360degree wheel games

[Minwah]

I'm currently restoring a 360 degree (Pole Position) wheel for my...um...360deg wheel panel.  I'm waiting for a 4-speed Hard Drivin' wheel to arrive for the panel also - I'm aiming to finish the panel in the next few weeks.

Anyway, I was thinking about setting up my ctrlr file to handle all of the games possible on this panel.  Also I needed to figure out how many buttons to add, so I made an Excel spreadsheet and filled in everything (that I could) for all 360 degree driving games, as dictated by MAME's 'dial' input type and Triggerfins catver.ini 'Driving' categories - see the attached (rename to .xls).

Here's some interesting facts I found from this excercise (also included in the spreadsheet):

41 TOTAL (3 don't use 360deg wheels, excluded from the following & 6 are unplayable)

20 games use analog gas pedal
19 games use digital gas pedal
8 games use analog brake pedal
10 games use digital brake pedal

8 games use hi/lo shifter
5 games use 4-speed shifter
1 game uses up/down (tiptronic-style) shifter (3-speed) (DIRTFOXJ)

Max buttons required to play all games: 3 buttons (+ 4-speed shifter) - (NITEDRVR is the only game to use 3 buttons excl. shifter)

18 unique configurations


Using this sheet as reference I have been able to make ctrlr entries for all games in the new style in about an hour...can't wait to start playing 

[Silver]

Aha - EXACTLY the type of info I've been trying (and failing) to put together myself.

Had not realised I was going to have add much in the way of buttons for the 360, so its handy to know (specially as I have not started building yet!)

I seem to remember hearing that mame does a good job of using analogue pedals in digital games? 

On a side note - someone told me that the "shifter patch" for eg pole position has been included in standard mame - is this correct? Or will i still need to patch it to use a 2 microswitch shifter. I think I'm still confused on this point...

Nice work Minwah....

[Minwah]

Had not realised I was going to have add much in the way of buttons for the 360, so its handy to know (specially as I have not started building yet!)

Yeah I could only think of games which use 2 buttons (APB, RoadBlasters) so I wanted to make sure.

I seem to remember hearing that mame does a good job of using analogue pedals in digital games?

Yes.  I have 2 analog pedals so I can use these for any combination of analog/digital pedals
 

On a side note - someone told me that the "shifter patch" for eg pole position has been included in standard mame - is this correct? Or will i still need to patch it to use a 2 microswitch shifter. I think I'm still confused on this point...

I think you just need to change 1 line of the source (relevant part is commented IIRC).

Since I will have a 4-speed shifter (assuming it used 4 microswitches) I have mapped all of these 4 inputs (using OR's) to the one toggle-shift-input.  I figure between switching from any gear to another gear that should be enough to toggle lo/hi.  If there's no neutral 'deadzone' in the shifter this might not work tho...plus I suppose the shifters lo/hi physical position might be different each time.  I'll have to do some testing/revising once I get the shifter...

[locash]

Thanks Minwah. I just picked up a Pole Position cp and was looking for this info.

[Silver]

Thanks - thats good to know about the pedals. I've got 3 analogue pedals  - I'm tempted to lose the 3rd one, but they are all attached to 1 (rather sturdy) mounting plate...

I'll look into the source to see whats there. I've got a 4 way shifter, not wired up. There lots of deadspace between hitting microswitches. I was planning to just use the left side of the shifter up/down for 2 position games - I assume you've mapped all 4 to allow more freedom?

[biron]

20 games use analog gas pedal
19 games use digital gas pedal
8 games use analog brake pedal
10 games use digital brake pedal

this may be a stupid question.. but I really don't understand.. I checked the xls file also..

it looks like 39games has a gas pedal. but only 18 games has a brake pedal. some games have brakebuttons, but many games doesn't have any brake at all( ?)
how do you decrease the speed of the car in those games then? obviously I am missing something

edit: spelling

[Minwah]

I'll look into the source to see whats there. I've got a 4 way shifter, not wired up. There lots of deadspace between hitting microswitches. I was planning to just use the left side of the shifter up/down for 2 position games - I assume you've mapped all 4 to allow more freedom?

The way you want to use it is great for games which require you to hold a button down to keep in gear (like Chase HQ or Pole Position with the *corrected* shifter input setup).  But there are some other games which use the (often incorrect) toggle-style shifter.  I was thinking rather than change the code for all these games I would just allow any shifter position to toggle gear.  Actually I would use it just how you said: using the left side of the shifter to go up / down.  As I say the problem with this is that the shifter would be in the 'wrong' position some of the time if I labelled the shifter with 'Hi' & 'Lo'.  Another issue is that you would be able to just shift into neutral, and then into any position (including the gear you just came out of) to shift gear, but I doubt anyone would do that so who cares.  I might still end up changing the source yet...need to get that shifter first to check how it works.

[Minwah]

it looks like 39games has a gas pedal. but only 18 games has a brake pedal. some games have brakebuttons, but many games doesn't have any brake at all( ?)
how do you decrease the speed of the car in those games then? obviously I am missing something

Just lift off the accelerator!

[Silver]

Just lift off the accelerator!

Never! Floor it all the way..............................................!

[u_rebelscum]

Two games are mising from the excel file: GTMR and speedfrk

GTMR is like GTMR2, and has a dipswitch for joystick, 270 analog, & 360.  The problem is mame doesn't seem to emulate the 360 wheel very well: apparently, according to mame source, both (?either?) the 270 & 360 were plugged into the same port, and mame isn't very good at having two possible types of inputs for the same port.  It can be done, but .... [shrug]

Speed Freak is an old vector game, 360 wheel and shifter.

[Minwah]

Two games are mising from the excel file: GTMR and speedfrk

GTMR is like GTMR2, and has a dipswitch for joystick, 270 analog, & 360.  The problem is mame doesn't seem to emulate the 360 wheel very well: apparently, according to mame source, both (?either?) the 270 & 360 were plugged into the same port, and mame isn't very good at having two possible types of inputs for the same port.  It can be done, but .... [shrug]

Speed Freak is an old vector game, 360 wheel and shifter.

Thanks for the info.  The games I listed are only ones in mame as 'dial' input - we all know how accurate that is

IIRC Chase HQ has a dipswitch setting for joy/270wheel/360wheel - I'll have to check on that.  I wouldn't be surprised if there are others....eventually I'd like to go through all the 'driving' games to make sure I have them all covered.

[Howard_Casto]

The hard drivin and similar games use analog shifters and they don't really work with a digital shifter.  Also they are partially hard-coded and thus it's difficult to map.  A few have an option to use a microswitch based shifter, but that is the part that is hardcoded into mame.  Also, as mentioned, there are a slew of 270 degree games that also support dial input and vice versa. 

The amount of driving games is closer to 100. 

And on top of all of that headache the inputs for driving games are embarrasingly unstandardized.  Digital pedals and shifters don't use a standard button number and driving games often skip buttons.  It makes it nearly impossible to use a generic ctrlr file. 

Sadly, you really have to go into each game and try it, then exit and make a ctrlr file for it to ensure the inputs are properly mapped.  This almost makes it simpler to just use cfg files. 

[Minwah]

The hard drivin and similar games use analog shifters and they don't really work with a digital shifter.

[Redseven80]

So is there any point in having a shifter at all? if they are all so different.

[SirPoonga]

20 games use analog gas pedal
19 games use digital gas pedal
8 games use analog brake pedal
10 games use digital brake pedal

A more useful stat would be
what games use analog gas and analog brake?
analog gas and digital brake?
digital gas and analog brake?
digital gas and digital brake.

[GMZombie]

Brakes are for ---Bad words, bad words, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when saint censors you?---!!!.....as my friend always told me while putting his foot to the floor of the grey ghost...84 camaro z28 355 chevy small block 373 gears...yea you get the point...

[jelwell]

I've modified this spreadsheet a bit. I added a column called "Number of Simultaneous players" so you can figure out how many wheels were on the original cabinet.

I've also begun creation of a similar spreadsheet for paddle (270) wheels.

Be sure to rename the extension to .xls.
Joseph Elwell.