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Dreamcast analog stick hack?

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pmc:
Ok, time to bring the conversation back to Dreamcast. We're straying too far off-topic here.  ;D

Seriously though, I'm ready to start a controller hack and the one thing I've noticed from studying several tutorials is that everyone seems to use the digital-directional control to map to the CP joystick. I think I've seen one example where someone jumpered the analog and digital controls together, but that seems like it'd be a problem.

Where I see this being a problem is with some games, the movement is by the analog stick but the menus are controlled ONLY by the digital pad. I've seen the reverse too.

So I'm basically worried about not being able to play games or control games if I ignore the analog stick (or vice versa). What's the conventional wisedom on this? Ignore the analog controls?

My 2-player cabinet has 6 player buttons and a single 4/8-way joystick for each player. Buttons are a standard six-button layout.

FWIW, I have tried Project64 on my cabinet and mapped digital directional to JS1 and analog directional to JS2. That works fine as long I only play 1-player games. As discussed previously in this forum, analog thumbstick control via an Ultimarc J-stick doesn't work too great anyway so I expect to stick mostly with digital controlled games on the DC (shooters, fighters, platformers, etc.).

I also expect to keep to native DC controllers for any game that demands real controllers so I won't be 100% dead no matter what.

As for buttons, I expect to map A, B, X, Y, triggerL, triggerR to player buttons 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6 respectively and then play mostly games that don't use the triggers since they'll be awkward.  Buttons 3 and 6 are where I put L1 and L2 for ePSXe and it pretty much works OK depending on the game.

TIA.

- pmc

abrannan:
I can't think of any DC games off the top of my head that require the use of both the analog stick and d-pad.  Obviously, you may choose one over the other for comfort reasons (i.e. driving games control better with analog controls, etc).  The two game types that come to mind as potentially problematic for d-pad only use are sports games (where the more precise control offered by the analog stick is a blessing) and the aforementioned driving games (which you'll probably be using a wheel for if you're playing.  All the fighters & shmups I've played on the DC work great with the d-pad.

pmc:

--- Quote from: abrannan on March 31, 2004, 03:37:59 pm ---I can't think of any DC games off the top of my head that require the use of both the analog stick and d-pad.

--- End quote ---

OK. I better double-check my facts before I worry more about it. I could swear that I've played a couple of games where the menus were only accessible via one or the other. I guess if it's always the d-pad, I'm good.

I agree that most games let you use either for the same thing. Games like Shenmue use the d-pad for movement and the analog stick for looking around. But I wouldn't be playing Shenmue on a cabinet.

I'll run through all the games I own one at a time and verify that I can get away without the analog stick. Thanks for the response.

orntar:
sonic adventure 1 and 2 cannot use digital. what then? (you cant change it in options can you?)

abrannan:

--- Quote from: orntar on March 31, 2004, 07:55:35 pm ---sonic adventure 1 and 2 cannot use digital. what then? (you cant change it in options can you?)

--- End quote ---

Hm.  Wasn't aware of that (never played the games).  I guess the question is, do you want to play those two games on your cabinet enough to wrestle with an analog stick hack?  

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