Trackballs - how much space between ball and monitor/bezel?

[shponglefan]

For games like Golden Tee, bowling, etc, how much space is adequate between the trackball and monitor so people don't smash their hands?

[Dervacumen]

I have 7" between the center of my 3" Happ TB and the bezel/monitor glass.  I hit my hand infrequently.  If I were building another cabinet I would allow more room.  There was a thread with a CP that was shaped like a trapezoid, the longer edge toward the monitor glass and the smaller edge closer to the player that would work well.  Can;t locate the thread but I really liked the idea...

[shponglefan]

Good to know, thanks.  I figure on having at least 12" of spacing, and possibly more depending on the final design.  So hopefully it will be enough.

[ABACABB]

My friends and I play a ton of Golden Tee on my cab, it is definitely a favorite.  My trackball is about 11" from the plexiglass cover to my monitor and knuckle smashing is a non-issue. Seems that there is enough distance to make it playable.  And we get drunk and really try to smash some drives off the tee so not smashing knuckles is not from lack of effort.  With that said I would say your 12" range would work just fine. 

[MaxVolume]

My, how times have changed... back in my day, we'd just use a quick hand movement to ROLL THE BALL.  No need to do a "Superman", just SPIN THE BALL REALLY FAST!  Sheesh!

Personally, I use both thumbs on bowling games since equal pressure on each side means a straight shot.  Probably works on golf games, too.

 

[ABACABB]

My, how times have changed... back in my day, we'd just use a quick hand movement to ROLL THE BALL.  No need to do a "Superman", just SPIN THE BALL REALLY FAST!  Sheesh!

Personally, I use both thumbs on bowling games since equal pressure on each side means a straight shot.  Probably works on golf games, too.

 

 

@MaxVolume OK jackass.  No one asked how you play Golden Tee.  No one asked to be criticized for the way they play Golden Tee on here but you felt the need to chime in with your opinion so go  yourself.  The OP was asking about the distance because this is the way a lot of people play Golden Tee.  In fact, the world champion Golden Tee players play this way. 

So thanks for chiming in and showing everyone on here how dumb you really are.  Criticizing other people for playing a certain way, wow you are awesome.  I wonder if you got your letter in the mail saying that you are "awesome".  Good for you.   

[MaxVolume]

@MaxVolume OK jackass.  No one asked how you play Golden Tee.  No one asked to be criticized for the way they play Golden Tee on here but you felt the need to chime in with your opinion so go  yourself.  The OP was asking about the distance because this is the way a lot of people play Golden Tee.  In fact, the world champion Golden Tee players play this way. 

So thanks for chiming in and showing everyone on here how dumb you really are.  Criticizing other people for playing a certain way, wow you are awesome.  I wonder if you got your letter in the mail saying that you are "awesome".  Good for you.   

You're welcome... aside from the extra 'B', I like your user name.  Probably my favorite Genesis album.

[MaxVolume]

<crap>

Okay, so which is it... I'm too old, or I'm too young?  Can't be both, and I say it's neither.

SPEED has nothing to do with it.  Besides, didn't you see where I said "SPIN THE BALL REALLY FAST!"  The thumb thing was for BOWLING games, and "probably works on golf games, too".  Did you not read the post?  I said nothing about Atari Football or Marble Madness, but again, as you point out, you need SPEED.

My point, and I do have one, is that SPEED did NOT equal "Superman" until drunk-asses started playing Golden Tee and decided that was the only way to play the game... like their follow-through was somehow as important in the game as it was on the fairway.  Umm... NO... the ball isn't gonna stop if you don't try to shove your hand through the screen.  It's not virtual reality, dumbass.

Given the TRON theme of my cabinet, I was thinking of having "DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ENTER SCREEN" somewhere in the project, like on a menu screen or something.  Guess the best place to put it would be on the instructions for Golden Tee. 

[ABACABB]

@MaxVolume - I'm confused.  In the above post your first sentence says "SPEED HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT".  Then you finish that same paragraph saying you need SPEED.  So let me clear this up for you:

For Golden Tee, you NEED SPEED.  Your drive is directly related to the speed at which the trackball is spinning (as well as how straight you hit your shot).  So to get the maximum speed out of the trackball, the follow through of your hand naturally caries past the trackball itself.  So there needs to be this space between the trackball and monitor.  I get it, you use your thumbs.  Good for you.  But I guarantee you cannot get the same distance off your drives as someone that really thursts the trackball forward.  It is not possible to create that same instantaneous speed on the trackball that you get from shoving your hand over it.  Do people get drunk and over do it??  ABSOLUTELY.  Is it part of the fun of Golden Tee??  HELL YES!!! 

So stop preaching that it is not necessary.  We all get that.  Anyone who has played Golden Tee gets that.  It is fun and it sure beats the hell out of that thumb roll method you're talking about.  So stop criticizing people for playing games the way want.  Isn't it all about having fun??  If they're having fun, why do you care how they're doing it??

 

[MaxVolume]

Look Max, you're right about the speed.  For Golden Tee, your drive is directly related to the speed at which the trackball is spinning (as well as how straight you hit your shot).  So to get the maximum speed out of the trackball, the follow through of your hand naturally caries past the trackball itself.  So there needs to be this space between the trackball and monitor.  I get it, you use your thumbs.  Good for you.  But I guarantee you cannot get the same distance off your drives as someone that really thursts the trackball forward.  It is not possible to create that same instantaneous speed on the trackball that you get from shoving your hand over it.  Do people get drunk and over do it??  ABSOLUTELY.  Is it part of the fun of Golden Tee??  HELL YES!!! 

So stop preaching that it is not necessary.  We all get that.  Anyone who has played Golden Tee gets that.  It is fun and it sure beats the hell out of that thumb roll method you're talking about.  So stop criticizing people for playing games the way want.  Isn't it all about having fun??  If they're having fun, why do you care how they're doing it??

 

If you're admitting I'm right, STOP ARGUING WITH ME.  My original point is that it DOESN'T MATTER how much space you have if you know how to use a freakin' trackball!!!  I'm so sick of people just taking for granted that booze and videogames just automatically go hand in hand.  That's the biggest problem I have with stuff like The Gamerator, but I try to be diplomatic about that because the guy's a co-worker.

So... drink up, everyone!    None for me, I'm playing Pole Position! 

[EDIT]

Oh, and I figured the speed thing would trip you up.  Did you not see where I said "SPEED does NOT equal 'Superman'"  Yes, you NEED speed, but you do NOT (by your own admission) need to fly through the air like Soulja Boy.  Got it now? 

[ABACABB]

I never said anything like being a Superman or flying through the air like Soulja Boy. That was your own assumption.  I said we try hard to outdo our drives but you took it upon yourself to assume that we were jamming the trackball so hard trying to be Superman


I just hate it when someone asks a legit question on here and then you have assbags like yourself who chime in to criticise and contribute nothing toward the original post. If someone asks your opinion on how you play GT that's one thing but for you to jump in and criticize and make assumptions like you did is just plain ignorance. 


 

[MaxVolume]

I never said anything like being a Superman or flying through the air like Soulja Boy. That was your own assumption.  I said we try hard to outdo our drives but you took it upon yourself to assume that we were jamming the trackball so hard trying to be Superman


I just hate it when someone asks a legit question on here and then you have assbags like yourself who chime in to criticise and contribute nothing toward the original post. If someone asks your opinion on how you play GT that's one thing but for you to jump in and criticize and make assumptions like you did is just plain ignorance. 


 

The whole question of avoiding "knuckle smashing" arises precisely because a lot of knuckle-draggers DO "fly like Superman" when playing the game.  I'm just saying it's unnecessary to do that, so why build an aircraft carrier of a control panel just to accommodate dumbasses who don't know how to operate something as simple as a trackball.  Clear enough?

[MaxVolume]

My original point is that it DOESN'T MATTER how much space you have if you know how to use a freakin' trackball!!!

  Trackballs were not designed to be moved by the Thumbs.  If that were the case, the ball would be less than 1" diameter. 

 You cant get speed, acceleration, and accuracy from a single clumsy digit.  You dont have as much frictional traction, to be able to change direction, accelerate as fast, nor easily stop on a dime.

 Furthermore, the faster you do roll (or accelerate) ... and the more hand contact you do have (friction and moving mass)..  the easier it is to maintain a perfectly straight vector.

 The thumb also does not move in all directions very effectively.  And even two thumbs will not equal the accuracy of a good single hand roll.

You're full of crap... it's simple physics.  Your hand naturally veers because your arm isn't perfectly straight, and you're using one or the other, located on either side of your body, i.e. only half of symmetry.  By holding both thumbs at the nearest point at the bottom of the ball, then "flicking" upwards, you can achieve some pretty good speed AND the equal forces are as about as accurate as you can get in terms of a straight roll.  Just because you guys don't have the dexterity to do that (especially while inebriated, which seems to be a requirement for playing video games), it's not my problem.

I never suggested playing ANY other games with your thumb... Centipede, Marble Madness or whatever.  It's only a trick I use when the game requires a nice straight shot.  I can't be held responsible because most gamers didn't take Physics in high school.

[ABACABB]

saint's edit - yeah, that kind of nastiness isn't needed on this forum. Thanks.

Do you know how to apply backspin to your shot in the early versions of Golden Tee that didn't have a dedicated backspin button??  These early version (the versions that are playable in MAME) require you to do the "Superman" shot, as you call it, to add backspin to your shot. You CANNOT hit the trackball fast enough using your thumbs to apply this backspin, so essentially you can't utilize all the features of the game if you use your thumbs. The programmers built the game this way and fully intended rolling your hand over the trackball - and in certain cases rolling your hand over the trackball VERY FAST - to access these features built into the game by the developers. Thus the reason the original GT cabinets had this distance between the trackball and the monitor, and the monitor laid back at such a steep angle. To be great at this game you sometimes need to have big drives and you most certainly need to utilize the backspin.  saint's edit - yeah, that kind of nastiness isn't needed on this forum. Thanks. We know how to use it just fine. I'm pretty certain that you didn't know about adding backspin to your GT shot (after your previous posts).  So  I think it's suffice to say that you are the one who doesn't know how to use a trackball.

[DaveMMR]

Geesh guys calm down. It's a trackball, not open-heart surgery procedures. Even my arguing over angled joysticks never got that heated and I used to go nuts over that for no good reason. And your friend hitting his hand violently against the glass is at least hilarious enough to warrant not leaving enough room for the ball (but, ummm, make sure your glass is tempered.) 

In seriousness FWIW: There's only like about 3-1/2 inches from the middle of my trackball to the glass and smacking my hand has never been a huge problem. Then again, I'm not huge on Golden Tee. However, frantically rolling the ball for Marble Madness has yet to lead to injury.

I do think that overcompensating for the vertical spacing of the trackball leads to unnecessarily huge panels. Lean the monitor back if GT is a priority, like the real machine did. And test your panel design early on before cutting the wood.

[DaveMMR]

Heh, well you know Silly Race has you spinning towards the monitor for the entire level. But it doesn't matter. Because it's far from optimal.

So what do I believe is the optimal solution? Some may not like it but if Marble Madness or Golden Tee are at the top of your playlist, they truly need their own dedicated panels (i.e. no joysticks in the way) for best results. Explained more specifically:

MM: Two TBs installed at 45 degree angles. Again, if you've only a passing interest in the game, you will be fine with a trackball on your main panel but if it's on your favorites list, it's worth the extra effort and expense (especially so you can play two-players).

GT: You can make your panel deep enough have the TB in its own little personal space but for the frantic motions Xiaou2 explained, having joysticks completely out of the way is much better than making the panel way too large (especially for stability's sake - the CP box shouldn't be overhanging the support - like where the coin door would be - all that much.)

And again, in both examples, the original's cabinet design does not allow for easy accidental judo chops to the glass. The System I cab (which MM uses) has a blank vertically-angled piece that segues into the monitor area and Golden Tee's monitor leans back further than usual. That's basically why you have to plan for the handful of games you love and compromise on the others.

[MaxVolume]

To all the naysayers, do me a favor and try the following experiment:

Stand at one end of the largest room you can find.  Make sure there's a table or other flat surface nearby, and stand next to it.  You'll need two identical 1" x 1" squares of notebook paper or regular copy paper.  Write "drunk guy" on the first one, ball it up as tightly as you can, place it in your palm and throw it as hard as you can across the room as if it were a baseball.  Put your hand, wrist, arm, shoulder... hell, even put your BALLS into it if you want.

Next, write "Max Volume" on the second square, and ball it up tightly just as before.  Place it on the table and "flick" it as hard as you can using your thumb and index finger or thumb and middle finger.  Now, if you can even find it, go find the piece that flew the fastest and farthest, and open it up.  If you've performed all the steps correctly, that piece of paper will say "Max Volume".

The point of all this is that it's not about surface area making contact with the ball, the strength of your hand, what other connected muscles you try to exert to add force, it's about the sum total of potential energy transferred to the ball.  Your hand, arm, shoulder etc. aren't nearly as efficient at this as simply applying maximum tension to a finger, then letting it go.  Watch anyone throwing a baseball, football, or doing anything else with their arm.  They're never gonna be going so fast that you can't see it.  Now watch your own finger "flicking" something.  You don't really see the arc, just your finger at the "coiled" position and then instantly at the "released" position as soon as you let it go.  That's the same kind of potential energy that two thumbs at the base of a trackball transfer to the ball when you press inward and then let go.  It's gonna get the ball going faster and make it spin longer than any "Superman" move will.  Not only that, but as I've explained, the equal forces make it as straight a shot as you can get, and you can even vary the balance between the two if you want a bit of a "hook".

Now, I've explained how my method works.  I'm not just talking out of ---my bottom---, here.  Everyone seems to be bashing me because none of you have thought of it, and the drunk knuckle-draggers are smashing their knuckles against the machine, but rest assured if I or anyone else walked into a Golden Tee tournament and started using this technique, all the people who keep saying "shut your stupid face" and claiming it doesn't work would turn right around and insist I stop "cheating".

Case closed.

[MaxVolume]

<sour grapes>

Thanks for proving my point without me ever having to hang around with a bunch of sweaty drunks at a GT tournament.  First everyone says my method is pathetically inadequate, but now that I've explained the physics behind it, it's all "that's cheating!" since it DOES work.

"You mean you have to use your HANDS???  That's like a baby's toy!" 

Get a life.

[ABACABB]

@Max seriously?? flick a tiny piece of paper and that is your comparison to a trackball??  That is not even close to the same thing.  A trackball has much more size, weight and volume than a tiny piece of paper and you don't flick a trackball with your finger like you were describing with the paper.   


Now I have a real test for you to try and this one actually involves playing Golden Tee - one of the reasons this entire debate is happening.  Play a round of GT and when you are far enough from the green to use a 7 iron, select that club.  Now use your thumb roll method and make this shot.  roll the trackball as hard as you can using your thumbs.  When the ball lands on the green you should be able to get the ball to roll backwards about 5 yards.  I have tried this, to be fair, and I cannot get the trackball to spin fast enough to get the backspin on the ball that I get by rolling my entire hand over the ball.  As I said in an earlier post, to be great at this game you need to utilize backspin. 

Another easy test would be to select a 2 player game.  You play both golfers (so the wind speed and direction would be identical) use your thumbs with one and give it an honest hand roll with the other.  See which golfer drives further.  This is really the only way to give an answer to this debate. 

For me, rolling my thumbs doesn't even come close and I cannot achieve backspin on my shots.  Not being able to utilize these built in features is about the same as playing Street Fighter but not using any special moves - just the standard punches and kicks from the buttons.

Check out this page from Golden Tee's website.  About half way down the page there is a "Did You Know" section.  Take a look at that.......

http://www.goldentee.com/gt/GT/TheGame/HowToPlay/gt_backspin.jsp

[wcndave]

On the original game I used the thumbs method.  This gave 95% of the distance, and much better control of direction, spin, slice etc.

I believe you "can" get slightly further with whole hand, however the increase vs risk was only worth it on rare occasions where you just absolutely needed that extra few yards.

not tried with a home made cab as i am still building one, however the  ball seems lighter, so i think thumbs will be the same.

before this got heater, the OP question was how far away from screen.  I am doing the centre of the ball at 30cm from the bottom front of the screen, and the screen leans back at 30deg.  made a cardboard mockup quickly to check and that seemed fine.

however everyone plays differently, so take a cardboard box for your screen, and try it out.  get it right for you.  Just when testing on cardboard try not to hit the trackball so hard it flies across the room and breaks.

then people might say you are all thumbs...

[ABACABB]

On the original game I used the thumbs method.  This gave 95% of the distance, and much better control of direction, spin, slice etc.

If you're only getting 95% distance, you cannot achieve the backspin.  You need to hit about 110% power to start to achieve backspin and as the website says, the harder your shot, the more backspin - to a certain extent

[wcndave]

95% of what I could could do with the open hand method.

You cannot have more than 100% of that....

I was able to get enough backspin, and found that actually too much was not good.

in fact, with a driver (when i might use the hand method) you don't really want / get backspin, and with shorter clubs i found using thumbs and if necessary slightly more club was far more accurate.

anyway, i am not a pro, just saying thumbs method has it's place.

more to the point, the OP should just try it out using some cardboard boxes, that was the original question!

[MaxVolume]

@Max seriously?? flick a tiny piece of paper and that is your comparison to a trackball??  That is not even close to the same thing.  A trackball has much more size, weight and volume than a tiny piece of paper and you don't flick a trackball with your finger like you were describing with the paper.   

Dumbass, it's about using your whole hand/wrist/arm/shoulder as opposed to one finger and a thumb.  It's a physics experiment intended to strip away the assumptions about the relationship between mass and energy, but obviously you're not getting it, especially if you're assuming the tiny ball of paper is supposed to be analogous to the trackball itself. 

[MaxVolume]

Take the training wheels off child.  Then maybe you will get-it.

Come back when you are full grown.

So the lesson learned here is that when the unintelligent are backed into a corner they react by attempting to belittle their opponent since they've already accepted that attempting to outwit him is utterly futile.  In situations involving close proximity, this is where they would resort to physical violence because their mental capacity is at its limit.

[PL1]

"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
--Author unknown, often attributed to Mark Twain




Scott

[ABACABB]

@Max seriously?? flick a tiny piece of paper and that is your comparison to a trackball??  That is not even close to the same thing.  A trackball has much more size, weight and volume than a tiny piece of paper and you don't flick a trackball with your finger like you were describing with the paper.   

Dumbass, it's about using your whole hand/wrist/arm/shoulder as opposed to one finger and a thumb.  It's a physics experiment intended to strip away the assumptions about the relationship between mass and energy, but obviously you're not getting it, especially if you're assuming the tiny ball of paper is supposed to be analogous to the trackball itself. 

I get the physics experiment.  It would just have been more helpful if you would have come up with an experiment that was a little more similar to the situation here.  Your experiment and using a trackball are too different.

But the bigger fact here is once again you have completely ignored my other points.

#1 being the most obvious.  The OP was asking about the distance because he apparently plays GT this way.  You felt the need to be a  and chime in saying how that was unneccasary.  None of your flippin' business how he wants to play his machine

#2 The backspin feature is very difficult to achieve using your thumbs.  It takes much more speed on the trackball to achieve this.  To be great at this game, you need to utilize the backspin.  I have to assume that you don't, or perhaps did not even know about this.  I guarantee I could beat you at GT 100 times in a row

#3 If you like to play using your thumbs, good for you!!  Stop criticizing the way other people play.  When you do it just shows your ignorance.

PL1 is right about this arguing.  This didn't need to become a mutli post listing on how to play GT.  It just pissed me off so much when you had to post your $.02, saying people were knuckle draggers and acting like Superman flying all over the place.  Well guess what.   When you are taking a shot at the pin when it is placed on the back of the green and there is water right behind that pin,  you want that backspin to catch so your ball doesn't roll in the water.  Your excitement level gets up and you slam that trackball with all your might to ensure the backspin feature was activated and you don't get a penalty stroke from ending up in the water.  This is how I play Golden Tee and I am damn proud of it.  I might also add that I am pretty damn good at playing Golden Tee.

[ABACABB]

95% of what I could could do with the open hand method.

You cannot have more than 100% of that....

I was able to get enough backspin, and found that actually too much was not good.

in fact, with a driver (when i might use the hand method) you don't really want / get backspin, and with shorter clubs i found using thumbs and if necessary slightly more club was far more accurate.

anyway, i am not a pro, just saying thumbs method has it's place.

more to the point, the OP should just try it out using some cardboard boxes, that was the original question!

Good point wcndave.  Use the cardboard to determine what distance feels good for you.  Mine happens to be about 12 inches and it works fine for me.  As far as backspin off your drive, it doesn't work like that.  The backspin feature seems to be de-activated during your drives so you can swing away.  As far as too much backspin, well that's the tricky part of the game.  Maybe you swung too hard with your hand and applied too much backspin.  It takes a really good feel of your trackball setup to do this properly.  Then again if you had too much backspin perhaps you did not select the correct club or did not need to apply backspin.  Just my thoughts. 

This game is so much more fun when you really understand how the trackball works and fully understand the Golden Tee shot calculator.  There are so many variations of the shots that are listed on the calculator (control panel) that you can really get creative and make up your own shots to get you on the green and close to the pin. 

[MaxVolume]

Not to start this up again, but I had to laugh at the "backspin" comments.  You guys do realize that the trackball just spins a couple little optical encoder wheels (or mostly just ONE, since you're mostly using one axis of movement) rather than being somehow a physical "avatar" for the golf ball, right?  If you did, you'd understand that there is a point at which the encoder wheel is spinning so fast that the emitter/detector pair on the encoder board can't read anything.  I seriously don't think that the programmers coded the game so that "holy ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- I can't see anything" = "backspin".  Just a thought.

[Cynicaster]

The trackball-to-bezel distance on my cabinet is definitely one of the things I would change (increase) if I was starting over.

Still, full speed is easily attainable with thumbs only.  I’ve always had a laugh watching drunk jocks play Golden Tee and literally put their whole body into the forward spin as if it’s making the slightest difference in their shot. 

[MaxVolume]

The trackball-to-bezel distance on my cabinet is definitely one of the things I would change (increase) if I was starting over.

This is kind of off-topic (although less than I've been thus far), but probably the only regret I have with FLYNN'S is ironically with the joystick and buttons rather than the trackball.  It's actually not a big issue, but I laid everything out with the joystick, trackball and buttons sort of centered on one another.  Didn't have much of a choice because it's a mini-cab and I was lucky to squeeze all that into a panel that only had a spinner and a couple buttons originally.  Still, I wasn't really able to leave some "palm space" so it's somewhat less comfortable to play than it could be.  Part of that was actually due to having the control panel already bent when I was talked into having it laser-cut, which required it to be flattened and re-bent.  It ended up being bent with the top part slightly short, so the holes were further away from the monitor than they should have been, but only by 1/4" at the most.  I guess it gained me a little in trackball-to-monitor distance, but there's not much room to rest my big hands while playing.  That would be a problem on pretty much any mini-cab anyway, so again it's no big deal.  Your comment just reminded me of it as one thing that sticks out as not coming out quite as intended.

[MaxVolume]

Still, full speed is easily attainable with thumbs only.  I’ve always had a laugh watching drunk jocks play Golden Tee and literally put their whole body into the forward spin as if it’s making the slightest difference in their shot.

Of course since I got into mentioning the encoder wheels, the two-thumb technique really limits x-axis movement, and of course less side-to-side movement translates into greater distance since practically all the force is exerted on the y-axis wheel.  It's just more efficient than a sloppy one-handed approach, no matter how hard you hit it or how much follow-through (HINT: you're no longer in contact with the ball, genius ).

[ABACABB]

HOLY CRAP!! Will you give it up MAX. Of Course you're no longer in contact with the trackball, it is called a follow through.  And yes the follow through comes from thrusting your hand over the trackball very fast.  Too fast??  That is your opinion.  I have tried several times and I have had several friends try to achieve backspin by using thumbs and NONE of us can do it.  So will you just mind your own freaking business and stop being a little  about the way people use a trackball.  You don't have a penny invested into my trackball so it is none of your business how I, or anyone else who uses this method, play Golden Tee.  Tell Brian Urlacher to use his thumbs.

You never commented on a post I had made about this a while back which was:  Did you even know this backspin feature existed in Golden Tee before the dedicated button came out?   

[Hoopz]

Happy Holidays everyone! 

[chopperthedog]

@ABACABB you are completely spot on. Played since 97' (best personal score 29 under). And hell no could anyone ever get that score with their thumbs. /me can tell max doesn't know the game that well.


good day.

[MaxVolume]

You never commented on a post I had made about this a while back which was:  Did you even know this backspin feature existed in Golden Tee before the dedicated button came out?

Yes, because I never saw that post... however, I did follow your link, and I know it was there before you could simply press a button.  What you don't seem to realize is that there's a limit to how fast the ball can spin and still feed usable data.  Pretty sure that speed can be reached either way.  I still maintain that if I were to use this pathetically inadequate method in a bar or arcade, I would immediately be accused of "cheating", and you yourself have pretty much confirmed that.  So which is it?  Useless, or an unfair advantage?

[ABACABB]

I wouldn't say it is cheating at all. The devs built it into the game and it is available for anyone to access.  It is absolutely an advantage vs. those that don't use it as the GT devs built specifically some par 3 holes where the only way to get a hole in one was to use backspin. They fully intended for players to use this feature.
Now I totally understand and agree that there is a limit to how fast you can spin the trackball and what the optical encoder can read.  But I think this limit is higher than you realize because it takes one hell of a "thrust" to achieve the speed necessary to activate the backspin feature. 

This argument got way out of control and as chopperthedog stated you clearly don't understand how this works in Golden Tee since you are STILL questioning it.  I can agree to disagree with you on this but don't criticize people for playing these older versions of GT this way because maybe, just maybe, they knew about this feature all along. And while you think they're idiots they are actually  pulling off some pretty amazing shots

[deadkenndys1105]

Well if your going to be playing golden tee and bowling people are going to go for the crazy swing whether they need it or not so more space is always a good idea.  I know on my millipede from the center of the ball to the glass is only 4 inches and I don't have a ton of finger prints after playing.  For a Multicade were your going to be playing some golden tee I would aim for a little 6 inches for a smaller CP but if size isn't a problem go big and have your fun.

[chopperthedog]

Found this verbiage. "earlier versions obtained backspin through a complicated understanding of wind, green, backswing, and the speed in which the trackball was struck." Couldn't have worded it any better. IMO the backspin button took a lot away from the actual swing and game play. viva la pre fore versions!!!


good day.

[MaxVolume]

I wouldn't say it is cheating at all. The devs built it into the game and it is available for anyone to access.  It is absolutely an advantage vs. those that don't use it as the GT devs built specifically some par 3 holes where the only way to get a hole in one was to use backspin. They fully intended for players to use this feature.
Now I totally understand and agree that there is a limit to how fast you can spin the trackball and what the optical encoder can read.  But I think this limit is higher than you realize because it takes one hell of a "thrust" to achieve the speed necessary to activate the backspin feature. 

This argument got way out of control and as chopperthedog stated you clearly don't understand how this works in Golden Tee since you are STILL questioning it.  I can agree to disagree with you on this but don't criticize people for playing these older versions of GT this way because maybe, just maybe, they knew about this feature all along. And while you think they're idiots they are actually  pulling off some pretty amazing shots

Yet again, you misunderstand me... I'm saying (as I have before) that if I walked up to a Golden Tee machine being played competitively against other players using the "Superman" method, they would laugh at me at first and dismiss my technique just as you have, yet they would quickly begin to claim I was "cheating" as soon as they realized it's as effective or actually MORE so (as has already been reported earlier in the thread re: accuracy) than the accepted one-handed method.

[MaxVolume]

Found this verbiage. "earlier versions obtained backspin through a complicated understanding of wind, green, backswing, and the speed in which the trackball was struck." Couldn't have worded it any better. IMO the backspin button took a lot away from the actual swing and game play. viva la pre fore versions!!!


good day.

Okay, you guys realize there is NO wind, green, or other such stuff inside a Golden Tee machine, right?  It's just data.  If the trackball spins the encoder wheel faster than the IR emitter/detector pair can process, no data is getting to the CPU beyond "I can't see ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---".  Given that people who know how to do this correctly can get the ball spinning just as fast with two thumbs as the drunk morons who insist on using one hand, I fail to see how you lose the backspin function regardless of technique, older machine or not.