Posted by Matt B. on September 25, 1999 at 11:43:18:
In Reply to: 4-way vs. 8-way joystick questions posted by =-JacK-= on September 24, 1999 at 12:29:41:
: First thanks to everyone who took the time to respond to my post yesterday. I feel lucky to have ya'll as a resource for my little obsession (er...hobby). I'll have a revised design incorporating a lot of your suggestions up soon.
: Secondly can someone help me understand 8-way joysticks in MAME?
: I looked at the 8-ways at Happ and see that they have just 4 microswitches. In MAME the 8-way games have button mapping for just 4 keys (UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT).
: 1.Am I right to conclude that MAME interprets a simultaneous LEFT and UP keypress as "left diagonal up"?
: 2.If so, does it follow that an 8-way joystick presses two microswitches at a time?
: I've been using a couple of old Pac Man red ball 4-way sticks on my stand-alone controller since MAME V.29 with no gameplay problems. Until now I assumed the MAME documented the games with 8-way input but that the diagonals were not used because of the lack of mapped inputs.
: BOTTOM LINE QUESTION: What benefit does an 8-way joystick offer over a 4-way one in MAME?
Thanks for the Visio Stencil Jack, it'll help as I design extra control panels for my cabinet.
If you are not going to have both 4w and 8w joysticks, go with 8w. Most games use the 8w joysticks and many of the game that use 4w play just fine with an 8w. There are a few games that are a little difficult to use an 8w on, such as PacMan, Dig Dug and Burger Time.
If you have display the game information, it should tell you what the controls for the game are.
I have some of the Happ joysticks that can be switched from 4w to 8w. It's a matter of removing an ering and flipping over the base actuator. It's not something that is real easy to do, just because those damn little erings are a pain. I would just spend the extra $12 to buy another joystick to use as a 4w.
That brings me to another point. You probably only need one 4w joystick, because most games that have more than one player playing at a time use 8ways. Game like Pacman, Dig Dug and Burger Time, Player 1 and Player 2 use the same joystick.
Hope that helps.
--Matt