Looking for Programmable Controllers

[wolverine-master]

maj, i keep looking.
this shit is rediculous.
i cant find it anywhere.
does anyone have and extra pad for sale?
i'm a combo maker myself and have done everything so far by hand in all my vids.
i have alot of ideas that i want out my head.
decent combos, and new infinite ideas.
please help.

[Maj]

Sorry sir, the only thing you can do is keep looking and be patient. If i had a way to get ahold of them, i would have a giant stack of 'em waiting here to sell (at cost) to anyone on this forum who needed them. Even when we ask people like kysg in Japan, they say that the only way to find one is luck. Japanese auction sites are your only option, unless you're down to fly to Japan and hit up pawn shops. And somehow i don't think that would work out either.

Though since it's SBO season, there are a lot of SRK kids in Japan right now. If you know any of 'em, you might try having them ask around for you. Maybe some obscure video game shop has one buried in the used accessories section. Here's what the box looks like, so they know what to look for.

[wolverine-master]

i'm barely an american.
i dont know anyone from japan.
i look everyday....and i do mean everyday.

[Maj]

Aren't a lot of the East Coast guys going to Japan for SBO this weekend? I figured you'd know some of them. The only one i know is Sabin and i haven't talked to him in years, since i stopped using IRC.

[Magnetro]

Aren't a lot of the East Coast guys going to Japan for SBO this weekend? I figured you'd know some of them. The only one i know is Sabin and i haven't talked to him in years, since i stopped using IRC.

All I know is Justin Wong told the Japanese guys that he'll train them in Marvel so I'm expecting them to be x10 better next year.

That's right, I'm talking about Marvel. Again.

[ShinjiGohan]

Aren't a lot of the East Coast guys going to Japan for SBO this weekend? I figured you'd know some of them. The only one i know is Sabin and i haven't talked to him in years, since i stopped using IRC.

link from SRK on whose going
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=201528

[Maj]

Yup, already got that angle covered as best i could. Hopefully we get a couple of 'em from this opportunity but it seems like a longshot. Eh, can't hurt to try though.

[Magnetro]

Possible contact for more ppads? http://www.shoryuken.com/showthread.php ... ost8471834 Who was the person for whom he got the pad? Maj?

[Maj]

Nope, never heard of the guy. I got both of mine from yahoo.jp auctions through an online bidding/shipping service. Got the first one through Masato and the second one through Celga because their fees worked out to be a little cheaper.

Those prices are outrageous but if he can get them in good condition for (well) under $100 then i'll have to think about getting a third one because i've been using mine a lot lately and i'm starting to worry about one of them breaking.

[Maj]

I call this "The Hopeless Despair Thread of Shattered Dreams" aka "ASCII doesn't care about American people" thread. If you're in here looking for something, all i can say is good luck!

[Magnetro]

Well, with SSF4 coming up, people should look into asking that guy. It might work out. That + inpin adapters.

[ShinjiGohan]

yeah, still waiting on my 2nd one I ordered through him. Apparently the seller mailed him the wrong one the first time, so he had to send it back and by the time he got the right one his shipment deadline was missed.

[CPS2]

Maj, have you heard anything from that guy who was thinking about building some programmable controllers?

[Maj]

Nope. He registered here but then never posted and hasn't contacted me since.

[CPS2]

As for suggestions, I'll put them here so I don't forget:

-1 microcontroller controlling 2 characters
-works on consoles, PS2, PS3 & 360 preferred
-rather than connect to an actual control pad/stick, connect to a laptop and allow us to enter (and save) scripts. This could even replicate frame mame style scripts.
-allow keyboard commands to work as well, which will speed up navigating menus etc.

Once I get my PVR I'm gonna look into building one, I know a few guys who've done it, but they did it a bit differently (using arcade sticks and mini LCDs). Also I'm learning programming but I'm a total noob at it, wouldn't have a clue how to make this as easy to use as frame mame or whatever. I should be able to download the same program they used, hopefully it won't need to be changed too much. Really tho I don't have a clue what I'm doing, and if someone says it's "easy" then I'd pay them to build one for me

[Rufus]

Maj, have you heard anything from that guy who was thinking about building some programmable controllers?

I'm not that guy, but at this point I have the hardware for and am developing a single-controller Xbox360 set up, and am looking for information about which XBox360 pads are common ground to add a second. (The primary controller is a slightly modified SE stick -- I'm not sure I want to buy a second.) I'm looking at various possibilities, but for right now, the plan is to have the programmable interface on a serial port and interface to it from a terminal program such as HyperTerminal or Minicom.

I'm still doing assembly, and resolving technical issues , but I'm wondering what sort of features people want on their programmable controllers. My interest is primarily on the technical end of things, but here's the list of things which might be nice that I've got so far:

• Edit, store and manage programs on a computer.
• Drive all of the buttons and all of the directions on two controllers on the same clock.
• Input recording and conversion to combo programs.
• 'Direct drive' from the computer.
• Producing a AV compatible timing signal for use with AV recording devices.

[Raine]

Mmm, you've covered what I'd like to see and more. Most important are script -> input and input -> script interface with a PC so things can be edited effciently.

EDIT: oh yeah, I haven't come across the need to use it in the games I've worked on so far, but having some sort of random number generator for random mashing would be very useful for some games.

[CPS2]

Sounds awesome Rufus!

This might be what you're after:
http://www.gamingnow.net/diy/circuit-bo ... dcatz-4716

Keep us informed of how you're going

[Rufus]

EDIT: oh yeah, I haven't come across the need to use it in the games I've worked on so far, but having some sort of random number generator for random mashing would be very useful for some games.

"Random mashing" is easy if you want it to be like fuzz testing. If you want something human-like, it's probably better to use a record and playback approach.
There's probably going to be a 'human friendly' <-> 'stick friendly' utility of some kind anyway."...
How do you guys usually write down your programs- or do you just keep them in the pads?

This might be what you're after:
http://www.gamingnow.net/diy/circuit-bo ... dcatz-4716

That's exactly what I had in mind. Thanks for the link. Though, I think my next steps are going to be more of getting single-controller stuff working.

Edit: I saw your post in the invite thread. I suspect that hacking a microcontroller to a common ground controller (or toodles board) will save a lot of time and heartache over trying to reverse engineer the controller busses, which is almost certainly overkill for fighting games.

[CPS2]

Rufus: I know the guy that did the programming for this controller, it's worth checking out if you're looking for ideas:
http://www.tekkenzaibatsu.com/forums/sh ... did=112256

Also, have a look at the frame mame thread, as well as Dammit's stuff on FBA implementation of it. That's pretty much how we'd want it to work (I think).

I have a feeling that if you're making this for 360, you'll need 360 PCBs due to MS's encryption. PS3 stuff is more open, however I've heard things about random USB polling rates which can drop frames here and there. I'm a noob to this, just stuff I've overheard.

[Maj]

I don't know how much i can offer in terms of suggestions, but for me the main thing is that it's synched perfectly with the game. I think most consoles run at the same speed (whatever that may be). But then again, i've had to double up on inputs (holding everything for 2 frames whenever possible) for SF4 because there's some weird fluctuation where it messes up a lot if you do everything for 1 frame.

There's a chance my PS1->PS3 converters simply suck. That wouldn't surprise me at all. Never really had this problem with Dreamcast games. Well, most Dreamcast games. SFA3 was giving me hell. It was so bad that even doubling up on inputs didn't solve the problem. Maybe certain games run at different speeds or something. CFE on PS2 was troublesome too, and that probably wasn't a hardware issue because you don't need a converter to plug PS1 controllers into PS2.

So maybe it would be a good idea to have adjustable output rates. That way when you run into a game that keeps throwing off your combos, you have something you can adjust to find a better setting. I mean there's a good chance this won't help at all and certain games are just plain fucked, but it's worth a try.

Otherwise most of the features i'd request are already contained within the PC linkup. There's a lot i can do with text files on a computer that i can't do with stored inputs in a program pad. You wouldn't believe how much time i waste writing down provisional input sequences.

[Rufus]

So maybe it would be a good idea to have adjustable output rates. That way when you run into a game that keeps throwing off your combos, you have something you can adjust to find a better setting. I mean there's a good chance this won't help at all and certain games are just plain fucked, but it's worth a try.

That one of the 'technical issues' that I've been thinking about ever since I did the input testing...

[Rufus]

Could someone provide me with some sample frame-mame scripts? I'd like to see what they look like, and how big they are.

[error1]

Could someone provide me with some sample frame-mame scripts? I'd like to see what they look like, and how big they are.

there are some samples in dammit's lua script
http://www.mediafire.com/file/1jzknmxze ... 7-2010.zip

[Rufus]

Minor Status Update:
I've got direct drive through Terminals working for a single controller. Technically, I could feed AutoIt through HyperTerminal to make it do stuff.
The next step will be something that interprets commands and sends them.

[Smileymike101]

Is something like this worth it?http://www.emag.ro/gamepad/gamepad-thru ... --p2960696

I don't even know if it's a ppad, but i was some weird buttons on it so i guess it is?

[error1]

Neat, I find autoit easier to understand then framemame and it may save you some programing

@Smileymike101 doesn't look like one to me

[Rufus]

The driving part is now working. There's a bunch of refining to be done, but such is life.

[CPS2]

Sounds like it's coming along well

[Rufus]

Sounds like it's coming along well

It's not exactly a complicated proposition. On some level I'm tempted to try building one out of discrete components instead of using a microcontroller, but that's a project for another day. Some (hopefully) minor clean-up stuff, and then it's on to the second controller.