A Few General Questions about 49 way joysticks

[markronz]

Hello, a friend of mine just acquired a Blitz 99 cabinet that has 4 working 49 way joysticks in it.  He's thinking about making the cabinet into a MAME cabinet.    I don't have much experience with 49 way joysticks myself so I have a few questions about everything.

Does MAME even use 49 way joysticks?   I only have 8 was joysticks, and I see in MAME how you can configure the 4 directions and the diagonals, but can you even use the 49 directions in mame?   I guess I just don't get how that works.
 
If you can use 49 way sticks in MAME, what games would even take advantage of it?

Can you use 49 way joysticks in other emulators besides MAME?

Would he need a GP-WIZ49 to make the joysticks work with emulators?

I personally have been interested in getting some U360's some day.   Do the U360's do the same thing as 49 way joysticks for these games?   I guess I was thinking of recommending to my friend that he gets U360's and then he wouldn't need the 49 way jotsticks at all.

Anyway,  I apologize for my disjointed questions here.  Just looking for some general information on these 49 ways.

Thanks!

[Gatt]

Mame can use 49-ways,  I have 2 of them myself,  but you need the encoder boards.  The only ones I've seen are the GP-wiz49max,  and Groovygamegear.com has been out of them for awhile,  I don't know if they're going to restock.  You could fire them an E-mail.

If you can get ahold of the GP49 encoder,  it has a nice program that lets you switch between 2w-4w-8w-49w.(And IIRC Q-bert)

Sinistar, Blizt, and a few others.

No clue,  but with the GP49 encoder,  I don't see why not.

I'll leave the U360 question up for the more qualified to answer.

[arzoo]

49's wired to the GPWiz49 can make for a flexible stick - software apps are available to change the mode (4-way, 8-way, etc.) on the fly. But it's still not as versatile as a u360 which is a true analog stick. As an example, I had a 49/GPWiz49 combo on my cp and tried playing Food Fight - game play seemed ok, but when I tried entering my initials using the circle of letters around the food throwing dude it was impossible to aim at each individual letter. Anyway, I've since swapped out the 49 for a u360.

[markronz]

Ok, thanks for the information guys.    Seems like the 49 ways might be useful in mame when coupled with the GP49 encoder, but it doesn't seem like theres enough games for it to be worth spending the money on the extra encoders (or the time finding them since GGG is out of stock).   I found this list (looks like from our own urebelscum.  Thanks!):

http://urebelscum.speedhost.com/49waySticks.html#49wayGames

I mean, Blitz (and Gauntlet Legends) would be great, but as we've all read, you need a monster PC to run Blitz and even then it doesn't work 100%.

If anyone has any more information on the matter, or thoughts on why 49 way joysticks are useful or something, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks!

[bkenobi]

Blitz has 4 49-way sticks.  You need 1 49-way encoder PER stick.  So, if you plan on using that setup in MAME, you need 4 49-way encoders...CHA-CHING!!!  If you aren't looking at playing any 3- or 4-player games that need 49-ways, you could swap out P3 and P4 for 8-way sticks and save a heap of cash.  You might even be able to sell the extra sticks on the BST forum, over at KLOV, or perhaps even ebay.

[Gatt]

49's wired to the GPWiz49 can make for a flexible stick - software apps are available to change the mode (4-way, 8-way, etc.) on the fly. But it's still not as versatile as a u360 which is a true analog stick. As an example, I had a 49/GPWiz49 combo on my cp and tried playing Food Fight - game play seemed ok, but when I tried entering my initials using the circle of letters around the food throwing dude it was impossible to aim at each individual letter. Anyway, I've since swapped out the 49 for a u360.

If you don't mind my asking,  is the U360 a good solution for the 49-w games like Sinistar?  Kinda wondering if I can get away with not having panels for both 49-w joysticks and analog...

[bkenobi]

I don't have a U360, but from reading enough threads about them, you should be able to map the analog stick to any digital input.  So, yes, it should work fine!

[arzoo]

If you don't mind my asking,  is the U360 a good solution for the 49-w games like Sinistar?  Kinda wondering if I can get away with not having panels for both 49-w joysticks and analog...

The u360 plays Sinistar just fine - although it won't feel like the original which had a rubber centering grommet that gave it a distinct feel.