7. Installation/Configuration
After all that, I could barely wait to connect the yoke to my cab, and give the unit a real life test-run! For the purpose of clarity, here are the specifications of my MAME cab:
Windows XP Professional (SP1)
Pentium 4 2.8 GHz
512 MB RAM
MAME 079, MAMEWAH 1.62 b12
IPac, OptiPac, 2 X U360, Happ 3" trackball, Vortex spinner, flight control stick, AVGA, Wells Gardner D9200
I must admit to being rather sceptical of all plug-&-play claims, a condition which stems from living through the early days of this wonderful protocol! So, with great hope I booted up my cab, plugged the USB cable from the interface into my cab, and crossed my fingers. Voila! The computer recognized and configured the interace without a hitch! I then decided to employ the advice of those on BYOAC regarding calibration of the yoke and went into 'Control Panel -> Game Controllers' and sure enough there it was 'USB Yoke 1.0'. Clicking on the 'Properties' button, I was presented with two tabs 'Settings' and 'Test', and a 'Calibrate' button. Clicking on the 'Calibrate' button brought me to a series of screens in which the user is asked to move the yoke through its range of motion in order to calibrate the unit. This process was quick and easy and I completed it without issue.
For reference the yoke's default button settings are as follows:
left trigger - button 1
right trigger - button 4
left top-fire - button 3
right top-fire - button 2
8. Game Play
As a teenager in the 80's I was lucky enough to experience the genesis of the arcade in the late 70's to the unfortunate downturn of the mid-to-late 80's. My friends and I hung out for hours pumping quarters into machines and competing with gladiator-lie tenacity for ultimate 8-bit supremacy. Sadly, despite all those hours, my recall of experiences on the original Star Wars game have eluded me. So it was with giddy anticipation that I proceeded to fire-up Mamewah, scroll down to 'Star Wars', and hit the start button!!! I felt 14 again as I grabbed the yoke and selected a level of difficulty for my first shot at the game in over 20 years. As I heard Obi-Wan eclare 'the force will be with you' I hung on and began twisting, turning and firing at the X-wing fighters on the screen. It was only then that I cam to realized the true virtues of the Ram Controls Star Wars yoke. The solid construction and high quality components used in the yoke's construction were immediately apparent as game play was smooth and consistent. Movement in both the X and Y axes was crisp, smooth and very responsive. The unit felt beefy and strong and Dave's upgrades to the handles, triggers and switches produced no fatigue even after many intense games. The combined operation of the interface and the yoke were, in a word, flawless.
After some time I decided to investigate MAME's game sensitivity options (accessed via the 'TAB' key) to see if tweaking these values had any effect on the yoke's feel in game play. The analog control tab in MAME allows a user to adjust the speed and sensitivity of to their personal preference; a nice customization feature. As each person's preference is different I won't invest a great deal of time explaining the rationale for the settings I ultimately chose. However, MAME's analog setting menu is definitely a feature worth noting, and, for the record, my settings were as follows:
AD Stick Y Key/Joy Speed (50)
AD Stick Y Reverse (Off)
AD Stick Y Sensitivity (80%)
AD Stick X Key/Joy Speed (50)
AD Stick X Reverse (Off)
AD Stick X Sensitivity (80%)
Your mileage may vary…
One issue I noted upon starting the game was that the cross-hairs did not align perfectly with the centre of the screen; they were close but not perfect. This is not a Windows calibration issue or a problem with the yoke or its interface. Rather, it is a know 'feature' of the game. As noted in several posted on BYOAC, each time the game is started, it is necessary to calibrate the cross-hairs by moving the controls through a full range of movement around the edge of screen. Once I performed this simple operation, the cross-hairs were centre perfectly for the duration of the time I ran the game; MAME users take note!
The USB interface allows the yoke to be used with several games other than Star Wars; including Empire Strikes Back, Firefox, and Return of the Jedi. I can report that testing in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi proved as positive as my experience with Star Wars. Unfortunately, I don't have Firefox setup in Daphne so I was unable to test the yoke with this game. However, informal reports by BYOAC members indicate that the yoke does indeed work well with Firefox.
With many hours of game play under my belt, I decided to see how the yoke worked with other driving games. To this end, I spent a number of hours testing the yoke on games such as Pole Position, Spy Hunter, Out Run and Stun Runner. Unfortunately, despite significant adjustments to the analog control settings in each, I found that the yoke did not provide satisfactory control in these games. Curious, I emailed Dave at Ram Controls to ask about the compatibility of the USB interface for use in other games besides Star Wars. In his response, Dave confirmed that the USB interface was indeed tuned specifically for use with Star Wars. However, Dave did advise that swapping the yoke's standard 5k potentiometer with 100k units and wiring these directly to the game port on my system (circumventing the USB interface) would likely allow the yoke to operate well in other games. However, as of the writing of this review, I have not attempted this approach. Perhaps others have had more luck in configuring the yoke for other games when connected via the USB interface? If so, I welcome their comments and suggestions on BYOAC.In summary, the yoke and the USB interface performed flawlessly and there is every indication that the yoke can be easily modified to extend its use beyond its four natively supported games.