Anyone have a steering wheel?

[zaktallica]

IS there a plug and play solution for a steering wheel for mame thats easy to use and works for most games? Thanks

[Minwah]

There are two main types of steering wheel for arcade/Mame games:

1) 360degree / non-restricted optics based wheel, for games like Pole Position, Super Sprint etc (dial input in Mame).

2) ~270degree / restricted, return to centre potentiometer based wheel, for games like OutRun, Power Drift etc (paddle or stick input in Mame).

So to answer your question, for wheel (1), the answer is no. For wheel (2), most PC wheels will work fine, but probably best to avoid the ones that you can turn a few times before it stops turning (900 degrees or whatever they are).

[mytymaus007]

IM in the process of building a 360 steering wheel control panel. For 270degree steering wheels i will use a star wars yoke control panel, whenever Ram controls completes building there yoke.

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Driving_Controls

[u_rebelscum]

For wheel (2), most PC wheels will work fine

1+

but probably best to avoid the ones that you can turn a few times before it stops turning (900 degrees or whatever they are).

Unless, of course, you're playing Hard Drivin' or some other games that had 1080 degree wheels.  For these games, the 900 degree wheels are closer to the original than 270 degree wheels.

[zaktallica]

How hard is it to set up a cheap usb wheel with paddles? Do i need to configure it for each game? And can i use this wheel on games that used only a 360 wheel etc even though it wont be as "arcade perfect".

[bkenobi]

You can set up the wheel globally and it will work for most games.  You might need to tweak the buttons to get them perfect for each game, but it's not required. 

You might be able to use a PC wheel for 360 games, but it will completely suck!  You need a free spinning wheel to play 360 games.  If you stop spinning, you don't turn any more.  I think you can configure a 270 to work, but it's not going to be fun IMO.

[u_rebelscum]

How hard is it to set up a cheap usb wheel with paddles? Do i need to configure it for each game? And can i use this wheel on games that used only a 360 wheel etc even though it wont be as "arcade perfect".

If you have no gamepads flightsticks, u360s, gpwizes and only the wheel (and keywiz or ipac or mice), just enable joysticks and it will work without remapping.

If you have other gamepad/gamestick type input devices, and the wheel is not joystick 1, then you'll have to remap.  It's not hard, just globally remap the wheel to mame's "paddle" input, and buttons might be more work (as posted above).


Playing 360 games with 270 wheels suck as bad as playing with 8-way joysticks.  Way better to play with a spinner or trackball than a 270 wheel, IMO.

[zaktallica]

I have a x arcade tank stick so what would i hafta do? Also i trackball never steered n a game how can i do that?

[Minwah]

Also i trackball never steered n a game how can i do that?

Map it to the 360deg wheel driving game(s) dial input.

[u_rebelscum]

Also i trackball never steered n a game how can i do that?

Map it to the 360deg wheel driving game(s) dial input.

Which is the default if you enabled mouse in mame (for at least those games).