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Author Topic: Driving Controls Questions...  (Read 4277 times)

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Cryofax

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Driving Controls Questions...
« on: June 11, 2002, 05:45:44 pm »
Howdy... I'm working on a driving control set-up. I've decided on the Happs European 360 wheel with the two buttons. My questions are :

1.) As far as pedals, is there a way to interface the analog pedals (w/ pots) into Mame, or should I stick with 2 microswitch pedals (Gas, Brake = ON/OFF)

2.) I think I want to add a shifter. The 2-way shifter is the cheapest, and used by many driving games. Are there enough Mame driving games with 4-gear shifting to warrant purchansing the 4-position shifter instead?

Thanks in advance!

- Cryo
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »

jerryjanis

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Re: Driving Controls Questions...
« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2002, 07:19:54 pm »
Ok...  I don't know too much about the shifter...  But I think that I do know a little bit about the pedals.

I recently purchased a USB Hot Wheels Blue steering wheel for $10 (the thing is SWEET!  Let me tell you).  They appear to be sold out where I got mine, but I think that they may have some here: http://www.partshelf.com/bluusbracste.html

It includes pedals and a shifter.  The way the pedals and steering wheel work is like an analog joystick (NOT LIKE A SPINNER).

Mame sees the brake_pedal/accelerator_pedal/steer_left/steer_right as up/down/left/right joystick movements.  The joystick also has 4 buttons (buttons map to the 2 shifter positions).

This steering wheel style, by the way, doesn't appear to work with very many racing games in Mame because games like Pole Position, APB, and Super Sprint use the spinner style of steering wheel that you are thinking about purchasing.  Games like Paperboy, Outrun, and Super Hang-On work GREAT with it though.

MAME and the Outrun controls really seem to be at odds with each other, because among 20 different versions of MAME, Outrun's controls are handled very differently.  I just happen to have a fairly old version of MAME (MAME32k from the Kaillera website version 37B15 I believe) that handles the analog pedals and the high and low gear.

So I've tried Outrun many different ways, and as petty as it sounds, I wouldn't want to play Outrun without analog pedals.  I think it's really important.  The game definetly makes good use them.  For example, the car will skid out if you put the pedal to the metal when you're stopped.  You gotsta ease into it, see?

You may want to look into the $10 USB steering wheel, even if it's just for the cheap analog pedals.  You wouldn't have to do any hacking to make them work in MAME (unless you wanted to really fancy them up).
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »

u_rebelscum

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Re: Driving Controls Questions...
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2002, 02:42:31 am »
Quote
1.) As far as pedals, is there a way to interface the analog pedals (w/ pots) into Mame, or should I stick with 2 microswitch pedals (Gas, Brake = ON/OFF)


Currently mame can only see the Y axis of a joystick as analog input for pedals (well the Y axis of mice too, but that doesn't matter in your question).  So you hack a joystick, and using two pots in serial, hook the pedals to the Y axis.  Or most PC pedal or wheel/pedal set should work fine if they output the pedals to the Y axis, which is standard.

Or, if you use my version mame:Analog+, you can use other axis besides just the Y axis.  It also fixes ~20 games (SuperSprint, PolePosition, & SpyHunter are the big ones) analog pedal input.  Most games with two pedals don't have this problem in mame, but you really need an analog pedal for SpyHunter.

In either case, mame currently only reads analog pedal data off one axis, so for 2 pedal games, the brake and gas must share the axis.  Currently I am working on adding support for more analog pedals to Mame:Analog+.

IMO, analog pedals are a must, if you couldn't tell.

Quote
2.) I think I want to add a shifter. The 2-way shifter is the cheapest, and used by many driving games. Are there enough Mame driving games with 4-gear shifting to warrant purchansing the 4-position shifter instead?


Mame's support for shifters is not standardized, so a 4 way shifter may work in some games, but not in others.  A 2way shift, however, should work on all games that have 2way shifters (but don't quote me on that; I could be wrong).urll]
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »
Robin
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Re: Driving Controls Questions...
« Reply #3 on: June 12, 2002, 05:06:01 am »
These sites have excellent information on building wheels and hooking them up to the PC (also on wiring pedals using pots).  BTW, for MAME, I highly recommend a mouse-hacked arcade wheel (360-degree rotation) over the 270 degree pot based wheels favored on these sites.  Reason: A 360 degree wheel will still work on a 270 degree based game, but a 270 degree wheel will never work on a 360 degree based game!

http://www.gunpowder.freeserve.co.uk/wheels/
http://www.theuspits.com/hardware/lew/index.html

Regarding shifters, I am building a desktop controller.  My plan was to use my main (HotRod style panel) joystick with OSCAR's vertical restrictors for a 2-way shifter and OSCAR's diagonal Restrictors for a 4-way shifter.  AFAIK, this should work (and be really inexpensive) but I haven't tried it yet.

Comments and questions for Urebel:

I was planning to switch the pedals to dual axis (actually one of the sites above has a link for doing this with a switch so you can use the pedals either way).  I highly recommend using Analog Plus and dual axis so you get working brake lights in OutRun, for example.  Comments on this approach?

BTW, the OutRun driver has been in various stages of brokenness since about R37B15, which accounts for the different performance among different builds.  Sixtoe has a writeup on the current WIP state of the driver at http://www.system16.com/wip.html and it seems to be working now, but the revised driver still hasn't made it into the "official" MAME.

Question 2:  Most of the sites above tend to show the pedals hooked up to the gameport, however, it would be possible to interface to USB via 1-Up's Dual Strike Hack.  I was planning to leave them as a gameport connection, but I was wondering, (other than HotSwappabilty and forward compatibility), is there any advantage to going USB.  (I.e. Do USB controls maintain calibration better than the gameport, etc??)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »
It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you, it's what you leave behind you when you go. - R. Travis.
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mamemia

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Re: Driving Controls Questions...
« Reply #4 on: June 12, 2002, 10:44:57 am »
Oh, look at my page ;)
http://oliver.hasler.bei.t-online.de

Gru
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »

Cryofax

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Re: Driving Controls Questions...
« Reply #5 on: June 12, 2002, 11:22:13 am »
Quote
These sites have excellent information on building wheels and hooking them up to the PC (also on wiring pedals using pots).

brandon

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Re: Driving Controls Questions...
« Reply #6 on: June 12, 2002, 11:47:50 am »
Hey Rebel since you do this stuff the right way why doesn't Mame Dev. get a clue and incorporate your ideas in to their build?

u_rebelscum

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Re: Driving Controls Questions...
« Reply #7 on: June 13, 2002, 01:47:50 am »
Quote
Comments and questions for Urebel:

I was planning to switch the pedals to dual axis (actually one of the sites above has a link for doing this with a switch so you can use the pedals either way).  I highly recommend using Analog Plus and dual axis so you get working brake lights in OutRun, for example.  Comments on this approach?

Having a switch from twopedal/shared axis to dual pedal/duel axis is a great idea.  Most PC retail dual pedals have a software switch like this if they can do separate pedals.
The lastest release Analog+ (v.60.3) added support dual pedals, but I haven't made changes to the drivers yet.  So if you want dual pedals now, you need to edit the drivers and compile Analog+ yourself.  Or you can wait a little while for the next version (unless mame .61 comes out first, then you might have to wait until Analog+ v.61.2)

Quote
Question 2:  Most of the sites above tend to show the pedals hooked up to the gameport, however, it would be possible to interface to USB via 1-Up's Dual Strike Hack.  I was planning to leave them as a gameport connection, but I was wondering, (other than HotSwappabilty and forward compatibility), is there any advantage to going USB.  (I.e. Do USB controls maintain calibration better than the gameport, etc??)

USB vs gameport:
1.  USB is newer
2.  USB might have less stable drivers because it is newer.  Depends on your system, MB, joystick, & OS.
3.  Most USB joysticks are "calibrated" each time you plug it in (probably at boot time, too).  Not total calibration, but the middle is re-calibrated.  Don't know about gameport.
4.  USB has better support for multiple & multiple brand joysticks plugged in at same time.
5.  USB has no dos support.

I run into #2 so often I can't push USB as the fixall for everyone, but it does look like it will take over the game port at some point.  So it depends on your system and how much points #2 - 5 matter to you [shrug]



Quote
Hey Rebel since you do this stuff the right way why doesn't Mame Dev. get a clue and incorporate your ideas in to their build?  after all aren't they all about faithfully emulating the original?  How original is it if it doesn't work?


Four Reasons:
1.  Analog+ has some very dirty code, relies on some hacks in some areas (against mame philosophy), increases playing the games more than helping document them, and a lot of the code is OS dependent (mame wants to be portable).

2.  Some of the code that is not OS dependent breaks some mame core functions, braking all ports I don't supply fixed code for.  It's still changing often, and you see it would brake the ports each time a new version is released if it included the changed Analog+ code.  

3.  Even if the code is cleaned up, the hacks are changed to true emulation, and mame + mame:Analog+ code is portable as before, changes to the core is like playing with fire.  Changes to one driver or OS code only can break that driver or OS.  Changes to the core can break everything if there is some bad code.  So mameDev should add core changes carefully.

4.  I have not yet submitted very much of the code because of the above points.  :-/  I plan to submit as much of the code as possible, but I want it to be working and don't want #3 to happen.  I think I have another part that is almost ready for submitting, but I need to test it a little more.

It's not MameDev's fault.  You can "blame", if blame's the word, me.  And MameDEV's intelligence. ;)

Quote
Anyways keep up the great work. Analog+ rocks!

Thanks!  :)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »
Robin
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Re: Driving Controls Questions...
« Reply #8 on: June 13, 2002, 06:45:37 am »
Quote

Having a switch from twopedal/shared axis to dual pedal/duel axis is a great idea.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »
It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you, it's what you leave behind you when you go. - R. Travis.
When all is said and done, generally much more is SAID than DONE.

u_rebelscum

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Re: Driving Controls Questions...
« Reply #9 on: June 13, 2002, 06:27:11 pm »
Quote
For manual calibration, the normal windows procedure is center stick, click button 1, rotate stick through full range of travel, recenter stick, click button 1 again, as best I recall.  A pedal is essentially a zero-button, single or dual axis joystick.  How do I click button 1?  Or do I need to add a dummy button to the pedals just for calibration?


You can also press enter or have the mouse cursor click the "next" button.  No need for buttons if you don't want to.

Quote
Also, for each axis, I will consider the bottom or left-most point 0 and the top or right-most point 10, with 5 being dead center.[snip]

In dual axis mode, I assume the gas pedal starts with the Y-axis at 0.  Flooring the pedal moves the pointer to 10.  The brake pedal starts with the X-axis at 0 and flooring it moves the pointer to 10.  Flooring both pedals would move both axes to 10.  In this case, there is no definite midpoint and not much meaning to it anyway.  It seems like this would make it very hard to calibrate since you don't know exactly where mid-travel is?


I think the "center" should really be called "default location".  So for the dual mode, the "center" for the start and end the calibration is both pedals all the way up.  I'm not positive about this, but from what I know of windows and directX, it sounds the only way retail PC pedals could be calibrated.   I might be wrong...

Okay, I tried this on my shared axis pedal.  I only pressed the gas pedal so the range was for "center" to gas all the way down.  The gas pedal worked with the default at the bottom, but when I slowly pressed the pedal, first it jumped to the middle before acting like an analog device as it should.  But I didn't change the driver or driver settings, and there looks like dual pedal support in winMe (my OS) default drivers (I'd need a dual pedal device to really test it though).
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »
Robin
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