Help with controller interface, please

[tykenfitz]

Ok, so i'm kind of confused here.

I can't decide what controller interface to get, I'm ordering from GGG so I was just thinking of getting the normal keyboard encoder here: http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=76_80&products_id=303


Then I saw this cheap version of the ipac on ultimarc's site.
http://www.ultimarc.com/ipacve.html
But, It says that It dosen't remember the button programming after shut down.  I thougt that the encoder didn't handle that, can't I just hook up the buttons to it and go into MAME and tell it what I want the buttons to do?  Also I noticed that the ipac using holding the 1st player button as shift, I like this and the keywiz has a seperate shazaam input, could I just hook up the 1p start to both 1p start and the s! input and not have a dedicated button?


Also, I'm not sure how the programming goes down on these things, I have a joystick, start and 3 button per person, so I thought for example I just hook up the first button for the first player to 1SW1 on the iPac then open controls for this game in metal slug and press enter then the key to set it.  Do i need to use some other program?


Thanks, sorry I rambled...

[Dazz]

Don't go cheap...  Spend the extra and do what you really want to end up with in the long run.  Re-doing something after costs more in the long run than what you would save buying cheap.

Perhaps if you gave a little more information on what exactly are you trying to accomplish it would be easier for us to give an educated response.  Are you building a 1 player, 2 player, or 3/4 player setup?  How many buttons do you want to use for each player?  What extra buttons/controls are you looking to add/interface?

The IPAC VE, I think it's what you speak of.... I think it does have the default MAME controls mapped, but if you change the mapping then the card will not save your mappings.  You would have to re-map each time you needed different buttons instead of the default MAME controls. 

As a suggestion... The default MAME mapping for keyboard sucks.  You will want to change the mapping from the default MAME mapping anyway as using Windows buttons can really screw with other emulators. 

[WhereEaglesDare]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=103070.0

[nick3092]

I have the GP Wiz 40 from GGG and love it so far. No need to upload custom mappings to the encoder. If an emulator can't handle joysticks, then I can just fire up joy2key in a bat file that starts the emulator.

[mytymaus007]

If you want to play Dragons lair go with an Ipac.

[RandyT]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=103070.0

Yes, and be sure to check out the video I posted there, which demonstrates how slick the programming software works for the other 99.5% of those who use it.  That's a great compatibility figure for Windows PC's being the sometimes non-standard beasts they are.

Regardless, most will never need to change the mappings...that's what the TAB key is for in MAME, and the sooner one gets used to crawling around in there, the better one's experience will ultimately be with that software.  No matter which encoder you decide to use, you'll need to make some modifications to the controls schemes of the software you intend to use, just like you did with your keyboard or your favorite joystick.  If you don't, then you will be constantly changing the control set of the interface, and then internal retention of that codeset becomes very unimportant.  Interfaces with default sets modeled around MAME defaults just make the process of tweaking that software to your controls easier by giving you a big head start.  What's really important is build quality and interfaces built with performance in mind (not all of them are).  Stick to the well known solutions, and you should be fine.

If you want to play Dragons lair go with an Ipac.

And why might that be?  I've played quite a lot of Dragon's Lair on my cab, and I have never even seen one of those  .

RandyT

[BadMouth]

Spend the extra and get the one that saves your settings, then you will never have to worry about it.

I had to remap my x-arcade because some emulators don't accept the CTRL & ALT keys.
It "saves" the settings, but every time I start up my system, I have to press a button on the back of the control panel twice to "load" it.

Small thing, takes 2 seconds, but still annoys the crap out of me.