USB Paddle?

[godzillajoe]

You and me both, k8track. I'd really like to play Arkanoid in MAME but find it impossible using a joystick, even if it's analog.

 

You could get a Stelladaptor and plug a set of Atari paddles into that... it works great for Arkanoid in MAME, and is a lot easier than hacking up a mouse to build a spinner control.

 

Would a driving controller work for Tempest in MAME?

[Urchlay]

Would a driving controller work for Tempest in MAME?

 

Good question. I haven't tried it (my one driving controller feels like it's full of tiny pieces of gravel), but...

 

I *did* try the driving controller with a generic "joystick test" program once. It showed up as a 2-axis joystick, and turning the wheel caused motion on the two axes (one axis left, I think, then both left, then the other left, repeat). I dunno if MAME is smart enough to use this data as "spinner" data, but maybe.

[Sonja]

I started playing the PC game Reaxxion and am wondering why a simple USB paddle-style controller is not available.

 

Something like this: http://forums.logitech.com/logitech/board/...message.id=1282

 

Discussion here too: http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1331319

 

A lot of those websites seem to have high-quality parts for building your own arcade machine. I just want something simple like the Atari 2600 paddle, but with USB plug and play on Windows XP.

Edited August 4, 2009 by Sonja

[ulao]

Hey guys, have to bump this as it seem the most knowledgeable people talk in this thread. I know it goes back to 04 but need to stir up some talk. I'm not looking for a spinner but rather developing one of sorts. I have a project here and I will be using paddles with it but only console paddles. For example, atari paddles, driving wheels, nes arkanoid dials and what not. The problem with the emulators is that they all want to use a mouse. Its very clear to me why, but does not have to be this way.

 

why: well simple, the mouse is relative, in so that if you move X steps, so does the game. Pick it up and replace it and move x more steps, so does the game from that point. So for spinner games that perfect. Though, not many want to sit in front of the computer and play game. I like to sit back thx...

 

So for a joystick ( analog X ) you would basically do WYSIWYG. If the analog is all the way left you go to x:0( left of the screen) if its all the way right you go to analog x:255( right of the screen). This is why the knob stops ( not 100% sure about the nes arkanoid, but I think it does also ). Not many emulators do this but I see some progress is being made. There are apps out there that will emulate a mouse from joystick controllers but MAME uses raw input so forget that. At one point they didnt use raw input and it worked fine.

 

Alternatively I could send out a dual report in the usb to show up as a mouse but I'm not sure how you prevent the mouse from moving in the OS?

 

So I guess the proper way to attack this is to work with emulators or figure out a way to emulate the raw mouse. I have spent days trying the later with no avail. So that leave the former, and that is elementary to do. Just read an analog and position it absolutely. Yet mame has no option for that at all. I guess because the game its self does not do that but I did see an option in the service menu for changing inputs. Stellax just added it ( thx to me ). So far I can not get any mame devs to talk.

 

Many people dont get what I mean when I enplane this so here is a demonstration

http://spawnlinux.dyndns.org/tmp/joystick.swf

 

 

Would a driving controller work for Tempest in MAME?

not in its current design. It uses combo of directional movements to tell the atari game its being turned. This would be gibberish to tempest or mame. However the usb controller could turn the movement combo in to a X or Y movement. I dont think the resolution would be good for mame. The device is rather ingenious I think. This is an analog controller working in a digital mode. So for the time to make a single movement it would need to turn almost a full degree where is a spinner could have a much higher resolution ( i.e 100 clicks fer 15 deg ). Edited February 15, 2011 by ulao

[ulao]

I did it! success. I had to look in to the mame code and figure out how this all worked and I get it now. What I did to make this work is moving the paddle right will simulate the joystick moment right, but stop when you stop turning. And same the other direction. I kill the analog speed in mame and set sensitivity to 15 ( maybe set that how you like ) and the ending result is just the way you like it! So Atari paddles, are now usable in mame Well in any emulator for that matter. Going to test a few out.