Main > Main Forum
Rotary joysticks...
<< < (8/22) > >>
isucamper:
Hi, i'm still pretty much a noob on here... but I want to comment on some of your questions.  I did a bunch of research on the whole rotary joystick situation since it is pretty much a necessity for me... but I got distracted actually building my cab.  In another month or two, I'll have the cab built and be back in here trying to figure out my rotary needs. 

I'll only comment on the ones I have specific knowledge on... I haven't actually tried any rotary sticks 1st hand... so I'll leave that to others who have. 

1.  Yes.  This is exactly what I found in my testing with version .123.

2-4.  I believe you are correct, but I have no 1st hand experience. 

5.  From what people have said on here... it is not optimal to use a optical rotary for a mechanical game, but it is certainly playable if you are willing to give up the authenticity (which I don't think I am). 

6.  Not sure, I think divemaster says he has them for like 40 bucks.

I did a bit of tooling around in the MAME source, but like I said, I got distracted building my cab which was a much bigger unknown to me than fiddling with the software.  It would help me if anyone could tell me what version of MAME the whole 1-click, 1-turn feature was implemented in Ikari Warriors.  Then I could do a diff and see what they changed to enable it. 
TPB:
With the Mechanical rotary sticks (LS-30 or Happ equivalent) with the Ultimarc rotary interface,

Has anyone tried using these in regular games that DON'T use rotary sticks ?

The stick rotation could be mapped to any 2 buttons in the games (1st button for left rotation, and a 2nd button for right rotation).

You wouldn't want to be CONSTANTLY rotating the stick, so the rotation would be best mapped to infrequently used buttons, such as "Smart Bomb and Hyperspace" in Defender, or Gear Change (up / down) in driving games.

Sure, these controls wouldn't be game authentic, but I'm interested to know whether they work ?  It's nice to have the option of different control mappings.


For any game, does "1 increment of stick rotation", whether left or right rotation, correctly register as 1 keypress within the game ?    ::)

jasonbar:
Howdy-

Using MAME 115, I got some pretty interesting results, using my mechanical rotary stick & my Ultimarc Rotary Joystick Interface (w/ new chip).

I agree that all the SNK games you list work, except TNK III is a bit flaky.  It seems to have trouble at first but then it works OK.  This is after just a few tests, nothing too rigorous or scientific, so don't take it as fact.  I thought it might be a case of going into the settings & tickling it & coming back out of the settings until it worked, but just playing with the joystick for several seconds seems to make it work perfectly after letting it glitch for a bit...

I tried setting up Ikari 1 to work with a spinner, which required enabling my mouse.  It works fine w/ a spinner, as long as you tune in the analog settings to your liking, but I don't like it.  Definitely weird.  I didn't go further with any other games--I don't know if I'd be OK w/ using an optical rotary stick, but using an optical rotary spinner knob is certainly whack.


Then I looked @ your "does NOT work" list:

Cal .50: my mechanical sticks work quite well w/ this game!!!  I set up dial dec & dial inc to correspond to the mechanical rotary keys ([ & ]).  Default settings are 15 & 15%.  This is really close to working fine.  Cal .50 guys seem to have 16 positions (verified by setting up the spinner & testing).  I'm having a little trouble dialing in for 1 "click" to be exactly 1 rotational increment for my Cal .50 guy, but it's close.  I either set it up so it occasionally doesn't index or occasionally moves 2 ticks when I rotate my stick.  After much trial & error, the best I can do is 14 & 15%, a far cry from the 0 & 100% settings on the SNK games.  Playable!  Not perfect, but playable!

Downtown: works also.  I found 38 & 38% to be a good setting that works pretty well.  I didn't spend a lot of time tuning this in.  I also learned that Downtown is lame & doesn't let you mess around for even a minute at the beginning to test your darn joysticks, as some of the other games do (Heavy Barrel is generous!).  :\

Exterminator: works fine w/ defaults of 10 & 50%.  This game is least affected by the inaccuracies of the sticks, because you can rotate only a limited angle before you hit a stop.  And it's the only one that's not a top-down view, so it's less obvious if you're getting a 1-to-1 correspondance between your stick rotation & your character rotation.  But, can I just say "WTF"!?!?   :o :dunno

Gondomania: 15 & 100% work OK.

Heavy Barrel: Tip: Don't pick "Heated Barrel" from your game list.  It's much less fun.  Read carefully before selecting!  14 & 100% works well enough (not perfect).

Midnight Resistance: 13 & 90% is pretty good.

Time Soldiers: 13 & 100% is decent.  This is a 12-position game, not 8, like most of the others.


General comments.  It seems that you have to enable mouse in MAME to be able to use keys to do your rotating...  Remember to deselect the analog input when you set up "Input (This Game)" (it's the entry right above the Dec & Inc in the list of commands for this game), so that you don't accidentally rotate your dude by tapping the trackball...hmmm, or this could be a planned sabotage tactic against your partner...  ;)


So, all in all, this works well enough for me--I'm not going optical.  I've tried to make the settings a little "conservative" so that a rotational notch of the stick is more likely to *not* rotate your dude, rather than overrotate him.  However, it appears to be inconsistent--with the same settings, sometimes a rotation click doesn't produce an on-screen dude rotation, but sometimes he'll go 2 notches.  Close enough--just pretend you're playing on a beat up arcade machine!  Faithful emulation!

I don't really understand the 2 settings great, so I welcome anybody to tweak these settings & post their results!  SGT wrote up a nice summary of this in my previous thread on this topic: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=81068.msg846063#msg846063


Thanks,
-Jason



--- Quote from: isucamper on April 10, 2008, 08:56:45 pm ---So I went through and tested all the rotary games to see which ones supported the 1-click/1-turn functionality by setting digital speed to 0 and the sensitivity to 100%.  Maybe this is old news, but I couldn't find it anywhere else.

Using version .123 of MAME and my keyboard, it looks like all of the SNK games work properly, but none of the other games support it.

So it works in:
  Bermuda Triangle 
  Guerilla War 
  Ikari III - The Rescue 
  Ikari Warriors 
  SAR - Search and Rescue
  T.N.K. III 
  Victory Road 

It does NOT work in:
  Caliber 50 
  Down Town 
  Exterminator 
  Gondomania 
  Heavy Barrel 
  Midnight Resistance 
  Time Soldier 

--- End quote ---
TPB:

--- Quote from: jasonbar on June 27, 2008, 01:30:18 am ---
Close enough--just pretend you're playing on a beat up arcade machine!  Faithful emulation!


--- End quote ---


LOL, that's true !    :laugh2:


Good stuff Jason !    :applaud:

Thanks to your research, we can say that ALL of the rotary games, appear to be playable (with the LS-30 or Happs Mechanical rotary stick, together with the Ultimarc rotary interface).

Some will play with perfect accuracy, while the others are "good enough".

Each games just needs its own specific fine-tuning.

TPB:
Hey Jason,

Would you be able to test, whether these sticks can be used in games that DON'T use rotary sticks.

Can they be used in ANY game at all, so that the stick rotation (to the left or right) can be mapped to a couple of buttons within the game ?

Sure, it's not game-authentic to "map the controls" in this manner.  But it'd be nice to know whether it works :


http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=76828.msg851449#msg851449

Navigation
Message Index
Next page
Previous page

Go to full version