Best option for building a 4-player Warlords

[goldenageofarcade]

Hi, I'm hoping to build a new panel for my 4-player MAME rig with controls that will allow 4 players to play Warlords.  What's my best bet?  The only out of the box option that seems somewhat feasible I've found are the Groovy Game Gear spinners, but they only seem to work up to 3 linked not 4.  I see the A-Pac would allow 4 pots to be hooked up, but I can't think of a way to harness the pots in a useable form factor for actual gameplay.  Has anyone else built such a setup?  Is this doable?

[PL1]

I think your best bet is to get 2 master and 2 slave TT2s.

*** Make sure that you get a different "USB Device Number:"  for the second master. (Pulldown menu on order page) ***

Master spinner cables will come soldered to the X axis of the TT2 encoder.

Connect each slave spinner to the Y axis of a TT2 encoder (Avoid Z axis -- IIRC Windows handles Z axis with 4 steps per transition instead of 1)

Enable multimouse in MAME.


Scott

[goldenageofarcade]

I'm running MAME circa 2003.  I'm guessing I'll have to modernize to make this work?

[PL1]

If your version of MAME supports multimouse, you are good to go.

Not sure if multimouse was in MAME back then. 

Try opening up your mame.ini in notepad and doing a find for "mouse".


Scott

EDIT: Multimouse added in 0.117u1, 19 July 2007.
2003 MAME releases were in the 0.67 to 0.77 range.

[matsadona]

I would definitely go for a potentiometer setup. Why, because you would get the "right" feeling and it would be cheaper.
If you don't want to buy an A-Pac board, buy some cheap standard PC controllers (with analog joysticks) and hack them.

[PL1]

Good call, Matsadona.

Spinners are more versatile (more games playable), but pots are less expensive and closer to the original.

For a potentiometer setup, you could use an AVR analog encoder like the KADESTICK. (link in sig)

Not sure if the older version of MAME will handle the KADESTICK 4-axis firmware or if it would need 2 AVRs running the 2-axis firmware.   

LMK if you want me to run some older-MAME/KADESTICK compatibility tests, Goldenageofarcade.

ArcadeFixIt has repro knobs and heavy duty potentiometers.


Scott

[goldenageofarcade]

Thanks for the replies, that will definitely get me moving in the right direction.  I think I probably will run pots, but I need to figure out a way to utilize them such that there's some form of mechanical restriction on them versus just slapping a knob right on the pot itself, which clearly wouldn't be good for the pot.  Are there any pot-ready spinner rigs available anywhere?  I suppose I could try and collect some Omega Race type spinners, though i'd prefer not to take original parts out of circulation if I can help it.

Thanks again for the advice, very helpful stuff.

[PL1]

I think I probably will run pots, but I need to figure out a way to utilize them such that there's some form of mechanical restriction on them versus just slapping a knob right on the pot itself, which clearly wouldn't be good for the pot.

Umm, check out page 38 of the Warlords Manual.

There is a pot, panel (with a 2nd smaller hole drilled for a tab on the pot that keeps the pot from turning/working loose), washer, nut, and knob.

The pot will provide the necessary mechanical restriction -- the heavy duty pots I linked above will work fine, el-cheapo Radio Shack pots . . . 


Scott

[goldenageofarcade]

Wow!  That's surprising.  My Omega Race has a huge contraption so that the pot itself takes no force from "spirited" play, but the pic clearly shows there is no such thing on Warlords.  It must come down to the "heavy duty" pot as you suggest.  Thanks for that, I'm going to give it a try.

[PL1]

BTW, Omega Race uses an optical spinner, not a potentiometer.


Scott
EDIT: Please pardon my incorrect assumption -- I've always seen it on lists of spinner games.  Apparently it uses an analog to 6-bit gray code encoder.

[goldenageofarcade]

I must respectfully disagree!  OR uses a pot that doesn't have any restrictor.  The original one had a "dead" spot where it "resets" to zero again so you'd get 1 or 2 degrees of nothing while spinning it.  Here's the modern replacement:  http://www.biltronix.com/ords.html  I have this in my OR and it works like a charm, none of the originals work anymore, this was a very poor original design.  The billtronix one is perfect, it is exactly the correct amount of tension, just like the original, as soon as you take your hand off it it stops spinning immediately versus, say, a Tempest spinner which will keep on turning for a while if you give it a good whirl.

[PL1]

Apologies.  I thought Omega Race used an optical spinner.   


Scott