I-pac4 questions

[blueoakleyz]

If I were to build a 4-player mame cabinet is this what I should definately get?

Is there anyplace that sells it cheaper or at least in the United States?

Is it completely programmable? including shift functions?
Like could I make any button be any keyboard button etc? could I make my own custom shift buttons? (like instead of holding 1P start + a button, have it be like, hold P1 button3 and P4button6 to do something)

[Vicious]

For a 4-player programmable encoder with shift functions, that will be your only choice.  As far as I know there is no cheaper place or US retailer.

[SOAPboy]

is 65.00 really that much? i mean, come on, your building an arcade cabinet..  

i regreted the 50 for the ipac2 but you know what, after everything was said and done and i was gaming, it was a damn good investment..

[blueoakleyz]

$65 is expensive regardless of what an item is,
but hopefully when i start building this cabinet I'll have a job and funds to do everything in steps.
Coindoor might have to be last, those are expensive with mechs and everything

[SOAPboy]

$65 is expensive regardless of what an item is,
but hopefully when i start building this cabinet I'll have a job and funds to do everything in steps.
Coindoor might have to be last, those are expensive with mechs and everything

this isnt a cheap hobby..

it becomes time consuming and expensive.. i "budgeted" 300 for my cab.. guess what.. i went over.. it happens..

[Vicious]

$65 is expensive regardless of what an item is...

Not in this 'hobby'.  There are people who are willing to spend almost 10x for just the monitor.  It sounds bad and can be a lot when you're young, but it is one of the least expensive parts you'll probably buy.

[Vicious]

Looks like we were thinking the exact same thing at the same time SOAPboy.

[SOAPboy]

Looks like we were thinking the exact same thing at the same time SOAPboy.

rofl. yup..

i thought the same thing when i started.. OHH ITLL BE CHEAP.. rofl.. i started pricing joysticks and such, lmfao i was like UH WHAT!>!>??!?!?

now i got mega lucky on some stuff.. tv i had, ram, hd, cd drive, i had.. and the rest of the machine was basicly donated by friends.. but i got hosed on controls, ipac, wood, ect.. thank got my cab was cheap.. >_<//

[blueoakleyz]

something terrifying that just popped up in my mind, since all games use different control schemes etc, do you have to basically manually program every single game to the way you want it? Like Mortal Kombat as opposed to Ninja Turtles etc....Is there anyway around this?

[Vicious]

Most are mapped fine.  For those that aren't, just create a controller ini file for those games.

[blueoakleyz]

Were Konami the ONLY 4 player games to use slot specific? Did any 2 player games use slot specific?
what about gauntlet? Did it matter which slot it came from? or did you insert coin and press start button to buy time?

[Vicious]

Konami isn't the only one, just the most prevalent.  And Gauntlet IS slot-specific.

[blueoakleyz]

I find the answer to that one lol


So now my solution is this, either buttons (color coded) or a 4 coin slot (which actually I'm not sure about now since it won't be so accessible by people without coins and although it loses authenticity, it's never goin in a public place, of course I could just get a 2 slot coin mech and make it required for 2 player games to cut out the hassle)

In the mame "general controls" (or is there better ways of mapping controls through a frontend like arcadeos?) I'll assign it as red/blue (or buttons 5/6) for p1 and yellow/green (buttons for 7/8) for p2 just in case there is a 2 player game with a slot specific setup, but mostly if there isn't and you use p2's coin it wont matter anyway but for 4 player games I'll manually assign it as 5,6,7,8/p1,p2,p3,p4/red,blue,yellow,green which might take a while but there's not too many 4 player games that are slot specific right? For non coin specific games I can leave as is like the default for the 2 player game way I described above.

[blueoakleyz]

Is there any way to search lists of Mame compatible games that have features you want to search for like 4-player?

[blueoakleyz]

I also just realized I'm going to have to do a lot of manual programming (but hey that's what the fun of hobbies is right?) for certain games, namely mid 90's games like street fighter.... for the rest, they'll all pretty much be mapped to button 1 2 and 3 which will be fine

my control lay out is like this (ignoring angles of course)

            ooo      ooo
 ooo     ooo      ooo      ooo
o         o          o          o

So basically for regular games/classic games it'll be like this
 ooo
 23o
1

the extra buttons for the side players are in case i want to remap it (maybe for like gunsmoke where it's left-mid-right fire)

so many logistics but oh well, I'll just make it more of a fun machine than a real-arcade-compilation-machine wannabe.

[blueoakleyz]

New question about the ipac4
it has 56 inputs

my future cab will have 4 joysticks + 1 ms pacman joystick (that would function for player 1 AND 2 in alternating games)
is there a way to hook it up so basically it works as both those joysticks without using extra ipac inputs? (anyway to avoid the problem of one player pushing the ms pacman joystick to screw the other player up?)

EDIT: I guess that'd work out correctly, I'd just map the mspacman joystick + blue/yellow joysticks (my center joysticks)  to the same thing.
like
P1 left --> (pacman left)(blue left)
P2 left --> (pacman left)(yellow left)
I think that'd still use 4 extra ipac slots though but that's ok i guess.

[SOAPboy]

something terrifying that just popped up in my mind, since all games use different control schemes etc, do you have to basically manually program every single game to the way you want it? Like Mortal Kombat as opposed to Ninja Turtles etc....Is there anyway around this?

the ONLY games ive had to remap controls for are the mortal combats.. and its not because they were wrong, it was more just the retarded way button 1-6 were layed out for each player then put into the orig cab..

everything else so far seems to play just fine with a normal 6 button layout and mame defaults..

[blueoakleyz]

Not a big deal but what about street fighter?
If my setup was like this

 ooo
 ooo
o

and the bottom row was 1,2,3 with an extra button, which map to punches, i'd probably have to rearrange it right?

[SOAPboy]

Not a big deal but what about street fighter?
If my setup was like this

 ooo
 ooo
o

and the bottom row was 1,2,3 with an extra button, which map to punches, i'd probably have to rearrange it right?

ok.. that 7th button.. useless..

anyways.. assuming this is what your thinking

123
ooo
ooo
456

which will play like any old sf cab..

why to people keep wanting to put that 7th button in.. neogeo games? i mean, i play alot of snk fighters and it plays just fine on the sf layout.. more so that im a sf player o_O

[Gunstar Hero]

Almost all fighters will default to...

123
ooo
ooo
456

...no problem.

I'm going to be using the Capcom/NeoGeo style layout myself on my next CP...

--ooo--
--ooo--
-o-

... to give me a better NeoGeo layout and a "Run" button for MK3 and Ultimate MK3.  The 6 button SF layout is pretty annoying for Neo Geo fighters since your hard kick usually maps to button 4, right under your light punch.  

Once you set up what the buttons are for that specific game they're saved anyways, so it's a minor irritant at best.

Sure I'll have to remap a buncha games, but hey, the building and setting up is half the fun!

[blueoakleyz]

"why to people keep wanting to put that 7th button in.. neogeo games? i mean, i play alot of snk fighters and it plays just fine on the sf layout.. more so that im a sf player o_O"

Nope, I never even play Neo Geo games
it's for either MK but mostly for having an alternative button for things like NBA Jam etc that used different setups
just more options ya know

[Tiger-Heli]

could I make my own custom shift buttons? (like instead of holding 1P start + a button, have it be like, hold P1 button3 and P4button6 to do something)

Yes.

[Gunstar Hero]

Yeah, that 7th button is nice for NeoGeo and MK3.

The 6 button SF layout is pretty annoying for Neo Geo fighters since your hard kick usually maps to button 4, right under your light punch.

Although I did figure out a fun way to map SamSho as a 6 button fighter!  

[blueoakleyz]

So the ipac has a USB plug right? that way i can use a regular keyboard with a (PS/2?) port at the same time?

[blueoakleyz]

oh also, do you solder wires to the ipac or just plug them in?

[cdbrown]

the ipac has screw terminals - just expose the end of the wire, put it in the terminal and tighten the screw - nice and easy.

ipac also has a passthrough meaning you plug your keyboard into the ipac then the ipac into the computer.

please take a good look around
www.ultimarc.com for all ipac4 details and pics