Controller board HELL

[unknownclient]

Hello everyone,

 

I am just about at my wits end trying to get a control panel that has 2 players, 2 lightguns, 1 track track ball and some admin buttons to not only work with mame, final burn alpha, demule, and Steam. I have purchased almost every controller board under the sun. I have 4 Brooks universal fighting boards, 4 groovy game gear GP-Wiz, 2 as device 1 and 2 as device 2. A ultimarc ultimate Ipac, 2 Ipac2, 1 ipac4, 2 Akishop 360+, 2 generic usb encoders, 1 wolfware howler, and a few others controller boards burried somewhere. I have 4 ultimarc aimtraks, 2 groovy game gear track balls, 1 ultimarc track ball, and lots and lots of buttons and RGB leds.

My conundrum, I cannot find a combination of controllers and light guns that will play nice with EVERYTHING. I have tried combinations of everything listed above. But I have not found a combination that works for all the emulators and Steam games combined. With all the ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow--- of direct input, x-input and windows playing musical chairs with usb devices, its enough for me to just throw up my hands, flip the table over and say ---fudgesicle--- it. It cant be done unless I want to use a piece of software to map out all the controllers. xbox360ce, remapper, joy2key, etc.

I have seen companies offer these types of setups, and claim that steam and all emulation will work. I just cant see how they can get it to work unless they are using a joystick/gamepad emulator.

I am currently building 2 arcade cabinets and I am at a stopping point with the lightguns. No matter what joystick/button controller I use. The Aimtraks register themselves as player 1 and 2 in my Steam games. The light guns are currently set as ID 3 and ID 4, but Steam like honey badger, doesn't give a ---fudgesicle---. When I launch street fighter V I cant even select my buttons in the config section, in street fighter 4, AIM Trak is listed as a controller? Why, because it has buttons on it, that are listed as game buttons for mame. So Steam thinks they are game controllers. At this point I can either toss the idea of lightguns, or drill out holes in my cabinet for flush mount usb connectors and map the light guns each time I want to use them.....LAME as ---fudgesicle---.

I am sorry for the language but I have been working on this for years with no solution in sight. If I were an electrical engineer I would make my own controller board that was modular and could accept these inputs and have separate usb ID's For lightguns, joysticks, and buttons. I would make usb light gun that had 10 mouse buttons, not gamepad buttons. For joystick/buttons I would make a controller that was programmable and could switch to direct input/x-input and have a unique usb ID. A modular led driver board with software that works with not only mame, but ALL the emulators and windows games I wanted to use.

What am I missing here? Is there not a need in our scene to make this happen? Are we just relying on software piled on top of hardware to make this happen?

So here is where I turn it over to people who have ran into this problem as well. Were you able to accomplish a 2 or 4 player cabinet using light guns, and a track ball and run all the emulators and Steam games without resorting to using a joystick/button emulator software.

 
stepping down and grabbing a beer. This used to be fun.

[Mike A]

You are trying to do too much. Keep it simple and enjoy playing a smaller list of emulators and games. You have already spent enough time being angry and frustrated.

[Drnick]

Sorry I don't have a solution for you but hopefully the Beer worked.

As Mike A said it sounds like you are trying to get the machine to do too much.  There are always going to be issues to be worked on.  If you put in Joypad controllers something is going to want keyboard input and vice versa.  Luckily when I ran into the issue I only needed a start and and exit button mapping to a KB for FE use so the fix was very simple. 

As you have realised unfortunately for you it is going to be much more complex.  It usually takes a combination of AHK Scripts, Joytokey, controller remap and other software to get this stuff to behave correctly.

Controller remap may help with the id issues, http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,108767.msg1588422.html#msg1588422

For those machines sold with full compatibility I can only assume that they are using 360 controller boards or they are making claims that don't stack up in the real world

[shaolindrunkard]

Hello everyone,

 

I am just about at my wits end trying to get a control panel that has 2 players, 2 lightguns, 1 track track ball and some admin buttons to not only work with mame, final burn alpha, demule, and Steam. I have purchased almost every controller board under the sun. I have 4 Brooks universal fighting boards, 4 groovy game gear GP-Wiz, 2 as device 1 and 2 as device 2. A ultimarc ultimate Ipac, 2 Ipac2, 1 ipac4, 2 Akishop 360+, 2 generic usb encoders, 1 wolfware howler, and a few others controller boards burried somewhere. I have 4 ultimarc aimtraks, 2 groovy game gear track balls, 1 ultimarc track ball, and lots and lots of buttons and RGB leds.

My conundrum, I cannot find a combination of controllers and light guns that will play nice with EVERYTHING. I have tried combinations of everything listed above. But I have not found a combination that works for all the emulators and Steam games combined. With all the ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow--- of direct input, x-input and windows playing musical chairs with usb devices, its enough for me to just throw up my hands, flip the table over and say ---fudgesicle--- it. It cant be done unless I want to use a piece of software to map out all the controllers. xbox360ce, remapper, joy2key, etc.

I have seen companies offer these types of setups, and claim that steam and all emulation will work. I just cant see how they can get it to work unless they are using a joystick/gamepad emulator.

I am currently building 2 arcade cabinets and I am at a stopping point with the lightguns. No matter what joystick/button controller I use. The Aimtraks register themselves as player 1 and 2 in my Steam games. The light guns are currently set as ID 3 and ID 4, but Steam like honey badger, doesn't give a ---fudgesicle---. When I launch street fighter V I cant even select my buttons in the config section, in street fighter 4, AIM Trak is listed as a controller? Why, because it has buttons on it, that are listed as game buttons for mame. So Steam thinks they are game controllers. At this point I can either toss the idea of lightguns, or drill out holes in my cabinet for flush mount usb connectors and map the light guns each time I want to use them.....LAME as ---fudgesicle---.

I am sorry for the language but I have been working on this for years with no solution in sight. If I were an electrical engineer I would make my own controller board that was modular and could accept these inputs and have separate usb ID's For lightguns, joysticks, and buttons. I would make usb light gun that had 10 mouse buttons, not gamepad buttons. For joystick/buttons I would make a controller that was programmable and could switch to direct input/x-input and have a unique usb ID. A modular led driver board with software that works with not only mame, but ALL the emulators and windows games I wanted to use.

What am I missing here? Is there not a need in our scene to make this happen? Are we just relying on software piled on top of hardware to make this happen?

So here is where I turn it over to people who have ran into this problem as well. Were you able to accomplish a 2 or 4 player cabinet using light guns, and a track ball and run all the emulators and Steam games without resorting to using a joystick/button emulator software.

 
stepping down and grabbing a beer. This used to be fun.

As Mike A said you might be trying to do too much. But, let me give you some practical advice anyway. First for what you want to accomplish I would recommend pad hacking some xbox 360 controllers instead of using an encoder board. The 360 controllers will be compatible with most steam games, I say most because the game needs to be able to use the d-pad for player movement but most worth playing will. There are a lot of people on this board that feel there is no need to run steam games on an arcade cabinet ever, but there are lot of games on steam that are designed like arcade games and are very cab friendly not to mention fighting games. Next get a trackball with a usb interface. I think ultimarc makes one, this will make the trackball essentially into a mouse and will eliminate conflicts with joystick IDs... Now for the guns, your idea about flush mount usb adapters is not a bad one. If you unplug the guns when not in use then there will be no conflicts with steam games. The 360 controllers should be recognized as ID 1 and 2 and when you plug the guns in they should always be recognized as 3 and 4. Just unplug them before you turn the machine on... and plug them in when you use them. I think mame should recognize them as 3 and 4 each time if you do it this way.

I have a 4 player cab that I made for steam 4 player party games, I have 4 hacked 360 controllers as the guts and I can tell you its the best way for steam stuff. I never liked messing with software like x360ce. The only pain I have is sometimes the controller ids switch around so sometimes player one moves to a different joystick but its not a big deal. Depends of the emulator and game. Some of them keep the right ids, some don't. Some let you press a button on the controller you want for player 1, 2 ect. so that works out. Point is its never going to be perfect but what you want is doable.

In all honesty my 2 cents on the guns, I had them on my cab 5 years ago and sold them not long after. The technology is just not there, and playing light gun games with a cursor on the screen will never be as fun as the real thing...

Good luck