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Arkanoid Spinner
azs:
Is is possible to find original or rebuilt circuit board Arkanoid cabinets that are in good working condition? I’m so tired and frustrated by the paddle sensitivity in my emulator. Makes the game impossible. I want to play it as it was designed to be played with true, accurate, and precise spinner control.
KenToad:
Sorry to hear you're having problems. Which emulator version are you using? Also, what hardware are you using?
Do the sensitivity settings affect the speed of the paddle going from side to side? You should be able to to easily modify the behavior to go from say a quarter turn of the spinner moving the paddle all the way across the screen to a half turn of the spinner moving the paddle all the way across the screen. If you can't make those adjustments, it's possible that the emulator settings are being overridden for some reason. Sometimes, this can be due to an invisible layer, like a frontend that is using its own set of settings.
I can tell you that Arkanoid and its sequels are basically perfectly emulated in MAME at this point. I recently played on an original cabinet and it was actually a worse experience than playing at home with my Turbo Twist 2 spinner (the one with variable resistance that I mentioned in this thread).
I will say that I've had bad luck using Pi for arcade games. I have a couple of RPi3b's with Retropi and they use older versions of MAME that aren't easily configurable. Analog settings aren't always set up correctly or at all. If you downloaded some pre-configured Pi setup, it could easily have been configured incorrectly or not at all for analog inputs. In that case, it could be treating your mouse inputs as a digital inputs, which would make it impossible to adjust the sensitivity.
Before investing in new arcade hardware, I would figure out your software issues, as you should be able to dial in the sensitivity. The easiest way to test would be using Windows on a decent PC. The spinner should have a USB and you should be able to test it out on a version of MAME that hasn't been configured by some random Pi user and copy pasted by countless others, if you know what I mean.
RandyT:
Let's also not discount overall lag induced by any component in the chain. In the photos, I not only see a Pi, which has never met my expectations where lag is concerned, but also an HDMI->VGA? converter of unknown quality. The latter of which could be ok, or absolutely terrible in this regard. I'm assuming that this isn't being connected to a flat panel, but if it is, that can be one more source of problems.
The nice thing about quality controls and interfaces is their ability to provide precise control in near real-time, or in short, to replicate the experience that the original hardware provided. But connecting them to lower grade or sub-optimal hardware, and expecting them to be able to fix the inherent issues with that hardware is, to put it mildly, a futile endeavor.
As KenToad stated, get a decent PC (it doesn't even need to be fancy) with a proper video output which the display can use natively (i.e. without conversion) and you are likely to be surprised at the difference which results. Only with a capable and properly configured system can one start to look at the controls and come to any conclusions about them being fit for the tasks you are expecting from them.
Moksi:
i havent got a spinner yet but im trying to see which is the best spinner current Turbo Twist , Spintrak or the GRS Push & Pull Spinner Controller.
Turbo Twist is pricey but what i can make little bit based of the comments it doesnt allow alot of free spinning (so its closest to the arcade feel?) so does it play better with 360 wheels aswell?
i played arkanoid a decade ago dont remember the sensitvity controls of that anymore (arkanoid is then a game that has to be adjusted compared with other games)
RandyT:
--- Quote from: Moksi on November 26, 2022, 04:16:20 am ---Turbo Twist is pricey but what i can make little bit based of the comments it doesnt allow alot of free spinning (so its closest to the arcade feel?) so does it play better with 360 wheels aswell?
--- End quote ---
The TurboTwist2 was the first high-resolution, lag-less and truly optical-sensing spinner to be made in the pushbutton-style. Any others which use that form-factor have "borrowed" it from the TT2. With controls, the old adage of "getting what you pay for" applies, as it does for most anything. The last spinner in your list doesn't use arcade-quality optical sensing technology and is therefore cheaper. However, the technology it uses likely does not have the same 1:1 feel and lag-less operation. But if one is the type of user who is happy with the A1UP class of devices, they might find this to be an acceptable trade-off.
The TT2 is a "free-spinning" spinner, but not so much that it feels "greasy" and spins forever. This is intentional, as this is mostly detrimental to gameplay. What it does offer is a unique optional add-on, which provides user-tweakable friction to prevent the knob from free-spinning. This is useful for virtually any paddle-based game, as well as something like Omega Race, Tac Scan, etc... where a dial is used to provide fine aiming control.
The TT2 allows the use of 3 different sized steering wheels, to better suit the space available on a given panel. The weight of these wheels allows them to be very free-spinning, and will spin for quite some time with them attached, much like the old arcade wheels did. However, any wheel which is used with a spinner in this manner will not be as robust as a dedicated arcade wheel controller with heavy-duty construction. I.e. it will work well, but it's not designed for small children or drunken adults to do pull-ups on :)
And one other unique feature of the TT2 from others in your list is that it uses a US standard 1/4" shaft, which allows many original arcade knobs to be used with it. Could be important to some.