U360 joysticks, to map or not to map?

[cmoses]

I just recently acquired a Ultimarc U360 joystick to use in my control panel.  I have been reading and see that you can use config maps or let MAME do it.

I just wanted to get some opinions on what everyone thought was the best way to go.

Information:
Using MAMEUI32 0.127 compiled for no nags and hi scores

Mostly older games, some 2way, 4way, 8way, 4way diagonal, etc.  May also try to use the joystick in analog mode for some flying games - After Burner II.

[TheShanMan]

I vote map. I edited the maps so all but the extreme cells (the small cells) are dead zone. I find that games just work better for me like this - otherwise I tend to hit directions that I didn't intend to. This is with the circular restrictors and hard springs.

[isucamper]

For whatever reason, I found throwing fireballs and dragon punches in street fighter 2 to be a lot more authentic with the maps turned on.

I'm not sure why there was a difference, but it was definitely there.

[Ginsu Victim]

Maps. I love the customization.

[Martijn]

I vote map. I edited the maps so all but the extreme cells (the small cells) are dead zone. I find that games just work better for me like this - otherwise I tend to hit directions that I didn't intend to. This is with the circular restrictors and hard springs.

can you post these for 8 way fighting games map? i want to try this out.

[TheShanMan]

All you have to do is edit the 8 way map within Ultramap, and set all cells except the outermost ones to "center". It only takes a moment.

[u_rebelscum]

Just to complecate things....

IMO, "map" isn't clear answer.  There's mame automap, mame manual map, u360 automap with plugin with default maps, u360 automap with plugin with manual maps, and u360 manual map.  I think everyone who posted above likes one the middle ones (either of the u360 automap with plugin ones).

I'll give a different answer.  First try mame's automap and see if you like it.  Just set u360 in analog mode and play games.  By far the easiest way to go, and might work for you.  (It's what I use 95% of the time, the other 5% split between the mame manual and u360 manual maps.)

The only one that mame doesn't automap ATM is diagonal 4-way.  Since you mentioned this, though, you can skip my advice and just do what the others said.  If you're still thinking of doing what I do, all you need for qbert is a qbert.ini file in the ini folder with one line:
joystick_map 4444s8888..444458888.444555888.ss5.222555666.222256666.2222s6666.2222s6666

If you're going to do a bunch of manual mapping, ultramap is easier to learn than mame's manual remapping (as shown in the qbert manual remap, above).  Once you understand mame's it's not bad, but ultramap is more intuitive.  And if you're using ultramap, then u360 automapping with plugin is the way to go.

[isucamper]

I think everyone who posted above likes one the middle ones (either of the u360 automap with plugin ones).

Yeah, it's a bit confusing.  Just to clarify my above post:  I tried both MAME's automap (with the U360 is in analog mode) and the Ultrastik 8-way map, and the Ultrastik map felt more authentic to me.  Using the MAME map, it seemed like I had to exaggerate my quarter circles and do them slower in order to pull off fireballs.

Shanman, rereading your posts, I think your "extreme dead zone" maps will make it very hard to do certain moves in Street Fighter, especially dragon punches.  This might be what was giving your buddy a hard time.   

[TheShanMan]

Isu, you could be right, but could you explain how you think it could be making it hard? I'm quite open to doing SF-specific maps, but I'd kind of like to understand why it's not working well with my current maps first, especially since I'm an SF novice.

[headkaze]

If you're going to do a bunch of manual mapping, ultramap is easier to learn than mame's manual remapping (as shown in the qbert manual remap, above).  Once you understand mame's it's not bad, but ultramap is more intuitive.  And if you're using ultramap, then u360 automapping with plugin is the way to go.

You inspired me to knock up a little utility for editing Mame joystick maps. You can check it out here

[isucamper]

Isu, you could be right, but could you explain how you think it could be making it hard? I'm quite open to doing SF-specific maps, but I'd kind of like to understand why it's not working well with my current maps first, especially since I'm an SF novice.

Let me give this a shot.

To throw a dragon punch (as an extreme example, other moves would apply to this thinking), you need to do the following motion with the stick:

forward, down, downforward(diagonal), forward

In other words, you tap forward, and then do a quarter circle from the down position back to the forward position. 

To throw it affectively this motion needs to be done very quickly.  In fact, how skillful you are in the game will depend on just how fast you can pull this move off as someone jumps at you.

With your map, the game is only going to register these motions in the very extreme joystick positions.  Alternately, with the regular 8 way map, or with a standard microswitch based Happ joystick, you will only need to tap forward far enough to register the forward motion, before quickly moving back through the dead space and then swinging down and then forward again.  It may not sound like much, but those milliseconds mean a lot in the timing of the game. 

With your map, the move will take longer to preform, and require the player to be much more precise than what the original arcade required (resulting in more missed moves than usual). 

I can agree with you that the default dead space on the U360 probably needs to be widened considering the somewhat inaccurate centering of the stick, to keep you from jumping or ducking when you don't mean to.  I think there's probably a sweet spot between your extreme map and the default 8-way.  If my prototype wasn't pulled apart at the moment, I'd play around with it a bit.

[cmoses]

I tried the Analog mode and using the MAME automap.  It seemed to work on the first few I tried, but had problems when I got to Q*Bert.  The diagonals where not working correctly.  It was still mapped to Up, Down, Left & Right, not the diagonals.  I also had to play around with some settings to get it to work in MALA.  The game list was scrolling up and down to quickly originally.

I didn't want to try the manual route, so I downloaded the Fat Fingers Plug-In and ran the setup.  This loaded really easily and worked fine with all the games I tried.  It had a built in ugc map for Q*Bert.  It also worked well in MALA.

I think this is the way I will go.  I can also easily create a custom map for any game with the UltraMap utility.   

[cadmium]

Since I have a multi-emulator system, I set the maps to analog for Mame, and use 8-way mapped for most other eumulators.

For mame, I tweak on a per-game or system basis. I get along with the automap on street fighter, but I have remapped Q-Bert for diagonal operation. The maps work basically the same way as ultra-map, except you have to type them in instead of clicking on the squares. But otherwise you can create the same mapping either way.

[TheShanMan]

Isu, makes sense. We stopped fighting so he could try to make the moves work though, so speed wasn't a factor. Not sure if he was just tapping or fully pushing the stick though. Thanks!

[u_rebelscum]

I tried the Analog mode and using the MAME automap.  It seemed to work on the first few I tried, but had problems when I got to Q*Bert.  The diagonals where not working correctly.  It was still mapped to Up, Down, Left & Right, not the diagonals.

Did you do as I said in my post?

...The only one that mame doesn't automap ATM is diagonal 4-way.  Since you mentioned this, though, you can skip my advice and just do what the others said.  If you're still thinking of doing what I do, all you need for qbert is a qbert.ini file in the ini folder with one line:
joystick_map 4444s8888..444458888.444555888.ss5.222555666.222256666.2222s6666.2222s6666

If you look at the map (see below, nice app headkaze!), it makes the diagonal directions output up, down, left, right.  This is correct.

If you didn't do the above, then yes mame maps as a normal 4-way.

You inspired me to knock up a little utility for editing Mame joystick maps. You can check it out here

I'll repeat, thanks headkaze!   I like the qbert_sticky map you included; halfway between mame's 4-way diagonal and the "weighted" qbert maps.

One minor thing, it doesn't save "shortcut" maps.  It can read them, and the long form is IMO more human readable, but some people might prefer saving the 12 bytes one the disk space.

[headkaze]

I'll repeat, thanks headkaze!   I like the qbert_sticky map you included; halfway between mame's 4-way diagonal and the "weighted" qbert maps.

One minor thing, it doesn't save "shortcut" maps.  It can read them, and the long form is IMO more human readable, but some people might prefer saving the 12 bytes one the disk space.

Well that qbert_sticky map is actually one I found on Mame World in a post by you lol

Yes it doesn't save the shortcut maps that would require a bit more code to caclulate if it's a mirrored design. Saving 12 bytes of space.. hmm how big is the rom + chd collection now? 12 bytes might actually mean something after that!