question reg. UltraStik360's

[Erzak]

I am planning my first cabinet build and have a question regarding the UltraStik360's.  From what I've read, these sticks can have up to 8 buttons attached to them.  I was thinking to use two UltraStik360s, as well as have a trackball and a spinner.  Am I correct in thinking that if I had two UltraStik360's, a U-trak, and a SpinTrak, all connected by USB, that I would not need an I-PAC or other controller as long as I did not have more than 19 buttons (8 to each joystick and 3 to the U-trak)?  Is there any disadvantage to controlling things that way?  I'm not sure yet how many buttons I want, so it may be a moot point, but just trying to see what my options are.

Thanks
Eric

[mahuti]

I haven't looked into the U-trak and SpinTrak lately, so I can't speak to those. But regarding the Ultrastiks, yes, you'd get 8 buttons per stick. I don't see any downside to doing it this way, except that you'll have to pay attention to configuration in Mame... shouldn't be hard, it'll just require more than say, wiring up all the buttons to the Mame defaults on an Ipac. Big deal

[Titchgamer]

The only real consideration you may want to make is the sticks and buttons show as game pads not kb inputs.

So depending on what you intend on running depends if they will be suitable as not all emulators etc support pads.
On the flip side not all pc games support keyboard so ya know lol.

[mahuti]

Titchgamer, what do you think about Joy2Key? I haven't used it in a long time, does that create more problems than it solves?

[Titchgamer]

Dont know mate, not used it in years either :p

[GeoMan]

I was thinking to use two UltraStik360s, as well as have a trackball and a spinner.

That's exactly what i did with my X-Arcade Tankstick: removed everything and installed 2 Ultrasticks, a SpinTrack (with USB interface) and a Happ 3" trackball (with USB interface).

You don't need anything else - if you buy the spinner/trackball with USB interfaces - except a (powered or non-powered) USB hub to connect the USB cables (4 USB cables in total for the two ultrasticks, one spinner and one trackball).

Keep in mind that although Ultrasticks support max 8 buttons, you can assign one of them as a "shift" button, changing the action of the other 7 buttons if you keep it pressed, so in reality you have 15 different actions per Ultrastick!

You can use Xpadder to convert gamepad to keyboard input for emus supporting keyboard input only.