Noob building my 1st CP in need of advise / help

[atomikbohm]

I'm about to start one of the most important parts of my 1st CP build, buying the components!!!  My plan is to build a 4 player CP and wanted to call upon the community's experience / expertise. 

Straight out of the gate I come to Joysticks.  I've decided that I want a versatile Joystick in hopes to maximize the number of games I can play.  My research points me in the directions of either Happ 49-ways with a GP Wiz49 interface or Ultrastick 360's.  I know that there are many technical differences which are all well and good but, when the rubber hits the road is there much of a difference? 

Stay tuned for more Noob ignorance, I've got lots to go around   

Thanks in advance for the education

[severdhed]

i dont know much about the 49ways, but i finally got my new control panel almost done (waiting for a replacement optical PCB for my trackball), and i have to say i absolutely love my new u360s.  i have only got to use them for about 2 weeks now..but they are simply awesome.  I am very impressed with the way they work with every game i have tried so far.  i was skeptical at first, and i had a few problems where i thought they just wouldnt work...as it turns out, it was just a simple config problem.  i had configured the sticks in ultramap, but then realized i didnt have the shift functionality, so i did the firmware update...as it turns out, that changed some settings back to default..so ultramap was set that i had restrictors installed, even though i did not. once i fixed that, and tweaked my 8way map a little..these things perform way better than i ever expected.  i can pull off dragon punches and all kinds of special moves in street fighter painlessly...much easier than with my x-arcade sticks.  yet it performs equally as well in donkey kong and pacman and even qbert.  i never thought i would be able to play all of these games properly without dedicated sticks..but with the u360..you can do just that.

sure, some people may miss the physical restriction of a dedicated 4 way stick..but if you have limited space and arent an authenticity nazi...you can't beat these sticks.  they have passed every test i have thrown at them with flying colors.

[Ginsu Victim]

If you go with U360s, get them for player one and two only. That's over $150 pretty much right there. For player three and four, go with the Sanwa JLWs ( www.lizardlick.com ). Those are only $20 each, and are the same stick as the U360, only with microswitches instead of the analog PCB.

[atomikbohm]

If you go with U360s, get them for player one and two only. That's over $150 pretty much right there. For player three and four, go with the Sanwa JLWs ( www.lizardlick.com ). Those are only $20 each, and are the same stick as the U360, only with microswitches instead of the analog PCB.

One of the games I want to be able to run is 4 player NFL Blitz with my brothers and nephews.  With out being able to blame a hardware failure when I get stomped, like I did back in the day.     With that being said I am trying to save money wherever possible (my wife has no idea how much this is going to cost and if I don't want to sleep on the couch till I'm old and gray I had better find some deals)

Thanks for the advise though,  please keep it coming.

[severdhed]

if you are building a 4 player panel, then you would probably have room to install a dedicated 4way stick...then you don't need to spend an arm and a leg on versatile sticks.  get some happ competition sticks  (around $10 each) or something for each player and then a good 4 way stick to use for the 4way classics. 

also, you better have one heck of a PC to put in there if you want to play Blitz in mame...  i have a p4 3.0ghz, 2gb ram and a radeon 9600xt and i can't play blitz at full speed. if i recall correctly, that requires a core2duo OC'd at around 4ghz to get it to run at full speed.

[Ginsu Victim]

I agree.

4 Happ or IL comps plus a dedicated 4-way would be a great way to go.

As for Blitz, unless you're emulating one of the console versions or playing a windows port, you can forget about the MAME version.

[dkubarek]

Just curious, what makes the IL comps worth more than the Happs? I'm in the market, too, but I'm on budget.

[severdhed]

the IL comps have a different actuator and just feel better overall (of course that is just my personal opinion..but it seems to be the general consensus around here)

[dkubarek]

Yea, I heard that but then I saw the Groovy Game Gear guy say he liked the Happs sticks with a floating actuator now. I actually bought X-Arcade crap for my nephews and had no complaints about how they play. But they are dogged here a lot so I guess I'm not very picky. The lifetime warranty appealed to me because they are hell-raising kids, but when I wire mine I'm really looking for common grounds. It was too hard to customize their wiring kit.

[severdhed]

i used x-arcade stuff for years and i never had any complaints...except for the wiring. it was nothing but a rats nest under my control panel.  i thought the sticks and buttons were fine...i switched for two reasons...#1, the wiring nightmare had to go..and #2, i didnt have enough room for a dedicated 4 way and a trackball, so two u360s and a trackball seemed to fit the bill a little better.

i was very close to just getting two happ competitions and some kind of dedicated 4 way stick and just find a way to make it all fit...but i liked the simplicity of only having 1 stick for everything. 

i did have a 4way stick in my panel for a while, but i found that people never used it because they just didn't know what it was for, or which games needed it.  none of my friends have actually tried the u360s yet, but i have been playing alot and i absolutely love them

[dkubarek]

Do you have to program the u360 for 4-way games, etc. I saw there's a bit of software with it. Or does it use the controls.dat to que up the correct controls setting?

[Ginsu Victim]

There are different ways. You could have a frontend that loads the correct setting for you, or you could let MAME's analog mapping handle it for you.

[arzoo]

I'm about to start one of the most important parts of my 1st CP build, buying the components!!!  My plan is to build a 4 player CP and wanted to call upon the community's experience / expertise. 

Straight out of the gate I come to Joysticks.  I've decided that I want a versatile Joystick in hopes to maximize the number of games I can play.  My research points me in the directions of either Happ 49-ways with a GP Wiz49 interface or Ultrastick 360's.  I know that there are many technical differences which are all well and good but, when the rubber hits the road is there much of a difference? 

Stay tuned for more Noob ignorance, I've got lots to go around   

Thanks in advance for the education

I used a 49-way with the GPWiz49 on my cp and then switched to a u360. I really liked the feel of the 49-way, but it doesn't work well as an analog stick. So if you don't plan on playing any games that require analog control, or you're ok using the a trackball for those games (assuming your cp has a TB), then the 49 might be an option - it's cheaper than a u360. But otherwise, the u360 is a more versatile programmable stick (imo)!

[severdhed]

Do you have to program the u360 for 4-way games, etc. I saw there's a bit of software with it. Or does it use the controls.dat to que up the correct controls setting?

there are maps that are created for 4 way, 8way..etc...i am using MALA as a front end, so i used the u360 plugin and it takes care of everything automatically. when you launch a game, it loads the proper map..it works beautifully.

[Ginsu Victim]

I use Mamewah for my frontend and have it call on UltraMap to switch maps. For console games, I just have it set to an 8-way map for everything, but can set a custom map for certain games if need be.

[atomikbohm]

I really liked the feel of the 49-way, but it doesn't work well as an analog stick.

What sort of issues did you have when using 49-ways as analog sticks? 

[atomikbohm]

I just reread the thread and I don't think I'm painted a clear picture of my motivations and Ideal CP.  I was hoping to build a 4 player CP that would be able to play just about every joystick based Mame game.  With that as a starting point I discovered the rotary hack for Happ 49way sticks.  I envisioned p1 & p2 having 49-ways with an optical rotary hack (think MarkOates adaptors with opticals) and p3 & p4 with straight 49-ways (I don't think there are any games that use more than 2 rotaries). 

Now back to reality.  I've been reading in the forums all about U360s and how great they are.  Which begged the question why wasn't I hearing anything about the 49 ways?  If the 49-ways don't have all of the capabilities I'm looking for or the U360s offer so much more I'd rather find out about it now than after I invest the time & money.

...also, you better have one heck of a PC to put in there if you want to play Blitz in Mame...  i have a p4 3.0ghz, 2gb ram and a radeon 9600xt and i can't play blitz at full speed. if i recall correctly, that requires a core2duo OC'd at around 4ghz to get it to run at full speed.

The reason I'm finally building a CP and then a Cab is, after 5 years with the same PC (that wasn't cutting edge even then) I've finally decided to get a new computer !!! Bwa ha ha ha  (that and the wife said I could  ) I'm going to be getting an Intel i7 920, 6 gigs of ram and a decent PCI-E vid card in a month or 2.  I assume that should be more than enough to run blitz and the more recent Gauntlet games.  Right?

[arzoo]

I really liked the feel of the 49-way, but it doesn't work well as an analog stick.

What sort of issues did you have when using 49-ways as analog sticks? 

Here's when I realized the 49way did not work well as an analog stick - I started playing Food Fight with the 49 in raw mode and I was struggling with the game (aiming problems). Still, I managed to get on the high-score board. Now, if you recall how Food Fight lets you enter your initials - the letters in the alphabet are in a circle and you have to throw (aim) food at each letter. With the 49way it's not possible to select each individual letter. Using the u360 - no problem

[atomikbohm]

I wonder if the soon to be released Gp-Wiz 49 will address this issue ... at least I'm really hoping that it does.  In an e-mail from RandyT the shared that the new version will handle 2 49ways per board (4 player would only require 2 Gp-Wiz 49)  Hopefully the price wan't change 

[arzoo]

There's one other thing I'll mention about the GPWiz49 - this is a minor software gripe. The app that Randy wrote to set the GPWiz49 mode cannot be run totally silent - it still seems to get focus while it's active. So when I used it with MaLa for example, the Windows task bar would display each time the GPWiz49 mode changed. Just something to keep in mind.