Will 49way joystick work with Mame?

[JoeyJoeJo]

I'm getting a working Gauntlet Legends cabinet which of course has 49way joysticks. If I get an ipac, can I wire them in and expect them to work naturally with Mame and 4way and 8way games? Would I bet better off just getting new joysticks?

[VanillaGorilla]

I dont believe there is a readily available 49-way interface available these days?

GroovyGameGear used to offer one, but its starting to look like it has gone the way of Duke Nuke'm... It will bee available again, when its available again, but dont bother asking when!

You could just buy 4 u-360's, they each have their own built in interface & 8 button controller (with shift functionality, which gives you 8 more). They will do everything you are asking for. It would be a very clean installation, albeit a little pricey. Dead simple way of getting everything you want though. Just throw some money at it.
 

[JoeyJoeJo]

I figured as much. One more question. If I get 8way joysticks, will they work with 4way games or should I get the switchable kind?

[VanillaGorilla]

They will work, but poorly.
You can see where this is going, cant you? 

I would drop in 2 u-360's for players 1 and 2 ($160). That way, P1 & P2 will have 2-4-8-49-analog switching on the fly on a per game basis in mame. Its so nice.

Put in a couple of $10 zippys, or if you wanna spend more 2 sanwas or seimitsus for the other 2 players. All of the aforementioned sticks are 2-4-8 way switchable. Bryan @ paradise also has an inexpensive joystick interface that will handle 2 players and a bunch of buttons, for like $28. Gauntlet is actually not bad with an 8-way, IMHO. How often you gonna have 4 players around? Probably not very often.

$160 2 u-360's
$20 2 zippy
$28 1 interface
$30 a bunch of buttons of your choice

You could always replace the zippys in the future as finances allow.

ultimarc for the u-360's, paradisearcadeshop for the other sticks. Have fun!

[JoeyJoeJo]

Thanks for the tips! Those u360's seem AWESOME.