Home Page Forums Archives MacMAME (Analog) Joystick Compatibility & Callibration with MAME

Yes, I was about to suggest the same thing re MacMAME update. It'll be worth the wait

From seanraaron:
I would do this, except I am not sure how soon the next version will be released. I know that MacMAME updates don't appear very frequently. I would guess that the place I purchased it from would frown if I waited very long to return the item. I'm sorry about this topic being so lengthy. I was just really disappointed when I was unable to get the controller to work with MacMAME, especially since I did not have any callibration problems with the previous controller that I bought from Gravis (the Gamepad Pro), because that was the reason I purchased it.



Integra

I took my PowerBook to the shop (Myer on Bourke St. Mall) and they let me try all the different controllers out to see if they worked with my emulators, and whether I liked them. I'd recommend anyone else do the same before buying a game pad.

I guess I wasn't aware that MacMAME was only compatible with certain controllers. This explains why my Gravis Gamepad Pro works, but the new controller I have now doesn't. A question I have is ... is there a place that lists the controllers that are compatible with MacMAME, and that recommends what controllers to use with MacMAME? This would help anyone that is making a decision about which controller to buy, and let them know whether the controller they are considering is compatible with MacMAME or not. A list that shows what controllers are compatible with MacMAME would have saved me some frustration and disappointment as well. I thought all USB controllers were the same ... now, I know they are not.

The trouble with supporting USB HID controllers is that there are so many possibilities. The HID spec. gives a lot of freedom. Think of the start button. Pretty simple, huh? But it can be reported as a button, or a start control. It can have an arbitrary on value that could be anything the manufacturer likes.

Or what about an eight-direction d-pad? You'd probably report it as a hat switch. But what units do you give? My Logitech reports a physical minimum of 0 and maximum of 7 corresponding to a logical minimum of 0 and maximum of 315 in units of degrees. It reports a physical value of 8 for the neutral position (out of range). But you could report values in degrees directly, or use some other arbitrary range of physical values.

Analog axes are even more fun. You can report them as the X, Y, Z, Rx, Ry and Rz axes, or as vectors, or as many of the things on the simulation controls page, in any units you want, with all kinds of physical and logical ranges.

It's a lot of work to try to support all the possibilities. Apple's HID utilities library attempts to help. However, it's quite inflexible, and can cause problems. For instance, it completely screws up the value from the d-pad on my Logitech. It isn't really fair to expect any piece of software to support every USB HID controller.