Going to build a racing MAME arcade, what to use for steering?

john2654

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Going to build a racing MAME arcade, what to use for steering?

I have a MAME machine that only has 2 switchable 4-way/ 8-way joysticks and 14 buttons. It is great for MKII and stuff like that, but I would like to make one to play games that require a steering wheel. I have a Pole Position II that I have given up on. That would be a nice candidate. I know how to do all the MAME stuff, so I just need to know how to integrate the wheel/ pedal to the computer. Or is there a nice PC steering wheel that I can hack onto the Pole Position II cab?
 
just use the wheel already on the machine
if i rember correct thats a optic based wheel so go to groovy game gear and purchase the optiwiz it will hook right up and run perfect
then for gas you have 2 options either convert the pedal to a switch and use a keywiz for your shifter gas and other buttons
or
ultimarc sells a pot based encoder board that will hook right up to a pc and work just like the original pot based pedal (i hate ultmarc so id go the groovy game gear route but im biased)

every mame rig i have seen with a hacked pc wheel always looks like crap (aka a cheap crappy plastic pc wheel cramed into a nice arcade machine )


if you are going to do it do it right
 
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yeah use the original, friend used a xbox guts and wired it into the original cabinet wheel and pedals, and works a treat, plays all the old games via Xbox Mame, and also allowed him to play forza etc, few extra buttons had to be added but def use the original equipment :)
 
Well if I can use the original equipment, I will defiantly do it that way. I'd rather go plug and play instead of hacking things up. I've ordered from Ultimarc before so that is not a problem. Can I get links to exactly what I need? I'm thinking I will get the optiwiz from groovygames: http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/...ath=76_85&products_id=260&number_of_uploads=0
but it says it does 3 mouse buttons too, will that do the gas or is for a shifter? A link to what I need for gas pedal would be great.
Thanks much!
 
the optiwiz does do 3 buttons but they will be mouse button inputs aka left/right click and middle click(they would be best suited for the shifter)

using them for primary buttons can cause problems (they are gret when using the optiwiz to convert a trackball to mame lol)

if you are going to go keyboard mouseless i reccomend just grabing the key wiz and modfiying the gas to be a on off switch then you can mount a small joystick somewhere(somthing like on the newer megatouch ion machines or a xbox thumb stick) so you can navagite the menu and select games ,there is nothing more ugly than having a mame machine that you have to pull out a keybpard or mouse to select game s



as far as the pot based encoder boards from ultmarc im pretty much lost there i was going to do the same as you but after contacting the company for info about the specs on their diffrent pot encoders and them just constantaly saying either will work and not anwsering my ? about the specs of each diffrent controller i said screw the comany if they dont know what the detailed specs of their product is i refuse to buy from them
 
I have a small wireless remote control that has a USB dongle. It has a mini keyboard and a touchpad so I can navigate Windows & MAME. Just need the simplest method to convert the Pole Position wheel and pedal to USB for the PC.
 
Got a reply from Andy at Ultimarc. Looks like the U-HID would handle everything on the Pole Position including the steering, gas pedal, shifter and coin switches. As long as the wheel is optical and the foot pedal uses a pot.
 
Remember with Pole Position you have a single button shifter in there, the game defaults to low gear unless that switch is being held down. Problem is that Pole Position in MAME doesn't work like that, instead it uses a button that toggles between high and low gear, so the real shifter won't run the game properly in MAME (or at least it didn't back when I built my conversion). I ended up contacting a guy on BYOAC that built a conversion as well. He recompiled MAME to support proper shifting behavior for Pole Position and Pole Position II, which is what I ended up using. The downside was the recompile was for DOS MAME v0.56 - quite ancient.

I don't know if MAME has changed how PP and PPII work these days. Alternatively I was thinking of installing an Atari 4 gear shift (reverse N) since that would alleviate the problem and also allow me to play more games. As long as you boot the game in 1st or 3rd gear the high / low shifting in Pole Position / Pole Position II would be fine, since the toggle would always come on an up/down shift (with the proper key setup)...

LOW LOW
|....../|
|..../..|
|../....|
|/ .....|
HIGH HIGH

I ended up not doing the above since I decided to move onto another project after moving and didn't have the space.

The entire internals of the cabinet were completely trashed (shot wiring, tube neck cracked, boards shot, speakers rotted, ARII boards oxidized to hell, etc.) except for the cabinet itself and the control parts. I went super cheap with my conversion, I actually ran all my control surfaces off a hacked mouse. I used the mouse encoder for steering, one mouse button for the pedal (reversible conversion with a switch), the other mouse button for the shifter. The coin mechs ran to an internal keyboard that I did a single key hack for coin up on.

Even with the limited setup (looked stock from the outside) and old version of MAME, I had the following games on it...

Badlands
Championship Sprint (Revision 3)
Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat
Fire Truck
Konami GT
Pole Position
Pole Position (Atari Version 1)
Pole Position (Atari Version 2)
Pole Position II
Pole Position II (Atari Version)
Pole Position II (Bootleg Version 1)
Pole Position II (Bootleg Version 2)
Stocker
Ironman Ivan Stewart's Super Off-Road
Ironman Ivan Stewart's Super Off-Road Track Pak
Super Sprint (Revision 4)

It worked pretty well, I'll have to say. And ran for a couple years without any problems until I took it all apart.

special-poleposition-03.jpg


special-poleposition-16.jpg

(I did put a bigger monitor in there eventually.) I built the monitor shroud by hand since the original was garbage.
 
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