rotary joystick question...

[tubuku01]

hello all, just wondering..

do rotary joysticks work on mame? i haven't seen a cab with any on, or anyone mention them.  right now i'm working on a 4 player cab, and i wanted the 1 and 2 players to be rotary (to play ikari warriors, heavy barrel, etc.).  i also want to use these 1and2 player rotary joysticks to be used as regular 8 way sticks for all my other games. would that be possible?  has anyone done this?  any help would be greatly appreciated.

oh, i saw some rotary sticks from happs, one was a regular rotary stick, and the other was an optical rotary.
is the difference that great?  would an optical enhance performance (if mame supports it)? are they compatible with an ipac?  

these are the questions that keep me up at night ...oh the possibilities!!
well, sorry to make this long, and thanks for reading.

tubuku01

[Eddie Fantastic]

Yeah, I have the happs optical stick running in my cab, the left/right/up/down running through the Ipac and the optical sensor running through an Optipac (see ultimarc.com).
They support all normal games as a normal joystick and have the extra rotation options for Midnight resistance, Ikari warriors, etc. They also work as a spinner for games like arcanoid and as a steering wheel for games like Outrun (although I wouldn't recommend it - would you drive your car using a rotatable joystick?).
Unfortunately, Mame doesn't support two player rotatable sticks - that being player 1 x axis/player 2 y axis. Although there is a release of optimame that does. This isn't the latest version of Mame, mind, but if you're using arcadeos you can switch between emulators and have the best of both worlds.
And if you have an optipac it's easy to then add a trackball and also an optical steering wheel - my next stage.
And Good luck, it's well worth it.

[jerryjanis]

Ok, so it sounds like the opti-pac handles 2 (even 4) optical rotary joysticks...

I've got 2 SNK 8-way LS-30 joysticks (http://www.videoconnect.com/content/conversion.html - $14.99 - sometimes I see them there for $9.99) hooked up using Druin's rotary interface (http://members.rogers.com/druins22/ls30/ - $62 fully built, cheaper for a kit of parts that needs to be soldererd together).

Druin's rotary interface translates the 8-way joystick to 2 buttons for left and right (instead of 8 separate directions), so that the joystick is handled the same way that MAME is.  It takes up 2 buttons on the I-Pac.

I haven't had a lot of time with it yet, but so far I've had a little trouble perfecting (and I mean *perfecting*) the dial control.  MAME treats it as though you're using an optical spinner to control it, when really it's digital.  Then you map it to keys, so there are key speed and dial sensitivity settings to set to make it associate the needed amount of spin to a single turn.  It's easy to make it work so that if you 'click' the joystick 9 turns to the right, it'll work fine - but then the next 1 or two clicks either turns the Ikari Warriors man 1 click to far or not at all.

The rotary interface seems to work properly, so it should just be a matter of perfecting the settings to make it work right - if that's possible.  I'm also thinking about possible trying to make my own build of MAME that won't treat the controls like an analog control (when I have time).

The Happs version of the 8-way should work the same as the SNK rotary joystick with the druin interface.

One comment about the SNK rotary joystick is that it's kind of a crappy 8 way joystick, I think (again, I haven't had much of a chance to really go crazy on it)...  I'm using them for players 3 and 4, and I'd imagine that for a 30 hour stint of playing gauntlet with those stubby little joysticks, that your hand would maybe start hurting.  Street Fighter would suck with those joysticks, I think.  If, at some point, I get the rotary games out of my system, I might opt to replace the joysticks with regular competition or super joysticks, so I can play 4 player games more comfortably.

The Happs joysticks look as though they'd be more comfortable.  If they 'feel' like Super joysticks for 8-Way games, then they'd definetly be the way to go, but I haven't tried them.

In all, it was about $100.00 just to be able to play a couple of games - Ikari Warriors, Xybots, plus several others...  And I sacrificed having nicer 4-player 8-ways.  After the fact, I'm wondering if it was worth it.  (Of course I HAD TO HAVE IT, though - yes, it was keeping me up nights, also.  And, when I think about it, Xybots...  Mmmmm...  I CAN PLAY XYBOTS!  That makes it all worthwhile.)

I'd be curious to know what other people think.  How are the Happs joysticks compared to the stubby SNK LS-30?

Originally, I thought that the SNK joysticks would be way better because they're the same joystick as a lot of the actual games you'd be playing.

[jginiso]

After learning of DRUIN's interface I emailed him and asked his opinion re the HAPPS rotary sticks, here is the repsonse I received:

"Using the original SNK yellow joysticks, they don't work well for 8 way games, like Contra, I found it hard to play that game when shooting diagonally, almost impossible to aim it, but for 4 way games it's perfect, same with of course the actual rotary games it's ok.

[jerryjanis]

Those happ rotary sticks sound very sweet...  But they're so expensive!  But totally worth it,  if they feel like supers.  No compromises!

I just watched a pair of SNK rotary joysticks sell for $12 plus shipping on Ebay with 6 buttons and the control panel:  

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1088149207

[tubuku01]

hey, thanx to all with the useful advice.
looks like i'm going to go ahead with the rotary supers from happs (a tad expensive, but worth it, i'm sure).
i'll also take jerry's advice and try to wire them wire them up as two buttons for the rotary(makes sense). thanks for the tip jer!

i'm sure as mame evolves it will someday incorporate the rotary function required for the full ikari warriors experience, without all of the hassle.  thank you all for the advice!

tubuku01

[Steve Kaz]

Then you map it to keys, so there are key speed and dial sensitivity settings to set to make it associate the needed amount of spin to a single turn.  It's easy to make it work so that if you 'click' the joystick 9 turns to the right, it'll work fine - but then the next 1 or two clicks either turns the Ikari Warriors man 1 click to far or not at all.

I've mapped the turning to the keys, but seem to be having a problem with the key speed and sensitivity settings.

Can you help me out with how to do this?

[Mark70]

Yeah, I have the happs optical stick running in my cab, the left/right/up/down running through the Ipac and the optical sensor running through an Optipac

Good to know.  I was wondering this when I looked at the close image of the optipac and saw the other two inputs as optical.  I was laying awake wondering if I could do just that... hook up the joys normally, the trackball normally to the optipac, then the rotaries on the joysticks to the optipac.

Why does everyone make it out like Durin's interface is the only way?

[mahuti]

The druin encoder is important for the mechanical rotaries. Optical rotaries don't need it... the SNK LS-30s need it, or something like it to work without a lot of extra hassle.

[Tommy Boy]

Yeah, this thread can be a bit confusing.  Keep in mind that there are TWO different kinds of Happs rotary sticks.  Both of which are mentioned in this thread.  The optical kind can be interfaced through an Optipac.  The mechanical kind requires a Druin's interface.

Search around for threads.  I don't have either kind but I've read some say that if you don't mind the lack of a tactile "click" when you rotate, go with the optical kind as they are easier to interface with MAME (since MAME treats them as analog input types anyway).

Also, I *think*  MAME's problems with using multiple optical sticks for 2 player games has been resolved as MAME now allows mapping of optical axes to different players.  This is thanks to some of Robin's code (u_rebelscum) from AnalogMAME.

[Minwah]

Search around for threads.  I don't have either kind but I've read some say that if you don't mind the lack of a tactile "click" when you rotate, go with the optical kind as they are easier to interface with MAME (since MAME treats them as analog input types anyway).

I know that everyone likes the feel of the LS30's/Happ mechanical rotaries for Ikari Warriors etc., but since MAME (somewhat incorrectly) expects an analog dial input I think the opticals would possibly be the best option all round (atm).