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| New Product: Ultimarc UltraStik 360 Analog/Digital Mappable Joystick |
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| Tiger-Heli:
--- Quote from: Grasshopper on June 13, 2006, 02:22:30 pm ---Also, bear in mind this joystick can be connected to a standard Ipac and thus be used with programs or operating systems that don't support analogue or even USB. --- End quote --- I haven't studied that element of it in detail. Can it be hooked up to both the I-PAC and USB together and select which way to output on a command-line basis? Otherwise, if I am principally planning to have it output to an I-PAC, I don't see why I would buy this over an $10 Super or Comp. Although it would be interesting to test this stick connected to an I-PAC and a Happ Super connected to an I-PAC and see how they compare. That would be another case where the mapping software could come in useful, b/c the I-PAC would have no other way to know what it means if the stick is "mostly up but a little bit right". |
| Grasshopper:
--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on June 13, 2006, 02:35:06 pm ---I don't know enough about consoles to know which ones would support any USB analog stick, but even if it did, I think it is asking a lot to expect people to plug the stick into their PC, enter a particular mapping into it, and then plug it into their console, if it would remember it (which I think it will). --- End quote --- Actually I think this would work quite well. But the joystick would have to have the capability of storing several different maps simultaneously. The user would also need to have a means of selecting the correct map for the game being played perhaps by pressing a switch. Maybe that facility could be built into a future firmware upgrade (Andy are you reading this? ;D). |
| u_rebelscum:
The following quote is edited: I put in the bold, and removed Randy's original bold and italics to saw my point. --- Quote from: RandyT on June 13, 2006, 12:47:39 pm ---... That being said, I have some real concerns as to whether any external mapping system, outside of simple dead-zone control, will have an effect on a true analog stick where, theoretically, actuation is equal in all directions of movement. Chopping up an already excellent range of actuation into coarse blocks and then forcing the controller to guess the intentions of the player is, well, puzzling at best. Especially when that information is already available with full accuracy. To explain a little further, there are very simple maps that, theoretically, are the best maps available for any analog joystick that offers equal actuation of the sensors in every direction, as is usually their goal. Coincidentally, these maps are already being used in any game where its programmer has even the slightest clue. They are are as follows: --- End quote --- The problem is mame is not well written to translate analog to digital*. Mame looks at each axis separately; the value of the other axis is not looked at during the analog 2 digital translation. This makes Mame's look more like the following: Depending on "a2d_deadzone" and other settings, it could look more like the first or the second (I left in the right's lines for closer comparison), or imagine a larger deadzone instead of the shown smaller. Notice the lines are exactly horizontal or vertical. As mentioned above, mame looks at each axis individually, resulting the such lines. Notice how a smaller a2d_deadzone increases the diagonals and narrows the cardinals. Also check out how bad mame's analog to 4-way convertion is (although to 4-way diagonal is actually pretty good with small a2d_deadzone values). Which is where UltraStik360 comes in. It is doing a better job than mame, period. However... Not that I don't agree a more flexible mapping than a 9x9 on the UltraStik would be wrong. Setting the angles, increasing or decreasing the deadzone size, changing the shape of the deadzone, or doing crazy things like making curvy lines or difference angles between left/upleft than for right/upright would be nice. Are they needed? Do they make that much of a difference than a 9x9 grid? Are they possible to be assigned from the computer on hardware fast enough to do the calculations while cheap enough for retail? In talking to Andy a little while ago, he mentioned that using angles instead of a grid would be much more computation intensive than possible for the hardware used. Andy is that still true? And Randy, TigerH, everyone else, is there some other way than angles to get setable diagonal/cardinal/deadzoneareas on a joystick? I can think of times (tron) when an angle from the center won't be as good as, say, 60 degree triangles with the point at edge of the circular deadzone between the cardinal directions. *(FWIW, the best analog conversion in mame IMO is the current 720. It uses arctan to calculate the angle. And as much as Aaron says I helped with that, my code makes up about 2% of what he wrote and put in mame. ;D ) To sum up: While well written PC games don't need the analog to digital mapping in UltraStik360, mame needs it badly. The mapping also "puts the controls in the users' hands" instead of having to use whatever the well (or poorly) written game mapping has. There are finer ways to remap than with a grid, but they aren't easy to do in practice, especially while being changeable & fast on joystick hardware. Mame could use an analog to digital go over (but needs to be neater than I code, and not conflict with analog to digital "button" convertions to be accepted). -edit- reworded second to last summary point to make more sense. |
| Minwah:
If you ask me this stick should be superb and worth every penny. My only concern is whether the feel of the stick is good enough to play all the 8-way games (fighters in particular) sufficiently well - we shall soon know about that. For people not too bothered about 4-way games the mapping will be sufficient. For those 4-way purists the 4/8 way restrictor should do the trick, just like the J-stik (what I've been using for ages). |
| alank2:
--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on June 13, 2006, 02:41:58 pm ---I haven't studied that element of it in detail. Can it be hooked up to both the I-PAC and USB together and select which way to output on a command-line basis? --- End quote --- It will always report to USB, but you can configure MAME to listen or not listen to USB by enabling or disabling the joystick option. Depending on what map you have loaded it may or may not report keystrokes to an IPAC. This is probably how I will use it if I get one. I will have it hooked up to both the IPAC and USB. On games where an analog stick makes sense I plan to enable the joystick option in MAME and download an analog map to it. With an analog map loaded it won't report any keystrokes to the IPAC. Then, for non analog games, I will download the appropriate map and disable the joystick option in MAME so the game only looks for keyboard input from the IPAC [from the Ultrastik]. I wonder how the throw will be with and without the circular restrictor plate installed as well as the return spring strength. Thanks, Alan |
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