Mame Games Using 4 Cardinal Directions?


tedbell

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How do you guys play your arcade games that require only 4 cardinal directions like PacMan, Ms PacMan, DigDug and so forth? Using the 8-way dpad is very difficult! I play these games rotated, so that the dpad is being used by your left hand and the menu button is activated by the right hand.

The trouble is when you hit the diagonal directions, the character doesn't move or gets goofed up.

It would be awesome if there was an option in MAME to flip the screen, so that the A/B/X/Y could be used instead. This would also work better for right-handed folks. I see that wiz_frontend.cpp has the code for rotating screens and controls, but I am no programmer, and trying to compile that would turn my Wiz into wizz.

So, what do you guys do to play those games?
 
I modded my d-pad to extend the pivot slightly. It helps with hitting accidental diagonals.

Other than that the only other solution rests in the programmer of the Wiz MAME port. It has to be made to filter diagonals better by only recognizing the one press (based on which it first I guess) and ignoring a diagonal.
 
DaveC said:
I modded my d-pad to extend the pivot slightly. It helps with hitting accidental diagonals.

Other than that the only other solution rests in the programmer of the Wiz MAME port. It has to be made to filter diagonals better by only recognizing the one press (based on which it first I guess) and ignoring a diagonal.

I emailed Franxis about this issue - I hope he is still continuing development of Mame4All, it is simply awesome!

Can you tell me how you modded your dpad? I know that I'm no Billy Mitchell, but even a two year old should be able to play better than this!
 
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Good news! Franxis emailed me back and said that he is working on a new version of Mame4All for the Wiz and he might put in the screen flipping in the next version!!! Perhaps when the RetroMadrid fair in March of 2010.

That would be awesome!
 
That would be awesome. The Neo Pocket had a nice solution to this. It was a little ring that slipped over the stick. Shame it's not possible for the Wiz. Who's this Franxis guy? Does he have a donate button? I've spend money on crap games in my life that haven't brought me any joy. If MAME4ALL makes me happy then I should float a few quid his way.
 
tedbell said:
DaveC said:
I modded my d-pad to extend the pivot slightly. It helps with hitting accidental diagonals.

Other than that the only other solution rests in the programmer of the Wiz MAME port. It has to be made to filter diagonals better by only recognizing the one press (based on which it first I guess) and ignoring a diagonal.

I emailed Franxis about this issue - I hope he is still continuing development of Mame4All, it is simply awesome!

Can you tell me how you modded your dpad? I know that I'm no Billy Mitchell, but even a two year old should be able to play better than this!
http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/wiz.cgi?0,0,0,0,23,192

Don't attempt this if you aren't good at such things though. One guy busted his screen doing it somehow (probably forced things ). It isn't hard at all, but if you are all thumbs it is best to steer clear of doing it.
 
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DaveC said:
Don't attempt this if you aren't good at such things though. One guy busted his screen doing it somehow (probably forced things ). It isn't hard at all, but if you are all thumbs it is best to steer clear of doing it.

Thanks, Dave!
 
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SONY said:
A little off-topic here, people..but has anyone played Street Fighter II games on Wiz, if yes, how is it? Are you pulling off the moves quite easily? B)

SF2 doesn't play that well due to the dodgy diagonals on the Dpad, and if you press both the L & R buttons together it pauses the game!
(Hopefully the pause/back to menu buttons will be moved away from these buttons when we get an update e.g. Vol- & Vol + as the NES & SNES emulators)
The only way for you to find out how it plays is to give it a go!
Cheers, Neil

Off topic: Disabling the diagonals would be perfect on Mr. Do! etc. (As it's hard going at the moment to to the Dpad, even the NES's Dpad was better than this one!)
 
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Neil L said:
SF2 doesn't play that well due to the dodgy diagonals on the Dpad, and if you press both the L & R buttons together it pauses the game!

Are you playing in MAME? I play Super Street Fighter II in the Capex CPS2 emulator and I don't remember L + R returning to the menu or pausing the game. I think you had to press L + R + Menu.

In any case, I agree about the dodgy diagonals though, it is frustrating.
 
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