Help with wiring Cruisin USA controls for mame

[scuzzie]

Can someone point me in the direction of or give me instructions for wiring up a (Happ?)Steering wheel and pedal controls from a Cruisin USA cabinet for MAME?

Many thanks,

[teknomedic]

I could be wrong about this... and if I am, I'd like to know myself....

But this might be hard to do... USA uses a power steering I/O board along with the main CPU board.  When I've looked, I've not seen anyone offering the power steering chip data with the USA roms.

So you should be able to get control of the game... but I'm not sure it's possible to get the force feedback?... like I said I might be wrong on this point... and if I am... anyone know where to get the USA/World driver chip data?... and maybe also the Exotica data?

As for hooking up the controls... the Gas/Break and Steering ar 5K pots, so you just need a way to attach pots to your PC.  I think the "opti-pac" at http://www.ultimarc.com will do this... but I'm not 100% so either double check with the other users here... or contact Andy at Ultimarc.com and ask him which board would allow you to hook up the pots.

If everyone is still waiting for a dump of the driver I/O board data ((I think I can dump the data chip for both USA/World and the seperate Exotica))... but if more is needed from the I/O board I'd have no idea (or way even) to do this.

TK.

[mark shaker]

For full Force Feedback support with both a PC and PS2, check out the Tech link at the bottom of the following page: http://www.marksarcade.com/

I believe that MAME does not support Force Feedback, but many commercial PC games do.

   - Mark

[teknomedic]

Pulled from MAME.net FAQ:

G09. What control devices does MAME support? 

MAME supports a variety of control devices, though not all.
(1) Keyboards, and anything that mimics one. This includes the arcade controls that emulate keyboard behaviour, for example the HotRod Joystick Control Panel, the X-arcade controller and the SlikStik.
(2) Mouse and trackball. Trackballs aren't very common, but they behave like a mouse, so they should work.
(3) Joysticks and gamepads. The arcade games had digital joysticks commonly, so a gamepad or a digital joystick is nearer to the original than a traditional analog joystick for the PC.
(4) ACT-Labs PC USB light gun. The new USB light gun reportedly supports MAME. Note that the older gameport version is NOT supported, and it will NOT work.

There are a few control devices that aren't directly supported:
(1) Steering wheels and pedals. These are not yet supported. Force feedback is not supported either. However, if your steering wheel behaves like an ordinary analog joystick, you might be able to use it.
(2) More than one mouse in Windows. Multiple joysticks are supported just fine, though. Also, the DOS version has support for dual mice.
(3) Normal light guns. Generally, light guns do not work in a way compatible with MAME. And no, you can not connect the NES Zapper to your PC. The ACT-Labs PC USB light gun is an exception - it should work. 


If this busts your project and you decide to sell off some of your Cruis'n Control parts, let me know... I'm always looking for extra parts for my World cabs.
 

[Paul Olson]

You will need either an AKI or an A-Pac to connect the pots, just do a search to find them; both have been talked about quite a bit here. I'm not sure if the AKI is still being sold though, Dave's page hasn't been updated in a long time. Mamedev is working on some outputs for MAME and force feedback is one of them, so someday you should be able to hook that up pretty easy.

Paul

[SGT]

I believe that MAME does not support Force Feedback, but many commercial PC games do.

Actually force feedback is possible:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=69439.0

[teknomedic]

OK, so using that force feedback works... does it just do it's own thing?... or can that use the dumps from the I/O driver boards and work like it should?

[SGT]

OK, so using that force feedback works... does it just do it's own thing?... or can that use the dumps from the I/O driver boards and work like it should?

It is supposed to work like it did in the arcade; not "do it's own thing".   That's about all I know; HC's the expert.

[scuzzie]

Awesome help  . . . thanks a million