steering wheel

[jessybr]

hi guys
i want convert my sci to a mame with only racing games.
is it possible to connect the steering wheel to the opti pac and do i need an i pac for the other controls??
mayby someone here has build something like this??
all info is welkom
greetings from holland

[BadMouth]

Depends on which driving games you want to play.

Older games where the wheel spun all the way around (like pole position) used an optical encoder and would connect to the opti-pac like a spinner.
The optipac has connections for two buttons, but they will be seen as mouse buttons.  You'd probably be better served by running an ipac for the buttons.
If you're only interested in the early 80's games, that should be all you need unless you plan on having analogue brake & gas pedals.

More modern games that were limited to 270 degrees (i.e. crusin usa) used a potentiometer.  The potentiometer would need to be connected to a U-HID or similar device that can read analogue input.  Another option would be to hack a pc steering wheel like done here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=105186.0

One type of game doesn't play well with the other type of control, so it's important to know which games you want to focus on.

I took the easy way out and used a pc wheel without modifying it.
If I had it to do over again, I'd probably use original arcade controls and hack a pc wheel for the interface like thesharkfactor did in the link above.

Try the games out in MAME before you build anything. Most people end up with far fewer games than they expected when it comes to driving cabs.
Most 3D driving games aren't properly emulated yet and the few that are require a very fast computer to run on.

A link to my driving cab in my signature.  It was built with Sega Model 2 driving games in mind (Daytona USA, Sega Rally, Etc). Those games aren't playable in MAME, but are with Nebula's Model 2 emulator.

[fnord12]

Any tips for using a spinner when playing games that used the 270 degree wheel?  Anything that can be done via MAME's analog settings to make a game more responsive?  I've tried using my spinner to play these types of racing games and not had much luck; just wondering if anyone's figured out a way to do it.

[BadMouth]

People have made mechanical stops so the spinner only turns 270 degrees.

I remember seeing a post where someone figured out how to limit the travel through software so that the computer ignores all travel past 270 degrees and considers the spinner stopped at that point until it is spun back the other way.  I don't have a link.  You'll have to search for it.

The only real adjustment in mame is the sensitivity, the digital adjustments change how key presses mimick analogue controls.
They have no effect on actual analogue controls.

I haven't tried them with a spinner, but the sensitivity had to be set extremely high with my pc steering wheel.
Most ended up above 150.  

Not related to spinners, but if using an analogue wheel or joystick, reduce the joystick deadzone in the mame.ini file, the default 30% makes driving games near unplayable.

I'd be willing to pull together everything I've learned into a stickied driving cab thread or wiki if there is enough interest.
I'd want others to weigh in though and let me know if they disagree with anything.

[bkenobi]

I wrote a script that used GlovePIE to limit the 360 to 270.  It was posted a while back, so perhaps that's what BadMouth was referring to.

Here's that thread:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=92363.0

[fnord12]

Thanks!  Looks cool, but intimidating to me since i'm just using MameUI/Mame32 as my front-end.  But i will check it out and see if i can get it working.

[cbr00ks]

"I'd be willing to pull together everything I've learned into a stickied driving cab thread or wiki if there is enough interest.
I'd want others to weigh in though and let me know if they disagree with anything."

---

This would be great!

I have both a 360 (optical) and a 270 (potentiometer) wheel (arcade/Happ). About a year ago I decided that I wanted a dedicated racing cab for MAME. I use a stand-up 1,000 Mile Rally cab (i.e. w/ one pedal at the bottom). Through the course of working w/ it I've become familiar with both the Opti Pac (360) and APAC (270).

Arcade racing game emulation can be tricky. BadMouth makes an excellent point when it comes to the current capacity that MAME has when it comes to newer (3D) racing games. Before I set off on my project these were the games that came to mind first (e.g. Ridge Racer, etc.) as motivators to get started.

Luckily, I'm old enough that I simply turned my attention to great classic games such as Out Run (and Turbo Out Run), All the Sprint games, etc. Even with these I was forced to come up w/ different work-arounds since my CP had only the steering wheel and two (micro) switches (one on the right, one on the left).

The Sprint games require buttons for gears 1, 2, 3, 4 and many of the other ones used hi/lo shifters. Some of the shifters also used a turbo button integrated in the knob/handle. Needless to say there is a definite hardware side when it comes to emulating racing games.

Beyond this there is plenty of tweaking and adjusting when it comes to the sensitivity of the controls in MAME. I'm still trying to find what works best for (Sega) Turbo....and games like Spy Hunter and Road Blasters were originally unique in terms of their hardware which make for more discrepancies towards perfect emulation.

I hope to come across someone selling a used sit-down cab - i.e. in a "project" state. I've been keeping my eyes peeled for over a year but can only seem to find expensive restorations (e.g. Pole Position) and newer racing games (way out of my price range). Topping this off I don't have much when it comes to construction space and tools if I wanted to build one from scratch....