u360 and 4 way

[jordanshadow]

I performed some testing on 4 way games. I bought a u360 and a j-stick. I played Ms. Pacman turbo mostly but also Mr. Do and Donkey Kong. I had really subpar performance with the U360 and I wonder if I did something wrong? I have it connected via usb and changed the map to 4 way and directly input joystick commands into mame gui. Maybe Mame's mapping emulation was conflicting with the u360 but it felt really imprecise and I was clearing scoring better with the J-stick in 4 way mode.

Do i need to connect the u360 through its wiring harness to get the benefits or run it through padmapper? I actually found the j-stick with an octagon restrictor to be perfect for playing pac turbo and got my highest score ever. My wife however prefered significantly the j-stick with 4 way restrictor. Hats of the J-stick but I am hoping I can get the u360 working as advertised.

[EMDB]

I use the U360 with the harness connected to an iPac2. I indeed think the mapping of MAME along the mapping of the stick itself conflicts preventing an optimal result.
Also selecting a specific 4-way mapping table made a huge difference for me. I use the "4-Way, No Sticky (UD Bias)" one. I did not tune on a specific game but tried to make my setup as broad as possible. Beside 4-way I really like the auto switching when selecting a game from HyperSpin. I made a small application called HyperMap to achieve this:



http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,134128.0.html

[kixfan]

Reading your post it sounded like you only used a restrictor on the J-stick and not on the u360?    I believe I used an octagon restrictor on mine along with the no sticky corner map as well.   

[EMDB]

Reading your post it sounded like you only used a restrictor on the J-stick and not on the u360?    I believe I used an octagon restrictor on mine along with the no sticky corner map as well.

I tried the restrictors (both circular and 4/8 way) on my U360 but did not like the feeling.

[Ginsu Victim]

Wouldn't MAME only possibly interfere if you had the U360 in analog mode? Setting a map should keep it from being seen as analog (to my knowledge).

[EMDB]

Wouldn't MAME only possibly interfere if you had the U360 in analog mode? Setting a map should keep it from being seen as analog (to my knowledge).

No. Connecting it via USB means it is an analog stick in Windows, using the harness connected to an ipac or other encoder means digital (to my knowledge ).

[jordanshadow]

I used and 8 way restrictor on the u360 because the idea is that I wanted to replace having to add a 4 way joystick. The u360 was indeed recognized as an analog stick by windows. I should try it again with a wiring harness.

[TKW4rr10r]

 

Not to derail the thread, but sincerely curious as to the proper setup of these u360s.

One of my projects has a plan for four u360s in play on the control panel (hush, I have my reasons). The analog will be needed for certain emulators/games, but I did not know of any issues running them via USB in Mame. What I'm trying to wrap my head around is how the custom mappings are applied depending on game loaded in Mame. Is this not something that can be set if the u360s are connected via USB? What functionality do you loose by using the wire harness instead?

[EMDB]

Not to derail the thread, but sincerely curious as to the proper setup of these u360s.

One of my projects has a plan for four u360s in play on the control panel (hush, I have my reasons). The analog will be needed for certain emulators/games, but I did not know of any issues running them via USB in Mame. What I'm trying to wrap my head around is how the custom mappings are applied depending on game loaded in Mame. Is this not something that can be set if the u360s are connected via USB? What functionality do you loose by using the wire harness instead?

I contacted Andy (from Ultimarc) and he told me the U360s were indented to be used via USB only. The harness was only added to use the sticks in dedicated cabs. Connecting them via USB will show them in windows as analog sticks. MAME will add mappings for analog sticks based on the game. This seems to conflict with the mappings loaded into the stick. I'm not sure whether you can disable mapping in MAME to prevent this. I connected my U360 via the harness to an IPAC2 making it a "fully digital but switchless" stick. I'm very satisfied with this setup as I can load mappings based on the selected games without intervention of MAME. It works fine for 4 and 8 way games and special cases like the 45 degrees rotates sticks of QBert.

[EMDB]

As I started to get curious how this worked exactly I did some research:

MAME uses mapping of all joysticks based on an internal table of directions per game. It distinguishes between 4, 8 and 4 diagonal way. You can get the full list of games including the directions by running the following command line:

mame -listxml > games.xml

You can also create your own mappings per game. The format is quite complex but there is a very handy tool to create / edit these mappings:

Mame Joystick Map Editor v1.4



The mapping per game should be copied to the MAME cfg folder as gamename.ini.

I removed the harness of my U360 so it is used analog again. I loaded my custom Qbert mapping and fired up QBert in MAME. The result was QBert was totally unmovable due to the conflicts in the U360 and MAME mappings.

Then I copied the 8-way mapping included in the Mame Joystick Map Editor to default.ini in the cfg folder of MAME and changed the default joystick mapping option in MAME.ini to

joystick_map              default

The 8-way mapping is more or less a pass-through filter as it just passes the joystick directions created by the U360 loaded mapping. This way the pure U360 mappings are used without MAME changing them.
Firing up QBert again and it was perfectly controllable. Exactly as it was when running the U360 via my IPAC2.

The advantage of connecting the U360 via USB only is you can still use the analog mode of the U360 by loading the analog mapping table.

[jordanshadow]

 
You need to right this up in a sticky! This was excellent information and fit perfectly with my experiences as well. Thanks for diligence. 

[cmoses]

You need to right this up in a sticky! This was excellent information and fit perfectly with my experiences as well. Thanks for diligence. 

I agree this needs to be documented well. I know it will come up often. I have a cab I am updating and will need this info when I reload everything.

Thanks


Sent from my iPad Mini using Tapatalk HD

[PL1]

If you want it wiki'd, just write up all the desired supporting text and your screencaps/pics (not pulled from a site to avoid copyright issues, please) and I'll port it over for you.

Not much in the way of U360 info on the wiki other than this.


Scott

[2600]

This thread has good info on the mapping done by MAME and overriding it with the Ultrastik.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,98058.msg1035149.html

[EMDB]

This thread has good info on the mapping done by MAME and overriding it with the Ultrastik.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,98058.msg1035149.html

Thanks. I just read the whole thread and although there is a lot of information there is nothing more than my findings described above. It DOES confirm my findings though 

One thing I picked up from this thread is you can more easy force MAME to always use 8-way mapping (pass-through) by setting

-joystick_map 7778...4445

in mame.ini. This way you don't need to create the default.ini 8-way mapping yourself. I PM'ed Haze yesterday to find out how to address the internal MAME 8 way mapping. I did not get an answer yes. I assumed it to be something like

-joystick_map 8

but I did not have a chance to test it.

[rrcade]

does the 360 have a Physical restrictor plate for 4 way and if so do you have to open up your panel every time you want to switch from say 8 to 4 way?  I would think playing pacman without a 4 way restrictor plate would really suck?

[shponglefan]

does the 360 have a Physical restrictor plate for 4 way and if so do you have to open up your panel every time you want to switch from say 8 to 4 way?  I would think playing pacman without a 4 way restrictor plate would really suck?

Yes, there is a 4 way restrictor plate.  And yes, you'd have to physically switch it out to convert from 8-way to 4-way (they make different restrictor plates for different purposes).  This is what it looks like w/ a 4-way restrictor installed (it's the clear plastic behind the circuit board):

[EMDB]

does the 360 have a Physical restrictor plate for 4 way and if so do you have to open up your panel every time you want to switch from say 8 to 4 way?  I would think playing pacman without a 4 way restrictor plate would really suck?

Yes it probably gives a more genuine feeling with a physical restrictor but opening the CP to manually switch fully removes the benefit of the automatic mapping which makes the U360 so unique...

[epetti]

You can get a Servostick adapter for the U360 that would programmatically automatically switch between 4 and 8 way physical restrictor.

[Ginsu Victim]

I just use a circular restrictor and let the maps do the work. Plays fine.

[8BitMonk]

You can get a Servostick adapter for the U360 that would programmatically automatically switch between 4 and 8 way physical restrictor.

Pretty sure the Servostick is a separate product and not an adapter for the U360.

I use the Octagonal restrictor, I like to be able to feel the diagonals.

[epetti]

You can get a Servostick adapter for the U360 that would programmatically automatically switch between 4 and 8 way physical restrictor.

Pretty sure the Servostick is a separate product and not an adapter for the U360.

I use the Octagonal restrictor, I like to be able to feel the diagonals.

Originally it was a separate product, but now they also sell a U360 upgrade kit of it.

[rrcade]

How does the servo stick work? Does it automatically switch to 4 or 8 depending on what mame game you load?

[*Kegger*]

Wouldn't MAME only possibly interfere if you had the U360 in analog mode? Setting a map should keep it from being seen as analog (to my knowledge).

No. Connecting it via USB means it is an analog stick in Windows, using the harness connected to an ipac or other encoder means digital (to my knowledge ).

I tend to agree with Ginsu, When you set the map to 4-way and move the stick it goes right to the outer boundaries. It can't go in between, the stick acts like either full right or left an so on. When you place it in analog you can move it as and analog stick.
It works the same for ultramap or in windows controller settings.
You can test to see, In my results the stick acted the same weather in windows or ultramap. If the stick was in 4way it acted like a 4way stick same for analog.