Racing games with shifters question

[Hoagie_one]

I want to add an arcade shifter to one of my Control panels but i dont know what to look for.

[RayB]

Alot of racing games just use a "hi / low" format (2 position). The 4 gear shifters were used on the very old games (Sprint 2, 4, and the more "sim" racing games like Virtua Racing, Hard Driving, and maybe Monaco GP and such. And yes they are just switches.

[Hoagie_one]

So if i got a 4 or 5 slot shifter, i should be good for most games?

[unclet]

For the most part I think that would be true, although I believe some games require shifting to occur by pressing a button then stop pressing the button.  Basically, shifting occurs after the button is pressed then let go.   If you have games like this, then a "return to center" shifter would be helpful.   If you use a 4-way/5-way shifter (as you mentioned) to simulate a "return to center" shifter, then you would need to put the shifter into a gear position then immediately move it out of gear and place it in the center so it is not in any gear.....this would be annoying in my opinion.

[Mario]

I'm going to have to deal with this same issue once I convert my racing cab to MAME. I am hoping that a return-to-center shifter would be the most universally suitable shifter. Any gear can be chosen by tapping up or down until you hit the gear you want.

Here's the Happ's shifter that I am talking about:

  http://www.happcontrols.com/driving/50811000.htm

Anyone using one of these that can comment on it's playability in MAME?

Mario

[Mario]

I'm going to have to deal with this same issue once I convert my racing cab to MAME. I am hoping that a return-to-center shifter would be the most universally suitable shifter. Any gear can be chosen by tapping up or down until you hit the gear you want.

Here's the Happ's shifter that I am talking about:

[GGKoul]

you would need the following to play every drivign game in Mame.

High/Low

[GGKoul]

I'm going to have to deal with this same issue once I convert my racing cab to MAME. I am hoping that a return-to-center shifter would be the most universally suitable shifter. Any gear can be chosen by tapping up or down until you hit the gear you want.

Here's the Happ's shifter that I am talking about:

[Hoagie_one]

Curses.

[Kremmit]

OK, so we need:

High/Low  - Lock in place
Up/Down (Forward/Reserve) - return to centre
Turbo Shifter (High/Low with Turbo)
Turbo Shifter - return to centre.
4/5 way shifter

The Shifters w/ Turbo button can be handled with a control panel button instead, so you don't really need that.
   

High/Low  - Lock in place
Up/Down (Forward/Reserve) - return to centre
Turbo Shifter (High/Low with Turbo)
Turbo Shifter - return to centre.
4/5 way shifter

A 4/5/6 way shifter is usually a lock in place shifter, right?  So why not use gear 1 & 2 on the 4/5/6 way for your High/Low lock in place shifter?

High/Low  - Lock in place[/s]
Up/Down (Forward/Reserve) - return to centre
Turbo Shifter (High/Low with Turbo)
Turbo Shifter - return to centre.
4/5 way shifter

Starting to look manageable now.. but can it be cut down to one?  Maybe, IF somebody could hack a 4/5/6 way shifter the right way, it could work in lock-in-place mode AND in return-to-center mode.  I'm not suggesting a hack that would change the mechanics of the shifter, what I'm thinking is to add a 2nd microswitch to at least the gear 1 & 2 positions.  How to get 2 switches on those positions would depend on the specific shifter being hacked, but I'm sure something could be managed.  Assuming you could manage to mount the extra switches, here's the magic part:  Either find a momentary-contact type of switch or hook a standard switch to a circuit that would in turn close a contact for a half second or so.  That gives you the electrical equivalent of a return-to-center shifter, even though the shifter does not in fact return.

Does that make sense?  It does to me, but then I already know what I'm trying to say.

Anyway, if it could be pulled off, then you'd need:

High/Low  - Lock in place[/s]
Up/Down (Forward/Reserve) - return to centre
Turbo Shifter (High/Low with Turbo)
Turbo Shifter - return to centre.
4/5 way shifter with momentary-contact hack

And that's all!

PS- Have I done this?  Nope.  I hope to, someday.  For now i'm just spouting off my crazy ideas, so if it turns out I'm talking out my bung, sorry!

[Mario]

It would be great if MAME could simply be modified to support a single up/down/return-to-center control for all racing games. They got joystick support for trackball games, so why not this?

Mario

[Hoagie_one]

im thinking a mame solution would be better for this.  Who do we contact to make that happen?

[GGKoul]

PS- Have I done this?

[Silver]

Yes I don't believe there are any games that can not be played with a 4-way shifter (and a turbo button)

For most games you could map gears 1/2 as high low. For the return to centre you could either "pump" the shifter in.out of gear (annoying) or I am sure the mame alterations at not major.

There were a few threads a while back about this and about how some games - such as pole-position - were incorrectly setup in mame compared to the arcade machine. Someone released the patch to change this - although I believe it is actually in normal mame source, just commented out..... or maybe it has been added in recent versions.

I don't have my 4-way wired up yet, but when I do (eventually) I'll be investigating.

[Xiaou2]

 My guess as to why mame dosnt use 'locked gears' - is that if a keyboard key is locked down its gona cause a problem with normal windows operations.

  However... if one used a joystick hack instead of keyboard keys... you can hold the buttons down and not interfere with windows.  Its a great solution... however...

  Many games in mame - such as pole position are set up incorrectly.   They do not allow you to 'lock' the gear - rather,  you have to press then 
release the button in order to change the gear.  Dosnt work with a locking gear shifter well - as described in other posts.

  As for the 'return to center'  shifters... I personally hate em.   I think that its too slow to keep pressing the gear buttons rapidly to find the right gears.   That being said... If I were to play a game like that (which I probably wouldnt) ,  I would just use 2 normal buttons and not a custom 
controller.    With exception to AfterBurner.   Afterburners return to center controller is a bit different in that its an analog speed controller... and nothing else can work in quite the same way.

 If you wanted to set up an afterburner controller on a cab without redundancy of shifters... you could make it into a special rudder-like pedal.   Pull the pedals out of the bottom of your cab, and off you go.   Only trouble is that the foot isnt quite as nimblle as the hands for this game - but still should be good enuff to contol well.

 A few other notes....

 There are actually many games that use more than 4 gears.   Id prefer making a 6 gear shifter unit.   I do not think anyone makes a good 6 gear shifter - so it will have to be made custom (with exception to Race Drivins - but that is analog).   

 Im also not a fan of the Modern arcade shifters.  They use those Horrible Bat handles instead of the great balltops.   They also are ugly and bad feel to them as they have a very fat shaft.

 The daytona usa ones arnt too bad - but they use the mini microswitches that fail quite frequently.

 

[Minwah]

Yes I don't believe there are any games that can not be played with a 4-way shifter (and a turbo button)

I have just mad ea 360degree wheel + 4-way (Atari) shifter panel and configured it for all 360deg driving games.

I can say that the shifter works fine for all these games (with official MAME) except dirtfoxj, which uses an up/down semi-automatic-style shifter.  For this I just use 2 buttons instead.

For toggle-style shift games, I have mapped all 4 inputs from the shifter to the 'gear shift' input in MAME, with the intention 1st/3rd are low, and 2nd/4th are hi.  The only downside to this is that hi/lo may be in different place each time, depending on the position of the shifter - as long as you bear this in mind it isn't much of a problem.

The shifter works fine for 4-speed games (of course) and also the ChaseHQ style hold-down-an-input-to-stay-in-lo shifter.

One random problem I have found is that my IPAC shift key doesn't work properly with a gear selected (input constantly down), I have to move the stick into neutral - again no biggie.

[Hoagie_one]

thats good news.  I just need a good shifter then

[Hoagie_one]

anyone have any experience with this happ 4 gear shifter?

http://www.happcontrols.com/driving/50849600.htm

[Kremmit]

Yes I don't believe there are any games that can not be played with a 4-way shifter (and a turbo button)

I have just mad ea 360degree wheel + 4-way (Atari) shifter panel and configured it for all 360deg driving games.

I can say that the shifter works fine for all these games (with official MAME) except dirtfoxj, which uses an up/down semi-automatic-style shifter.  For this I just use 2 buttons instead.

For toggle-style shift games, I have mapped all 4 inputs from the shifter to the 'gear shift' input in MAME, with the intention 1st/3rd are low, and 2nd/4th are hi.  The only downside to this is that hi/lo may be in different place each time, depending on the position of the shifter - as long as you bear this in mind it isn't much of a problem.

The shifter works fine for 4-speed games (of course) and also the ChaseHQ style hold-down-an-input-to-stay-in-lo shifter.

One random problem I have found is that my IPAC shift key doesn't work properly with a gear selected (input constantly down), I have to move the stick into neutral - again no biggie.

I always forget to look for software fixes...  It's just so much more fun to make it into a big complicated hardware hack instead!   

[Xiaou2]

 How do you map the buttons to 'change gear'  ?

 Im using mame32 -  but anyways... Im guessing it has something to do with ctrl.ini  - and for some reason seems a bit too painfull to even look into messing with.

  Tia

[Minwah]

 How do you map the buttons to 'change gear'

[Doc-]

I'm interested in the joystick option - has anyone been able to map a joystick (perhaps a four way diagonally mounted) to act as a shifter? 

I think this would work for the majority of games, but I have not yet tried it (I'm in the middle of hacking my pole position wheel this week).  I was thinking that the 360 wheel with a 4 way joystick diagonally mounted as the shifter and a button panel might cover it (along with a few foot pedals).

Thoughts?

Cheers!
Doc-

[Hiub1]

Why not just make some sort of restrictor plate so it only goes up and down. You could easily make that out of .5'' mdf, with just a little oval so it moves up and down. All you would need would be a really crappy joystick, say an old ultimate you might have laying around and put a super stiff spring on it and mount it on there. If you wanted to make it even more sophisticated you could even machine your own handle and make it longer, then build some sort of catch so the shifter would stay.

Here is a site that you might drool at, check out all their sim racing shifters and stuff, it is SO crazy. BTW they charge an arm and a leg too

http://www.frex.com/vr

[Minwah]

I doubt a joystick would feel quite as good as a real shifter, but Happ bat handle sticks look quite similar to their shifter handles...

[Mojo2000]

Here is a site that you might drool at, check out all their sim racing shifters and stuff, it is SO crazy. BTW they charge an arm and a leg too
http://www.frex.com/vr

Damn, that is the tastiest site I've visited in ages! NOW I'm really motivated to knock off a bank or something, just so I can have some of that Frex stuff in my cabinet!    The prices really don't seem so bad when you watch the shifter video and understand just what you're getting.

In fact, I was about to complain about how no arcade supplier seemed to take realistic shifters seriously. Frex to the rescue!

[Flinkly]

i was actually thinking of gettting one of those 4 speed shifters from happs through ponyboy.  also, why can't someone just change the support in mame to a leave-in-gear option, rather than both.  seems kinda stupid, except they are going for realistic game controls while we're going for one to rule them all.  also, no mame games use more than four gears, right?  anyways, maybe i'll just try it out for all of us.

[ponyboy]

If you need the Happ 4 Speed Shifters 50-8496-00 I have them.  I sell them for $58.95 ea.

Just let me know.

Thanks,

Ponyboy

[Mojo2000]

i was actually thinking of gettting one of those 4 speed shifters from happs through ponyboy.  also, why can't someone just change the support in mame to a leave-in-gear option, rather than both.  seems kinda stupid, except they are going for realistic game controls while we're going for one to rule them all.  also, no mame games use more than four gears, right?  anyways, maybe i'll just try it out for all of us.

1. As I see it, realistic game controls in MAME are secondary to the proper emulation of the CPU's and ROM's. As such, a leave-in-gear transmission might have to be an unofficial, unsupported and potentially reviled hack.

In passing, sequential shifters (wheel paddles and hump levers, both self-centering by nature) are found in some real cars, albeit expensive ones typically. These range from luxury passenger and sports cars to Formula 1.

2. OutRunners features cars that use five and six speeds... but it's all through a sequential shifter so I guess that just counts as Momentary Up and Momentary Down.

3. Isn't MAME going to emulate Ridge Racer at some point, and possibly Sega Rally? If so, then five and six locked gears will become reality. So to speak.