension. Make sure you realise the consequences of providing your password, then enter it when you can live with them
• Wiiji will install in /Applications/Utilities, you can get there by pressing shift + command + U in Finder;
• Start Wiiji, it will launch as a small icon in your Menu Bar:

• Click on the Wiiji icon and select Wiiji Preferences, adjust the prefences to reflect the image below:

• We need to turn on Bluetooth on the Mac. You can do this in System Preferences. It’s more convenient to do this from the Menu Bar, because you probably need to turn Bluetooth on/off regularly. You can get the Bluetooth icon in the Menu Bar if you select this option in System Preferences Bluetooth:

• Now make sure “Show Bluetooth status in the menu bar” is checked:

• You should now have a Bluetooth icon in the Menu Bar:

• Turn Bluetooth on by clicking on the Menu Bar icon etc;
• Make sure you Wii is off otherwise the pairing with your Mac will fail;
• Now press and hold the 1 and 2 button on the Wiimote until the blue leds blink;
• Now click on the Wiiji icon, often the pairing has succeeded already, otherwise you will have to choose “Rescan for Wiimotes”;

• If Wiiji doesn’t see your Wiimote you can do two things:

  1. Turn Bluetooth off/on and try again

  2. Click on the Bluetooth icon and disconnect the Wiimote, then press 1+2 again on the Wiimote and have Wiiji look for it. This is something you probably have to do regularly, because OS X seems to grab the Wiimote before Wiiji has it in some cases (please correct me if I’am wrong).

• If you don’t have MAME OS X get that from Sourceforge and install it;
• Get some ROMS into MAME (google if you don’t know how);
• Now start MAME and go into preferences (command + ,), select the Inputs tab and make sure that “Enable joystick” is checked:

• Personally I prefer to use the classic controller, so that’s what I use, but you can use just your Wiimote by itself. Whatever you use, you will have to configure it in Mame. Start a game in Mame, press p to pause (as long as you didn’t change it to something else) and tab to configure. Here you can set the controls for each player, in general or per game. Select the action you want to change, press enter and then press the key on your joystick that you want to map:

• Game on!