Controlling Robotron with twin joysticks

[Paradroid]

I've heard it's possible, can anybody explain simply how to set this up?

[RepairCelt]

I plan to do this using an Ultimarc IPAC USB encoder. Wire the switches of the sticks and buttons to it, connect it via USB, then run through the MiSTer's button configuration utility.

I hope to have it up and running this weekend. I have a control panel from an Arcade1Up TMNT cabinet that I'll be using for this.

EDIT: Apparently I will also need to pay attention to the JPAC/IPAC tutorial that is posted under the 'Inputs' thread of this forum.

[Paradroid]

Just to add, I have an 8bitdo twin STICK, PS3 Pad or a 360 Controller.

[Morfious]

If you are using an I-Pac and you map the joysticks to different players, (P1,P2) you will not be able to use the second joystick as part of Player 1 controls. I have a 2 player 6 button control panel that I was trying to work to get dual stick input for Robotron. I was unable to map both sticks to player 1.

If your joystick has dual analog inputs then you should be able to map 2 sticks to player one. I imagine that if you were creating a custom control panel for only Robotron you could map P1 buttons (A, B, X, Y) to a second stick and get the desired control scheme.

If anyone has a clever way to use dual sticks on a Street Fighter 2 layout I would love to know ho you accomplished it.

[RepairCelt]

Actually, I have it working. Used an Ultimarc IPAC2, which has one side for player one and another for player two. Movement is stick wired to player one, fire is wired to player two. Ran through the "Define Joystick Buttons" under system settings and assigned buttons wherever. I'm using the Arcade1Up TMNT 4-player control panel; so, 24 different switches.

I have 8-way gates on the two center sticks and 4-way gates on the outer sticks. I chose the appropriate stick for the game I'm playing and define the buttons in game.

Seems to work for Jotego's 1942, also. Still can't remap those controls, but at least the player one stick, fire, and loop buttons work. 1942 controls mostly seem to correspond with how the IPAC2 is labeled. Jotego's cores seem to be a different beast when it comes to control mapping.

[RepairCelt]

I was asked on Reddit to explain what I did to make it so I had twin stick input in Robotron. It may even have been one of you that asked. But,in case it wasn't, and for anyone else wanting to do it, I'll paste in my reply here:

I wired the IPAC2 up straight out of the box. I then ran through the define joystick utility in MiSTer to configure each switch (joystick direction or button) as whatever command I was being prompted to define. The first several definitions are the normal directional inputs and button presses; so they seemed to fit naturally. The later commands, I just assigned to whatever buttons were still undefined. Then, when in Robotron, I defined the keys for movement direction and fire direction. I just defined each direction of movement on one stick and each direction of fire on another stick.

Ultimately, everything got configured as being part of what MiSTer thinks is the Player 1 joystick. I never specifically defined anything as Player 2. I've since figured out that the IPAC2 is really a keyboard controller and is just transmitting keyboard inputs; i.e. "Up" on the joystick is really just the "Up Arrow" on a keyboard. I figured this out just a little bit ago when I used Ultimarc's IPAC configuration utility. The utility allows you to reprogram which keyboard input each of the IPAC's inputs acts as. It also allows you to turn off the 'Shift' function so that it doesn't mess up your gameplay when you happen to hit the button defined as "Shift" and another button at the same time. The IPAC2 is preprogrammed for its inputs to correspond to standard MAME keyboard inputs, but the utility allows you to reprogram them and those changes are written to the board.

I should also note that I did not edit the mister.ini file with any special instructions.

[Morfious]

I am using the latest version of Mister with the JammaSD support built in. I have updated my Mister.ini file to reflect the PID and VID of my IPAC2. When I map everything I am able to get Robotron to recognize either the P1 controls or the player 2 controls, but not both at the same time.

I am quite competent with the I-Pac and have made a bunch of custom arcade controllers over the years. I am fairly new to Mister and confused on how the input settings work.

[RepairCelt]

Sorry, looks like I won't be of much help to you. I'm new to the MiSTer environment and this is my first go around with the IPAC2. All I can tell you is that I didn't do anything fancy or special.

Is there maybe a copy of a file off of my MiSTer that you'd like to compare to?

EDIT: I'm also curious where the JammaSD comes in at. Do you have a Jamma adapter involved in the equation somewhere?