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Driving controls - one to rule them all?
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Landstander:
I thought I'd ask a bunch of questions to anyone who has faced this task before. A search revealed a few threads about driving controllers but not much in depth.

I'd like to make a driving controller that would be usable with as many driving games as possible. I know some driving games like Championship Sprint are optical and have no limit to the wheel's movement and others like Outrun use a potentiometer and have limited travel. Also, games like Spy Hunter and Road Blasters use something more like a flight yoke than a wheel. Will one wheel type be better suited for emulating the others within MAME?

I don't remember seeing a game with more than 5 gears (4 forward and one reverse), although most will just have a low-high gear selector. Is switching a gearshift into one of the gear's positions electrically equivelant to just pushing and holding a button down? Could you wire 5 buttons on a control panel and after assigning them within MAME just hit a button for shifting into each gear?

The vast majority of pedal setups have only 2 - but there are a few games (Hard Drivin) that can use 3 pedals. I assume all the pedal setups are analog devices with a pot to sense the position of the pedal. Is that correct?

So, my closing questions - is there a solution to be able to play the vast majority of driving games? Is it best to adapt a PC wheel hooked to the joystick port? (I have an Act Labs Force RS and a Thrustmaster Nascar both available for parts).

Thanks for any input!
Pasqualz:
I don't know if this would be useful, but there used to be an iten you could buy to use your mouse with a steering wheel. Basically, the item clamped to yur desk, and the mouse was positioned (upside down maybe?) in this device, then the steering wheel colum was fed through two holes so that it rested lightly right on top of the mouse ball. Basically, when you turned right, the mouse ball turned right (as if you were moving the mouse to the right) and the same for left! I doubt they wstill make this device, but it shouldn't be too hard to build from some wood, metal brackets, and velcro. Now that I went through all that typing, i'm still not sure if it would work well with both 360 degree and 270 degree steering games. Has anyone tried this? how's it work???
Tiger-Heli:

--- Quote from: Landstander on June 14, 2004, 11:08:22 am ---Will one wheel type be better suited for emulating the others within MAME?

--- End quote ---
Depends how important feel and accuracy are to you.  Best I can answer is that most Championship Sprint style games won't work well with a 270 degree wheel b/c the game wants you to travel beyond the limits of the wheel.  Most optical wheels won't work well with Outrun type games b/c MAME can't handle the inputs properly.  OTOH, a PC (potentiometer) wheel with button would work well for Spyhunter or even a Star Wars yoke for OutRun.

Xiaou2 had a geared design that would let a single wheel operate as either 270 (pot-based) or 360 (optical), but I don't know if he ever did anything with it.

--- Quote ---Is switching a gearshift into one of the gear's positions electrically equivelant to just pushing and holding a button down?

--- End quote ---
Yes, except generally in MAME you don't have to hold the button down, so buttons are easier to interface with MAME than an original shifter.

--- Quote ---Could you wire 5 buttons on a control panel and after assigning them within MAME just hit a button for shifting into each gear?

--- End quote ---
Yes.

--- Quote ---I assume all the pedal setups are analog devices with a pot to sense the position of the pedal. Is that correct?

--- End quote ---
Not necessarily, Hard drivin' I think was 3 analog devices, but many games simply had a switch (up or down) for the brake (and sometimes for the gas pedal, or the clutch.)  At least one had optics for the gas pedal.

The rule here though is that MAME does a good job with analog to digital conversion, but you can't convert digital to analog - so a pot based setup will work on switch style games or pot style games, but a switch based setup will not work on pot-based games.

--- Quote ---So, my closing questions - is there a solution to be able to play the vast majority of driving games? Is it best to adapt a PC wheel hooked to the joystick port? (I have an Act Labs Force RS and a Thrustmaster Nascar both available for parts).

--- End quote ---
For pot-based games, it is best to use a PC wheel.  I prefer the USB port, but the joystick port will work.  For optical games, it's best to either pick up an arcade wheel or E-bay ($10-$20), or just use a spinner.
Minwah:
My 2 pence:

3 analog pedals will cover all games...they can be used for games which orig. used analog or digital pedals.  Personally I went for 2 pedals, as I'm not interested in the games which use a clutch.

Shifter is quite tricky, as the games in MAME are treated differently.  The 3 different ways I know of are 1) Same button toggles gear, eg Pole Position, 2) One button for Lo, one button for Hi, eg OutRun and 3) Hold a button for Lo, release for Hi, eg ChaseHQ.  The best way to interface / setup these I haven't decided on yet...I don't know much about 4 speed etc. shifters, I just have a Hi/Lo/Turbo one.

Unless you make a pretty complicated DIY 1-steering-wheel-to-rule-them-all (as Tiger-Heli says Xiaou2 did some design work of) then you'll need 2 wheels, 1 360 and 1 270.  Alternatively you could use a 360deg wheel, and a yoke insead of a 270deg wheel, which would enable you to play a few more games - this is what I'm planning ;)
Landstander:
Looking through KLOV I see that Ferrari F355 Challenge actually has a 6 position gear shifter (1-5 and reverse). One more thing to consider.....
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