Author Topic: 49-ways, the new 8-ways? (Read 4453 times)

paigeoliver · « **on:** May 01, 2004, 08:02:07 pm »

Ok, now that the 49-way interfaces are out, I am wondering if these are going to become the new "must have" sticks.

The usual problem with using analog sticks with digital games has always seemed to be the fact that they FEEL like analog sticks.

But, 49-ways don't have that problem, they pretty much feel just like Wico 8-ways, although slightly heavier.

My 49-way interfaces should be here any day now, and I am anxious to see how well these sticks perform in 8-way games.

dema · « **Reply #1 on:** May 01, 2004, 08:18:03 pm »

The interfaces work only for the PC, right? Would they be able to work for the XBox?

paigeoliver · « **Reply #2 on:** May 01, 2004, 08:22:40 pm »

It is a usb item, and appears to the computer as a USB joystick, so hopefully any tricks used to get an X-Box to recognize a standard USB joystick should work with these interfaces.

dema · « **Reply #3 on:** May 01, 2004, 08:28:30 pm »

Do you mean that there is some sort of hack that can be done to get it to work? Or even a possible adapter for the Xbox to the PC? I'm not familiar with any type of instructional which converts a USB to XBox control.

This analog issue is the one big gripe I'm having. I'm getting my XBox wired to my cabinet, but I don't like the fact that I can only hack the directional pad because it's digital -- it prevents me from being able to play a ton of awesome multiplayer games.

jerryjanis · « **Reply #4 on:** May 01, 2004, 08:30:47 pm »

Would 49-way joysticks be an equally good replacement for a 4-way joystick as it would be for an 8-way?

Tailgunner · « **Reply #5 on:** May 01, 2004, 08:34:04 pm »

Maybe a must have to the people who like the 49 way games, but I don't see them replacing an 8 way sticks on most people's panels.

How hard is it to scrounge up a working Wico 49 way these days?

paigeoliver · « **Reply #6 on:** May 01, 2004, 08:44:05 pm »

No, 49-way would be a poor 4-way.

Well, you can still buy NEW 49-way sticks. I also remember (granted 4 years ago) when I went into my local distributor they had a huge box of them in the room where you pickup your parts labeled at $12 each.

jerryjanis · « **Reply #7 on:** May 01, 2004, 08:46:50 pm »

Quote from: paigeoliver on May 01, 2004, 08:44:05 pm

No, 49-way would be a poor 4-way.

How come?

paigeoliver · « **Reply #8 on:** May 01, 2004, 08:49:28 pm »

Long throw, lack of diamond shaped movement pattern and the fact that they VERY MUCH have diagonals.

jerryjanis · « **Reply #9 on:** May 01, 2004, 09:02:55 pm »

Quote from: paigeoliver on May 01, 2004, 08:49:28 pm

the fact that they VERY MUCH have diagonals.

Yes but with 49 different directions, it would be trivial to translate all of the diagonals into corresponding up/down/left/right directions. In fact, a similar translation would need to be done for the 49-way joystick to operate as an 8-way. The reason that a regular 8-way joystick doesn't translate into 4-way directions very well is that each diagonal lies EXACTLY in between the x/y axes so there's no way to determine if an up/left diagonal direction is more "up" or more "left". That wouldn't be a problem with the 49-way.

paigeoliver · « **Reply #10 on:** May 01, 2004, 09:06:55 pm »

I'll do some testing on speed up Pac-Man with the 49-ways to see how they do.

I will equally test standard wico 8-ways, and the reunion joysticks and post my scores with each one, that should give a good indication of their usuability for 4-way action.

NoOne=NBA= · « **Reply #11 on:** May 01, 2004, 09:07:12 pm »

I don't know enough about the workings of the interface to answer this.

Does the interface interpolate 8-way from the 49-way signal when used with 8-way MAME games?
What I am wanting to know here is--does it assume that, if you are closer to straight up than up-right, you are wanting to send a straight up signal?
My fear is that it may interpolate anything that is not EXACTLY up/down/etc... as a diagonal, causing it to really want to do diagonals rather than up/down/left/right like a traditional 8-way.

My other question would be how it deals with the analog "distance" signal.
I am guessing that it will read anything in a given direction as that direction, and ignore the analog "distance" data.
That would make it have a very immediate response to stick movement, which would nullify the downside to the long throw to some degree.

Let us know what you find out once you get yours.

paigeoliver · « **Reply #12 on:** May 01, 2004, 09:14:59 pm »

Well, the interface turns it into an "analog" PC joystick, with two different available settings for how it converts the 49-way signal to the analog signal.

So for Mame purposes it is an analog stick. So it all really depends on how well Mame handles digital games with analog sticks. Most analog sticks suck for Mame because they are slow, heavy, and have REALLY long throws, but this one doesn't have those issues,

dema · « **Reply #13 on:** May 01, 2004, 09:16:41 pm »

If the interface uses a USB connection, couldn't I hook it to an Xbox using this type of object?

http://shop.system-mods.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=121

How would I go about doing that? Do you hook the arcade controls to the interface controls and then hook the USB dongle to this USB-to-XBox adapter? Would that give me the analog joystick capability?

paigeoliver · « **Reply #14 on:** May 01, 2004, 09:31:31 pm »

Quote from: dema on May 01, 2004, 09:16:41 pm

If the interface uses a USB connection, couldn't I hook it to an Xbox using this type of object?

http://shop.system-mods.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=121

How would I go about doing that? Do you hook the arcade controls to the interface controls and then hook the USB dongle to this USB-to-XBox adapter? Would that give me the analog joystick capability?

That is assuming that the X-Box works with PC joysticks using a USB adaptor like that. I don't have an X-Box, so I don't know the answer to that question.

NoOne=NBA= · « **Reply #15 on:** May 01, 2004, 09:48:31 pm »

How DOES MAME read an analogue stick for digital games?

Does it read the stick immediately, or do you have to get the stick so far in a certain direction before it reads it?

Grasshopper · « **Reply #16 on:** May 02, 2004, 09:19:21 am »

Forgive my ignorance, but who is selling these 49 way interfaces?

dema · « **Reply #17 on:** May 02, 2004, 01:31:10 pm »

Quote from: Grasshopper on May 02, 2004, 09:19:21 am

Forgive my ignorance, but who is selling these 49 way interfaces?

It was just announced the other day on the BYOAC home page. Here's the link...

http://dave.bit2000.com/

Sylentwulf · « **Reply #18 on:** May 02, 2004, 02:36:44 pm »

Quote from: dema on May 01, 2004, 08:28:30 pm

Do you mean that there is some sort of hack that can be done to get it to work? Or even a possible adapter for the Xbox to the PC? I'm not familiar with any type of instructional which converts a USB to XBox control.

I carry the xbox USB adapters, and some PC controllers DO work on the xbox. The problem is, you won't know until you try it (or do a LOT of googling)

Adapters for all systems can be found here - http://www.electricquarter.com/contadapt.htm

Grasshopper · « **Reply #19 on:** May 02, 2004, 03:51:17 pm »

The interface seems to treat the 49-way sticks as standard analogue HID devices. So what you're essentially getting is an interface to connect a (relatively) cheap arcade quality analogue joystick to a PC.

This would certainly be very useful for some games. However most games require digital joysticks, so I suppose that most people who fit one of these to a panel would be using it as a digital joysticks for most of the time.

The advantage of using one of these instead of a standard digital joystick is that you can alter the joystick's sensitivity (I've just read this in the MAME faq).

What I'm wondering is how MAME treats analogue joysticks in games that expect a 4 way digital joystick such as Pacman. Does it divide the joystick's 360 degree range of movement into 4 segments? I'm guessing not as I haven't seen any mention of this in the MAME faq. It would certainly be a cool feature (4/8 way switching through software!) although obviously not quite as good as having a joystick with a proper diamond shaped restrictor. Maybe someone should mention this to the MAME developers so that they can incorporate it into the next release.

Paige, do you know whether they use springs or rubber grommets to generate resistance to movement? I look forward to your review.

spidermonkey · « **Reply #20 on:** May 02, 2004, 07:48:23 pm »

http://www.wizzesworkshop.com/cart/product.asp?intProdID=20
Grasshopper the older 49-ways ie Sinistar, Arch Rivals use what they call a "spider" which is made out of a elastic rubbery material and gives you the feel of a rubber grommet type stick. I'm not sure what the newer Happ 49-way sticks use ie NFL Blitz but if I had to guess I would probably say they use a spring since thats what Happ uses in most of their sticks.

ani · « **Reply #21 on:** May 03, 2004, 12:58:22 am »

Quote from: spidermonkey on May 02, 2004, 07:48:23 pm

http://www.wizzesworkshop.com/cart/product.asp?intProdID=20
Grasshopper the older 49-ways ie Sinistar, Arch Rivals use what they call a "spider" which is made out of a elastic rubbery material and gives you the feel of a rubber grommet type stick. I'm not sure what the newer Happ 49-way sticks use ie NFL Blitz but if I had to guess I would probably say they use a spring since thats what Happ uses in most of their sticks.

I've got a box full of 49 ways from my blitz machine. They have springs inside just like the rest of happ's sticks.

paigeoliver · « **Reply #22 on:** May 05, 2004, 06:11:03 pm »

Ok, got my interface boards today. I haven't used them yet, but I can give a few quick comments.

The AKI boards and the 49-way boards are the same board with the exception of 3 resistors, but I am sure the chip onboard is programmed differently. I only note this because at first glance I thought I got three copies of the same board instead of 2 49-way interfaces and 1 AKI. Also, the 49-way boards are silk-screened as AKIs.

The build quality of the boards is decent, not QUITE as nice as the I-Pac or Keywhiz, but still quite nice.

My boards came fairly quickly (a week I think), and I will pot more details once I start hooking them up to stuff.

Lilwolf · « **Reply #23 on:** May 06, 2004, 09:18:14 am »

As that they look very similar..

this would be because of my heavy hints on how easy it would be able to do it with just a chip change on his current board.

I was hoping it wouldn't even take the resistor changes... And I believe that the changes where only needed because he wanted to be able to change the scaling.

Anyway, I finally got my board and 49way back a bit ago... but I had to work last weekend and couldn't mount my joystick.

I'm pretty excited.

but as the 'new 8way' this would only be useful with the happs version because of the spider. But I plan on playing with it and see how it plays for 8way games.

So I will give a report in a week or so with a sinister joystick.

anyone with a happs + controller please do the same!

daveb · « **Reply #24 on:** May 06, 2004, 11:31:45 pm »

Hi guys, just a quick note for the curious...
I had to remove the 3 pull-up resistors for the 49-way board to keep from potentially frying the circuits in whatever joystick would be connected. A chip outputting a 0 has to sink whatever current is on the line, and having that connected to +5v even through a 4.7k resistor might be beyond the specs of the older sticks. It's really not that much current, but rather than risk it, I just removed the pull-ups.
Anyways, the boards were designed to be pretty versatile... I'd even be willing to offer them socketed without a chip, for use as a PIC 16c745 development board if anyone's interested

Of course, you'd need a UV eraser and a device programmer.. unfortunately there's no flash version of the PIC USB chips.

NoOne=NBA= · « **Reply #25 on:** May 20, 2004, 06:53:29 pm »

On the opposite side of this, I am curious how well the 49-ways will act in games that originally had TRUE analog controls.

I'm guessing that they will perform fairly well because you get a direction and distance from center signal from them; but wanted to know if anyone had tried them on games like Star Wars, Road Runner, etc...

bdsjake · « **Reply #26 on:** May 20, 2004, 07:06:26 pm »

I have the same question as NoOneNBA, was thinking these might work for afterburner, or food fight, which I think both had analog sticks??

thanks,

Minwah · « **Reply #27 on:** June 05, 2004, 10:44:19 am »

Quote from: bdsjake on May 20, 2004, 07:06:26 pm

I have the same question as NoOneNBA, was thinking these might work for afterburner, or food fight, which I think both had analog sticks??

thanks,

Once again I would like to know if anyone has tried this - Road Runner or Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters etc?

Paige have you tried yours yet?

Tiger-Heli · « **Reply #28 on:** June 05, 2004, 11:28:10 am »

Just some quick comments to some things asked earlier in the thread:

MAME has a delay before it registers a direction with an analog stick - it's called A2D deadzone.

It also has settings to try to restrict the directions in 4-way games, but it doesn't work that well since the stick is not restricted.

MAME does a pretty good job with analog sticks for digital games (1942 on a PC joystick, fair for pacman on a PC joystick).

MAME does poorly with digital controls on analog games (Happ Competitions in Paperboy, Star Wars, etc.)

Minwah · « **Reply #29 on:** June 05, 2004, 12:53:23 pm »

Quote from: Tiger-Heli on June 05, 2004, 11:28:10 am

MAME has a delay before it registers a direction with an analog stick - it's called A2D deadzone.

This is only when using an analog stick for a digital input tho isn't it? 'A2D' being Analog to Digital presumably...

As for MAME not dealing too well with digital controls on analog games, I guess you can't get something from nothing $:-\$

Tiger-Heli · « **Reply #30 on:** June 05, 2004, 01:02:39 pm »

Quote from: Minwah on June 05, 2004, 12:53:23 pm

This is only when using an analog stick for a digital input tho isn't it? 'A2D' being Analog to Digital presumably...

Right, I was specifically answering NoOne=NBA's question in Reply #15.

Quote

As for MAME not dealing too well with digital controls on analog games, I guess you can't get something from nothing $:-\$

True! I didn't say it should be able to handle this, just wanted to point out that it doesn't.

paigeoliver · « **Reply #31 on:** June 05, 2004, 04:09:53 pm »

I haven't hooked mine up yet. I haven't quite decided if I want to ditch the 8-ways on the Battlezone project for the 49-ways yet. I quess I should test them out soon, it is just hard to find the time to mess with this stuff.

Lilwolf · « **Reply #32 on:** June 05, 2004, 04:46:20 pm »

btw, I want to mount mine this weekend...

but I'm having troubles.

anyone know of a good way to connect the ends? They don't fit anything I have laying around. And when I bought mine, it didn't come with a wiring harness..

I'm just so used to finding other items that fit around.

bdsjake · « **Reply #33 on:** June 05, 2004, 09:33:08 pm »

so, how well does a 49 way with AKI/49 board mimic an analog in mame? are they working?

thanks,

paigeoliver · « **Reply #34 on:** June 05, 2004, 09:37:58 pm »

Yes, they mimic an analog with the AKI board. Analog controls have always basically been fine for 8-way games, it is just that MOST analog joys have super long throws, or otherwise have a flight stick feel to them. But 49-ways feel exactly like standard Wico sticks (or happ sticks in the case of the newer ones).

bdsjake · « **Reply #35 on:** June 05, 2004, 10:37:32 pm »

thanks paige, this is an interesting development. I've been looking for a way to play afterburner w/o a frankenpanel type of analog stick on a panel.

so, where to get one of these? ebay?

thanks,

paigeoliver · « **Reply #36 on:** June 05, 2004, 10:41:41 pm »

Yes, you should be able to buy a 49-way on ebay, be sure to look out for "Arch Rivals" sticks, control panels and kits, as the Arch Rivals sticks are 49-way, and often go cheaper than the other ones.

Minwah · « **Reply #37 on:** June 06, 2004, 12:05:30 pm »

Quote from: bdsjake on June 05, 2004, 10:37:32 pm

so, where to get one of these? ebay?

They're pretty cheap new from Happ, compared to analog sticks anyway...

NoOne=NBA= · « **Reply #38 on:** June 06, 2004, 01:02:05 pm »

I've been seeing NOS ones come up on ebay fairly regularly.
I just picked one up a couple weeks ago for $14.95 + $6.50 shipping.
I haven't picked up the interface yet, but I'll be getting that soon.


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