The Adventures of Ridge Racer and the lost JoGcon controller!

[isamu]

Well guys, I have just done something I haven't done in many years....I actually broke out and dusted off my real portable PS2 machine and popped in all my Ridge Racer games. I started with RR4 Type 4, then Ridge Racer Hi-Res 60fps Bonus disc, then finally Ridge Racer 5...then I proceeded to play them with a controller I've owned for years but hardly EVER used!



The infamous Namco JoGcon!

This bold move was inspired by a comment Vas Cabb made over at the MESS forums

JogCon isn't rumble - it's actually a motor-driven wheel. You can spin it infinitely in both directions, and it can be commanded to apply torque feedback in either direction.

100% CONFIRMED!! This little wheel on the JoGcon is a thing of wonders!!! It actually behaves almost EXACTLY like a real arcade cabinet ffb wheel when playing Jogcon support Ridge Racer games! RRV and R4 HiRes Bonus disc gives a nice jolt and torque effect(similar to Scud Race oddly enough) to the Jogcon when turning and drifting, it feels totally GNARLY!!!!!!!

The only thing I notice it's missing is any kind of rumble effect, particularly when there's supposed to be, such as car to wall, car to rail, or car to car collisions. Vas Crabb...do you suspect this is more to do with the JoGcon's wheel containing only a small motor that's designed to deliver torque type forces in either direction, or do you think it's a result of Namco's console RR games not delivering that type of rumble effect at all, when the JoGcon is detected as the controller?

Reason I ask, is because when using a dualshock controller, the game delivers vibration and proper rumble during jumps and collisions, and I don't feel that in the JoGcon, so I'd like to get your opinion on it.

Anyway, all this does is further break my heart, knowing that the Lilypad plugin is out there, waiting to be modified and tweaked to add emulated JoGcon controller compatibility, yet no one has tackled it yet   Hopefully this changes one day, as I can just imagine how ABSURDLY BITCHIN' it will be to have the ability to use our PC force feedback wheels in a game like Ridge Racer Type 4, Ridge Racer Hi-Spec Bonus disc, and Ridge Racer V.

Thread on LilyPad:

http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-LilyPad-0-10-0

Source code(written in C++) is contained in the latest SVN of PCSX2

http://buildbot.orphis.net/pcsx2/index.php?m=detail&rev=5621&platform=windows-x86


Let us pray someone tackles LilyPad and digs into its source code one day. Let's for it together....



edit: OK pic should be fixed

[BadMouth]

I see an advertisement for cables where the pic you linked should be. 

[isamu]

I see an advertisement for cables where the pic you linked should be. 

an advertisement for cables? On which pic? The JoGcon pic? That's very weird. The joGcon pic is working fine. I deleted the prayer kid pic, in case that's the one you're referring to. Strange....

[isamu]

OK nvm I fixed it

[isamu]

From the MESS forum:

The trouble is, we still don't know exactly what the values in JogCon protocol represent, and without someone who actually still has one doing some testing, we'd be implementing it by trial and error.

I have one and sending it data isn't hard, but what are you going to do when you know what the commands do?

It's not just what the data sent to it represents that isn't well-understood, the values the pad reports representing wheel motion aren't documented properly.  No-one seems to be sure exactly how rotation magnitude is reported.
e.g. no$ guesses here but isn't sure: http://nocash.emubase.de/psx-spx.txt

Namco Jogcon (NPC-105/SLEH-0020/SLPH-00126/SLUH-00059)
  __Halfword 0 (Controller Info)___________________
  0-15  Controller Info  (5AE3h=Jogcon in Jogcon mode) (ie. not Digital mode)
 halfword1: buttons: same as digital pad
 halfword2:
   0    unknown (uh, this isn't LSB of rotation?)
   1-15 dial rotation (signed offset since last read?) (or absolute position?)
 halfword3:
   0    flag: dial was turned left  (0=no, 1=yes)
   1    flag: dial was turned right (0=no, 1=yes)
   2-15 unknown
Rotations of the dial are recognized by an optical sensor (so, unlike
potentiometers, the dial can be freely rotated; by more than 360 degrees). The
dial is also connected to a small motor, giving it a real force-feedback effect
(unlike all other PSX controllers which merely have vibration feedback).
Although that's great, the mechanics are reportedly rather cheap and using the
controller doesn't feel too comfortable. The Jogcon is used only by Ridge Racer
4 for PS1 (and Ridge Racer 5 for PS2).
The Mode button probably allows to switch between Jogcon mode and Digital Pad
mode (similar to the Analog button on other pads), not sure if the mode can be
also changed by software via configuration commands...? Unknown how the motor
is controlled; probably somewhat similar to vibration motors, ie. by the M1
and/or M2 bytes, but there must be also a way to select clockwise and
anticlockwise direction)...? The controller does reportedly support config
command 4Dh (same as analog rumble).

Very interesting. Seems Namco did a number on this little sucker.

[isamu]

Planning on plopping out my JoGcon soon and connecting it to my PS2 portable because I don't remember how it feels to use it. Gonna report back on how it feels stay tuned 

[sonik]

Bumping this old thread...
I'm waiting for my jogcon to arrive. I want to try to make it into an FFB controller for use on PC.
There's an "driver" in Rusty to control it's motors.
https://docs.rs/pscontroller-rs/0.6.0/src/pscontroller_rs/jogcon.rs.html
An emulator plugin for it would be amazing too. And it's super easy to send the commands via usb-serial to an arduino.
By the way I'm using an negcon on retroarch to play RR. It's an amazing controller! Loving it!

[sonik]

And it's alive!

Got some FFB Effects working on the Jogcon.
Still a long way to make it work properly. Might need some help from people with better knowledge of FFB.

[isamu]

What the hell?

[sonik]

MAME plugin and arduino code released:

https://github.com/sonik-br/FFBArcadePluginJogCon

But my arduino died and I can not make any improvements to this code

Also the JogCon is not that good to play those arcade games anyway.

[isamu]

MAME plugin and arduino code released:

https://github.com/sonik-br/FFBArcadePluginJogCon

But my arduino died and I can not make any improvements to this code

Also the JogCon is not that good to play those arcade games anyway.

have you thought about contacting chicken liver? He's the dev behind Lilypad, a plugin for the PCSX2 emulator. a long time ago, he told me he was working on a way to adapt the jogcon code as an option within Lily pad. But I haven't heard anything from him since. I think that's the route you should go. Make the jogcon a plugin for PCSX2 so we can use it to have ffb effects when playing Ridge Racer 5. 

[sonik]

I will try to get in touch. Thanks for the heads up.