sharing wires/connections

[heretic]

With 2 8-ways, 7 buttons each player and admin buttons I've ran out of connections for the minipac.

To add a dedicated 4-way and pinball buttons, would I just share the connections of up, down, left, right of the 4-way with the player 1 8-way and share the pinball buttons with player 1 & 2 buttons?? 

[HaRuMaN]

With 2 8-ways, 7 buttons each player and admin buttons I've ran out of connections for the minipac.

To add a dedicated 4-way and pinball buttons, would I just share the connections of up, down, left, right of the 4-way with the player 1 8-way and share the pinball buttons with player 1 & 2 buttons?? 

Yeah.. you can do that.  Just make sure nobody messes with the 4-way while you are using the 8-way, etc.   

[fjl]

You could. Although, I wouldn't recommend it cause a person who doesn't know your setup will get confused being able to use the 8-way on 4-way games and vice versa. You could either upgrade to the i-pac 4 or simply get dedicated joysticks like the U360's which are automatically programmed for 8 way and 4 way games. That also includes analog and 49 way games.

I got both the i-pac 4 and the two u360s. I'll never run out of buttons. Hell, I could set it up to play those mahjong games.

[severdhed]

i didnt share my pinball buttons, buy my player 1 8way stick and 4way stick are wired to the same inputs on my encoder and it works fine.  It works fine for me and I haven't had any problems with it.  i guess if you had some friends who were not very nice, they could easily mess with your controls to mess you up, but i havent had anyone try that.

[unclet]

My dedicated 4-way joystick is wired to my Player1 8-way joystick.   No problems with it for me. 

[fjl]

i didnt share my pinball buttons, buy my player 1 8way stick and 4way stick are wired to the same inputs on my encoder and it works fine.  It works fine for me and I haven't had any problems with it.  i guess if you had some friends who were not very nice, they could easily mess with your controls to mess you up, but i havent had anyone try that.

Mess with your controls? How would they do that with an 8 way and a 4 way being connected in the same inputs?

[ARTIFACT]

unless you are hardcore about having a physical restrictor on your 4 way, go with a U360 joystick!

[vindes]

My 4 way is also wired together to my player 1 8-way.

I'm curious about other opinions from people who have used a 360 for both 4 and 8 way.  Does it work well for 4 way games?  (I can't stand the 8 way for 4 way games.)

How do you set up mame and your front-end to switch the 360 configuration for 4 and 8 way games?

[bigh4th]

I've done something similar with my coctail cabinet.  Its "3-sided" so I can play vertical or horizontal games.

I just used a single GP-Wiz and have a couple of switches hidden so I can turn the grounds off on either of the panels, or have all of them on.  This keeps people sitting on the side from screwing you up on your best-ever game of Mario Bros.



Haven't had a problem yet.

-Harry

[ARTIFACT]

My 4 way is also wired together to my player 1 8-way.

I'm curious about other opinions from people who have used a 360 for both 4 and 8 way.  Does it work well for 4 way games?  (I can't stand the 8 way for 4 way games.)

How do you set up mame and your front-end to switch the 360 configuration for 4 and 8 way games?

It never gets "stuck" ... I use Mala and the "fatfingers plug-in", and it sends new maps everytime you load a game. I believe that recent versions of Mame do that automatically (although I havent checked).

it is really amazing how it works through 2/4/8/rotated/analog/etc no problem... I even play Daytona (Model2) and it feels smooth... while being able to throw tiger punches at will in Street Fighter II... on the SAME STICK. Pretty cool

the only thing you have to get used to is the lack of physical restrictors... although they sell a kit with circle, diamond. It doesn't "click", etc. It IS different from what you may be used to. I personally got over that realll quick knowing how wide of a spectrum I could cover with just this ONE stick model.

Good luck!

[fjl]

Hey that's cool. But how do you rotate the screen when it's the second players turn on vertical games?

[HaRuMaN]

Hey that's cool. But how do you rotate the screen when it's the second players turn on vertical games?

MAME can do that, I thought.  You just have to set the option.  "Cocktail Flipping" or something like that.

[severdhed]

i didnt share my pinball buttons, buy my player 1 8way stick and 4way stick are wired to the same inputs on my encoder and it works fine.  It works fine for me and I haven't had any problems with it.  i guess if you had some friends who were not very nice, they could easily mess with your controls to mess you up, but i havent had anyone try that.

Mess with your controls? How would they do that with an 8 way and a 4 way being connected in the same inputs?

well, if we were playing MK and they wanted to win, all they would have to do is occasionally move their left hand and hit the 4way stick, which would mess with my movement.

[bigh4th]

Hey that's cool. But how do you rotate the screen when it's the second players turn on vertical games?

I have the dip-switchs on vertical games set for "cocktail mode" in mame, so it does it automaticly.  The only game I have that has a problem with that is Ikari Warriors.  Screen flipping isn't supported (at least in that version of mame) so I have it set up as a horizontal display.  it will probably be deleted anyway as Its not the game I thought it was, and no one seems to like it.

-Harry

[Spaz Monkey]

i didnt share my pinball buttons, buy my player 1 8way stick and 4way stick are wired to the same inputs on my encoder and it works fine.  It works fine for me and I haven't had any problems with it.  i guess if you had some friends who were not very nice, they could easily mess with your controls to mess you up, but i havent had anyone try that.

Mess with your controls? How would they do that with an 8 way and a 4 way being connected in the same inputs?

Since I didn't see it answered efjayel, I'll answer it for you.  Both the 8-way and the 4-way joysticks are "live" because they would be sharing the same inputs.  Think of the Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs is on top of the stairs, the bad guy is on the bottom of the stairs.  Each person can turn the lights on and off.

[u_rebelscum]

How do you set up mame and your front-end to switch the 360 configuration for 4 and 8 way games?

... new maps everytime you load a game. I believe that recent versions of Mame do that automatically (although I havent checked).

Almost the same, but different. 

If your joystick is in analog mode, mame automatically applies a 9x9 analog-to-digital grid instead of what, but much like, u360 can do internally.

So mame doesn't send u360 new maps, but does them instead.

Important: only when the joystick is in analog mode, and if you want your own instead of mame's default maps, it's done differently than u360 mapping utility (best info how in mame's docs/config.txt).

Otherwise, yup.


(BTW, if you already have your FE setup to make the changes, just leave it as is.  If you haven't setup up the u360 at all and you only use mame, leave the u360 in analog mode and let mame do the work.  If use other emus, those switch maps plugins are the way to go.  If you're somewhere in the middle [shrug] try both.)