Steering Wheel on Android?

[NiN^_^NiN]

Hi All

I just had a question if anyone has tried a steering wheel on android with mame4droid or mame4all? I haven't been able to find any info an I don't have a usb steering wheel to try with a OTG cable

Is anyone able to confirm or even try?

[Howard_Casto]

I'm not saying it isn't possible, but joystick support in android is still pretty sketchy.  Most of the joysticks you see for android are actually keyboards and/or they have a driver to make them show up as a keyboard.  Understand that most of those are connected via Bluetooth.  The usb connector is fairly useless for most gamepads and joysticks due to lack of true joystick support in android.  I mean some HID joysticks show up fine and the 360 gamepad works on a lot of tablets, but a wheel is decidedly a non-standard device. 

Common sense would say it doesn't matter regardless.  Most of the racing games in mame require at least a middle of the road pc to emulate.  A tablet won't be powerful enough unless you are playing sprint 8 or something.  Even if it was, most people spend 200+ on a wheel so they aren't going to skimp on the pc. 

[BadMouth]

No personal experience with it, but I think you'd have better luck with hacking a bluetooth gamepad made for android than trying to get something to work over OTG.
Pick up a cheap analog bluetooth gamepad and see if the analog thumbsticks actually work as analog in MAME.

The gamepad will most likely use 10k pots.  If so you could swap out the pots in the wheel for 10k ones.  Just make sure they show 5k when centered.
Desolder the pots in the gamepad, run wires from the wheel pots in their place.

Unless you come accross someone who understands android well enough to write a custom android driver for the wheel, that's probably the best you'll be able to do.

[NiN^_^NiN]

I'm not saying it isn't possible, but joystick support in android is still pretty sketchy.  Most of the joysticks you see for android are actually keyboards and/or they have a driver to make them show up as a keyboard.  Understand that most of those are connected via Bluetooth.  The usb connector is fairly useless for most gamepads and joysticks due to lack of true joystick support in android.  I mean some HID joysticks show up fine and the 360 gamepad works on a lot of tablets, but a wheel is decidedly a non-standard device. 

Common sense would say it doesn't matter regardless.  Most of the racing games in mame require at least a middle of the road pc to emulate.  A tablet won't be powerful enough unless you are playing sprint 8 or something.  Even if it was, most people spend 200+ on a wheel so they aren't going to skimp on the pc.

I know keyboards and mice work but i was unable to configure the mame4droid to use the mouse as a spinner ro steering wheel and I don't have an actual wheel to test with OTG to see if it' works.

The main reason I am asking this is that I found a knock-off of the 80's tomy turbo which i thought would be awesome for outrun and a few older driving games with a working wheel and shifter but i have been unable to get the mouse to work as a spinner there were no options to use it as one.

This is the knock-off tomy turbo

No personal experience with it, but I think you'd have better luck with hacking a bluetooth gamepad made for android than trying to get something to work over OTG.
Pick up a cheap analog bluetooth gamepad and see if the analog thumbsticks actually work as analog in MAME.

The gamepad will most likely use 10k pots.  If so you could swap out the pots in the wheel for 10k ones.  Just make sure they show 5k when centered.
Desolder the pots in the gamepad, run wires from the wheel pots in their place.

Unless you come accross someone who understands android well enough to write a custom android driver for the wheel, that's probably the best you'll be able to do.

I will have to check out the gamepad and see if one of the thumbsticks works as a wheel for some of the car games I didn't think of that actually I was hoping to just use a mouse as a spinner

[Howard_Casto]

Well there's your problem.  You are thinking an android tablet would be best for that when a Pi will probably work better.  They have a new 5 dollar version.... look into that. 

[Howard_Casto]

Hey man I was thinking of ya when browsing the sales today:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2015-Bluetooth-Wireless-Gamepad-Game-Controller-Stretchable-Special-holder-for-T3-Hot-sale/32526743251.html?spm=2114.11010108.888.2.cd7F0N&scm=1007.12524.21450.0&request_id=20160126133101485-267918397

Bluetooth gamepads can typically get pricey if they have analog controls so at 30 bucks this might be worth experimenting with. 

[NiN^_^NiN]

Hey man I was thinking of ya when browsing the sales today:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2015-Bluetooth-Wireless-Gamepad-Game-Controller-Stretchable-Special-holder-for-T3-Hot-sale/32526743251.html?spm=2114.11010108.888.2.cd7F0N&scm=1007.12524.21450.0&request_id=20160126133101485-267918397

Bluetooth gamepads can typically get pricey if they have analog controls so at 30 bucks this might be worth experimenting with.

Thanks for that I did test it and it won't use a mouse or joystick that uses pots just dpad it seems so I am on the hunt for a cheap 7" windows tablet I know microcenter has one but i'm no in USA so I am looking for local ones