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Anybody know what is unique about the Sinistar controls?

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MPTech:
I've had my cab running for about 8 months and have had very little trouble playing most of the games I like.  I'm utilising an X-Arcade CP (it's really not too bad, but I wish I had found this site before I bought it. oh well ..... next cab!)
Anyway, I ran across Sinistar a couple nights ago and remembered playing it a few times, from my younger days.
It started ok, but I couldn't move about with the joystick, sit sit in 1 position firing.  I don't think this is the way I remembered it!

Do I have the wrong joystick or is a setting incorrect?  like I said, almost every other game is great. no problems.

ppilot:
I don't fully understand your post.  Sinistar uses a 49-way joystick, but it should play (badly) with an 8 way.  What does 'I couldn't move about with the joystick, sit sit in 1 position firing' mean?

MPTech:
sorry, I'll try to explain better.

the ship doesn't move at all.  the joystick doesn't have any effect.
I can only get 1 button to fire (are there more buttons? I don't know)

the joystick works great for every other game I play

Tiger-Heli:
First off, SiniStar used a very unique joystick - it was a 49-way joystick with a centering spider (sortof like rubber bungee) - See here for photos and exploded views: http://epg3.tripod.com/sinistar.html

RandyT (www.groovygamegear.com) sells 49-way sticks and interfaces, and both he and 1Up were working on making repro spiders, but I'm not sure that ever materialized.

What this means is - the 49-way is a crude analog joystick, meaning for each direction, instead of just Up or Centered, the Stick knew if you were Centered, 1/3-Up, 2/3-Up, or UP.  The centering spider meant that it was easy to move the stick in small motions, but harder to move it the further from center you went.

As far as MAME goes, short of a GP-Wiz49 and a real stick or a newer 49-way stick, you will probably get the best gameplay from an analog joystick (PC flightstick).  If you don't have one, you should be able to at least move the stick using an 8-way stick, but you probably have to go into MAME and tell it that for 49-way games you want to use the keyboard, but I'm not sure how to do this anymore.  You can probably find out at http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/mameguide/mamecontrolini.htm

Howard_Casto:
49 way games are mapped to the ad_stick. 

With respect mptech, learn how to use mame.  When you have control problems you generally want to try to fix them via mame's in-game settings.  You can remap anything to anything you know. 

But what the others said is true... sinistar is kinda crappy without a 49-way. 

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