Dreamcast Cabinet Control Problem - No D-Pad

[pokekil]

All the dreamcast games I want to have on my cabinet are pretty much fine, except the few that require you to use the d-pad.  My cabinet has a joystick(mapped to the dreamcast joystick) and 6 buttons per player.  So for games that require the d-pad, movement is impossible.  games like ikaruga, kings of fighters, last blade, etc will not work. 
is there anyway i can work around this?

[EVEGames]

All the dreamcast games I want to have on my cabinet are pretty much fine, except the few that require you to use the d-pad.  My cabinet has a joystick(mapped to the dreamcast joystick) and 6 buttons per player.  So for games that require the d-pad, movement is impossible.  games like ikaruga, kings of fighters, last blade, etc will not work. 
is there anyway i can work around this?

There are a few things you can do, Pokekil.
1) Use a real Dreamcast controller instead of your control panel.  Just google Dreamcast USB Adapter.  Can't get more authentic than the real thing.

2) Use a batch script to reprogram your IPac/KeyWiz to send the keycodes for the d-pad before launching games like ikaruga, kings of fighters, last blade, etc. and then another batch script to reprogram it back to the dreamcast joystick upon exiting the game.  The details here depend on a few things, such as what front-end you are using (does it have run before and run after capabilities), and what encoder you are using (can it be reprogrammed on-the-fly via command-line).

3) Set up ikaruga, kings of fighters, last blade, etc to run in a completely separate instance of your Dreamcast emulator than all the rest of the games, and in this separate instance, map the joystick to the D-Pad.  You know what I mean here?  Have two completely separate copies of your Dreamcast emulator on your hard drive, call them DC1 and DC2.  In DC1, your control panel joystick maps to the dreamcast joystick keycodes.  In DC2, your control panel joystick maps to the Dreamcast d-pad.  Tweak your front end to launch DC1 for some games, and DC2 for others.

-EVEGames

[pokekil]

thank you.
1) i was thinking about plugging some controllers in too, but i would do that later.  so this is not an option for now.

3) i'm using hyperspin, so i dont think i could do this without making two wheels. having two wheels for dreamcast would be awkward.

2) I guess this is my only option. i'm using the latest nulldc, which i think does not have joystick support.  I'm just using joy2key to get my controls working.  i dont think i can change these settings using a batch file.  so i dont know what im gonna do.

[shateredsoul]

If you're using the emulator try setting left joy and left dpad both to left on your cab.  This works with most games, only few games use both dpad and the joystick for different functions (some adventure games use the dpad for items or to pull up menues). But most figheters and shmups will be fine this way.

[EVEGames]

Pokekil,
JoyToKey does support loading different configurations via command-line.  Create the alternate Dreamcast mapping in JoyToKey and save it under a different name, then try launching it from the command line.  I think it's as simple as
c:\path\joytokey.exe ConfigName
I'll confirm later and post if a switch is needed between the executable and the configuration name.

As for launching two different emulators from a single wheel in HyperSpin, I thought they added that a while back?  Not sure, I'm a 3DArcade guy myself (in 3DArcade, any of the 3 suggestions would work  )

[pokekil]

If you're using the emulator try setting left joy and left dpad both to left on your cab.  This works with most games, only few games use both dpad and the joystick for different functions (some adventure games use the dpad for items or to pull up menues). But most figheters and shmups will be fine this way.

I thought about doing this, but I figured that the controls would double up.  So on a menu, pressing down would bring me down two spaces. I'll have to check.

Thanks.
I'll look into switching configs via commandline

[shateredsoul]

I though that too.. but it looks like it sends the commands to the emulator simultaneously.  I thought this would be an issue, but even games like sonic adventure worked fine this way.