quick wiring question

[dkersten]

OK, I have 2 ultrastik360's for P1 and P2.  Each has the 8 inputs I can use for buttons.  I also have the Ipac Ultimate I/O for a controller.  So should I use the u360's for the input for the P1 and P2 buttons?  This would make them "joystick buttons", but I am not sure if that matters in mame and other emulators since I have never used a regular windows joystick with mame.  If I just use the ipac, they are keystrokes, and not just that but keystrokes already tied to specific commands, so my inclination would be to just use the ipac for the buttons.

This leads to the next question though.  From what I read, you can use the U360 to output as if it were a 4/8 way joystick and plug it into the ipac as your 4 "switches".  You can ALSO plug it in to USB for analog control.  But is there a reason to do this?  My understanding is that the utility to program the U360 for different modes will emulate the 4/8/qbert/49way/analog controls depending on the game played.  So should I just hook those sticks up to USB and forget about the input/output capabilities?

Part of the question here is that I have 4 extra buttons that I want to use for pause, exit, settings, and select functions in both mame and other emulators.  But the ipac ultimate doesn't have too many extra inputs for buttons when you have a 4 player setup AND a trackball and spinner.  I am not sure what the 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B inputs are for, and there isn't inputs for P3 and P4 start.. And I won't be using P1B8 or P2B8 either since I did 7 buttons for player 1 and 2.  So I am guessing I can use the P1B8 and P2B8 buttons for 3rd and 4th player start, and then the 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B for my 4 special functions? 

Seems like there are a few ways I can go here, any advice?