Please help with PS2 to USB adapter

[simplygriff]

Hi,
This is my first post but I've been working on building my own standup cabinet for about a month now.  I'm getting parts together and trying software and things but I ran into a snag last night.

  I was planning on running MacMame in my cabinet but the Macs are just so expensive so I was going to try using a PC.  I have a MAS systems super prostick with Playstation 2 and Gamecube support.  I have a Boom ps2/N64 to usb adapter I picked up from midwest-games.com.  The adapter works great on my Mac with MacMame (Dual 1GHZ G4, 1Gb DDR Ram, ATI Radeon 9000 OSX3.2 etc.)  The problem is when I try to use on my wife's PC laptop (2.6GHz P4, 384 Ram WinXP Home,etc.) my controller shows up as a 4 axis 16 button controller.  The sixteen button part is right if you count the directions of the joystick as individual buttons.

  The problem is It keeps making button 4 register as button 4 as well as the Z-axis up and down and the z-axis rotation.  What's up with this z-axis thing?  Because of this the button will not work in MAME32.  Is there any way to edit a controller profile in Win XP?  I tried calibrating and creating a custom controller but it will only allow me to have a joystick and 4 buttons.  Needless to say I can't play street fighter or MK with 4 buttons.

  Anybody had anyluck with ps2-usb adapters on PC?  Or can you point me in the right direction to figure out how to edit the controller profile I have?  Thanks in advance for your help and thanks for the awesome resource for aspiring arcade builders.

[abrannan]

Reading up on the controller and the adapter, it sounds like it's most likely some issue between the way the controller is set-up/wired and what the adapter is expecting.  I'm guessing you got the 12-button layout (since you said you got GC support).  Have you tried setting the joystick into Left analog mode?  (press digital/analog button and L1) How does it see it then?  

[simplygriff]

Well  irealized this AM that I should have tried a regular ps or PS2 controller last night.  I don't know why I didn't try that  then.  Do'h!  I also have downloaded the DirectX update from M$.  I plan to try those this afternoon.  The other difference between the mac and Pc is that I ran the adapter through a USB hub on my mac.

To answer your question abrannan yes I got the 12 button setup.  I tried switching the analog controls but the stick by itself didn't do anything when I did that. I think I still had button support.   I may try it again this afternoon to be sure.  Do you have a ps2 to USB adapter?  If so what kind and what do you think of it?  I'm sort of thinking it's the adapter.

[abrannan]

I have this adapter for use with my DDR Mats.  

http://electricquarter.com/ps2dualcont.htm  

It supports everything and has a "dance mode" that switches the d-pad from buttons to joy-axis by pressing start+select+up for three seconds.  Unfortunately it doesn't have any indicator of which mode it's in (an LED that lights up when in Dance mode would be helpful)  But other than that little wrinkle I'm really happy with it.  The url is the cheapest price I've found on it, since they include shipping (and post on these boards, too).

Try a regular PS controller and see what your results are.  If you've got a playstation, try the prostick with it.  (I usually use either the CD player function to test buttons and joysticks, or the configure controls menu option of some games)  It can help if the game you use doesn't accept analog joystick input (Guilty Gear X doesn't) so that you can determine if the stick is in analog or digital mode.

[simplygriff]

That adapter would be cool since my plan is to get another MAS stick for player 2.  I'm no electrician so I don't want to get into wiring my own buttons and my wife had already given me the 1 MAS stick.  

I will try a regular digital PS controller,  and a PS2 controller this afternoon.  I've tried the prostick on my PS and have been using if on the PS2 with no problems.  If I don't get any good response I may just get an adapter like you have and have the boom one for my mac.  Thanks for the suggestion and link.  I'll let you know what I find out.

[simplygriff]

Well...
I don't know what I did differently on Friday but the Adapter Works!!!  It does still map a z-axis to button 4 or [] but I think I must have had the calibration wrong because it works without it.  I tried a PS2 controller and played around with it and the analog button and got good response.  So like I said I don't know what I did but I got it working.  Thanks for your help and the suggestion for the other adapter, abrannan.  Now If I can just find a computer...

[SNAAAKE]

Order this one.Works perfect,tested with XP and win98(cheaper then the one above).
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41059&item=8102601851&rd=1

 

[simplygriff]

That's the same one abrannan suggested.  I plan to get one of those when I get closer to putting my machine together.  Thanks for the suggestion.