Tutorial: How to set up your MiSTer with a J-PAC/I-PAC

[caad]

Unfortunately I'm not sure about non-arcade cores... but I wish all cores would support the MAME keymap out of the box.

[hiddenbyleaves]

Does anybody know a way to add a player 3 and 4 when using an ipac? When I connect another controller it gets mapped as player 2 again

[thorr]

Does anybody know a way to add a player 3 and 4 when using an ipac? When I connect another controller it gets mapped as player 2 again

Only player 1 and 2 are supported as far as I know. If you want four players, you would need four "joystick" devices connected (and possibly four USB connections unless the USB device can provide four separate joystick "devices").

[thorr]

Unfortunately I'm not sure about non-arcade cores... but I wish all cores would support the MAME keymap out of the box.

I wish that all cores could use any device for any input in any core. Plug all your stuff in, bring up a list of all controls for the core, select an item in the list, press a function on a device to define it in the core, and allow multiple entries for each input in the list. This is the way Mame does it and it is super flexible.

[hiddenbyleaves]

Does anybody know a way to add a player 3 and 4 when using an ipac? When I connect another controller it gets mapped as player 2 again

Only player 1 and 2 are supported as far as I know. If you want four players, you would need four "joystick" devices connected (and possibly four USB connections unless the USB device can provide four separate joystick "devices").

So I need to replace my ipac with daemon bite controllers to get 4 players. Or possibly hassle Sorg but I don't want to do that.

[thorr]

Does anybody know a way to add a player 3 and 4 when using an ipac? When I connect another controller it gets mapped as player 2 again

Only player 1 and 2 are supported as far as I know. If you want four players, you would need four "joystick" devices connected (and possibly four USB connections unless the USB device can provide four separate joystick "devices").

So I need to replace my ipac with daemon bite controllers to get 4 players. Or possibly hassle Sorg but I don't want to do that.

This is my understanding: The first USB device plugged in that is considered a joystick (not a keyboard) is player one. The next is player two. The next is player three, and so on. You could reprogram your IPAC-2 (assuming that is what you have) to be up to two joysticks instead of keyboard keys. An IPAC-4 doesn't support more than two joysticks unfortunately, otherwise that could have been a good solution. So in theory, you could get a second IPAC-2 for your player 3 and 4 joysticks, or use Arduino's programmed as joysticks for players three and four. I am not entirely sure what setting the jamma_vid and pid does for you with an IPAC. It seems it should just work anyway without it.

Looking at the examples of Arduino possibilities, it looks like one Arduino can represent more than one HID device. Here is an example with two Sega controllers on one Arduino: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Retro-C ... rollersUSB
Theoretically, it should be possible to use a Teensy 3.5 to get more pins and support all four devices with one USB connection and have four HID joysticks on it plus a spinner, etc.: https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy35.html It supports up to 64 digital pins, so with 10 per player (joystick and 6 buttons), you have plenty. Most four player games only need two buttons, so 24 digital pins are needed. In this case a Teensy 3.2 is enough. Extra pins can be used for other buttons like Coin, Menu, etc. I looked on the Teensy forum and this question was asked recently, and it is not clear how/whether the Teensy supports multiple HID devices on one Teensy. It's not real clear with Arduinos either, but the linked above Sega Two Controllers might be a viable example. I built my own dual arcade joystick panel with a Teensy so I can experiment.

Just thinking about it, probably the best thing to do is just use multiple Arduinos, one for each joystick, and a USB hub. It might make sense to wire up a switch or have a toggle button to switch between joystick and keyboard output, and of course this would need to be coded into the Arduino. The main reason I want to use keyboard output at all is because I want to use two joysticks as player one in Super Smash TV on the SNES, and the keyboard is the only way to be able to control both player one and player two for arcade cores, or just player one for the SNES core. Alternatively, I could just make a separate four joystick panel with joystick output, and leave the two-joystick panel as keyboard output, just for use with arcade cores and Super Smash TV, and one player console use.

This might be needed/useful for having more than one Arduino. It tells you how to rename each one so they are all unique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAbi_AqF7aQ

[hiddenbyleaves]

Thank you for all the information, very useful going forward.

What I have is old groovymame arcade cabinet, inside of which I have switched the PC for a MiSTer. The control panel is two player NeoGeo style connected to a minipac. After making the relevant changes to the .ini file everything worked for two players brilliantly. I added a blutooth dongle and two 8bitdo controllers thinking that while two people are playing at the control panel, a third player could pick up a blutooth controller and join as player 3. However this did not work because the extra controller gets assigned as player two again.

[hiddenbyleaves]

I'll probably just go ahead with 2 arduinos for the control panel and then the two blutooth controllers for players 3 and 4.

[thorr]

I'll probably just go ahead with 2 arduinos for the control panel and then the two blutooth controllers for players 3 and 4.

Is your minipac configured with keyboard or joystick output for the two joysticks? It sounds like it is configured for keyboard. If you change it to joystick using the Winipac Configuration Utility, then your two bluetooth controllers should work as player 3 and 4, assuming it creates two separate joystick HID devices.

[hiddenbyleaves]

Ah yes I will give that a go first. Honestly it has been so long since I built the original control panel I don't know what I'm doing anymore. Thanks again for loaning me your brain for a moment

[AmanoJacu]

Hi, greetings from Barcelona (Spain), I just ordered a Mister FPGA from Antonio Villena that should be here next week. I want to use it on my cab but I believer I'll have issues with controls, specially for player 2.

I have a vewlix cabinet that uses a mini-pac for controls (I bought the cab with it included and already configured), and I use it connected to a PC with no problem so far. The mini-pac maps all buttons and directions to keyboard keys, but I believe in a non-standard way, like this:

P1: directions are arrow keys, the buttons are M W E H R U I G, Start=Return, InsertCoin=NUMPAD1
P2: up=K, left=NUMPAD6, down=O, left=P; the buttons are A F L B N J Z V, Start=NUMPA8, InsertCoin=NUMPAD2
And and extra button is ESC for exit.

To use it in my PC as gamepads (as it is more convenient for most emulators and games, specially Street Fighter V), I use Keyboard2Xinput that converts the keyboard to two Xbox 360 pads in Windows, with each button/key assigned to the more convenient gamepad button.

So what will happen when I try to use the Mister with the mini-pac? I will try to follow the tutorial here, but it is unclear to me when it says "and Player 2's keys have been automatically mapped per the key definitions at https://www.ultimarc.com/control-interf ... interface/"

I guess I can try to access the mini-pac config and change the button assignments if needed.

Thanks for your help!

[AmanoJacu]

Well, I just got my Mister, I followed this tutorial, and it all worked like charm, so far the 2 players have worked in all the cores and games I have tried, mostly arcade. I had to use winipac to change the configuration of my minipac to the mame default, and make changes accordingly to my PC setup that uses it for steam games and other emulators.

[AmanoJacu]

Does anybody know a way to add a player 3 and 4 when using an ipac? When I connect another controller it gets mapped as player 2 again

I just managed to do so, the only "problem" is that other than the ipac itself (I have a mini-pac), I had to connect 3 additional USB gamepads. Then the 1P and 2P of my arcade control panel connected to the IPAC would also work as 1P and 2P (doubling the controls of the first 2 pads), and the third gamepad would be the 3rd player.

Then I could play 3 players in Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.

[Dazed]

Any chance of getting the ultimate io / ipac4 working ?

The keyboard mappings are listed on the website under the installation section.
https://www.ultimarc.com/control-interf ... imate-i-o/

I have a 4 controller arcade cabinet which I built and would love to get working with mister instead of retroarch/mame.


Thanks

[Giddygoon]

I have just finished setting up my new Mister/Blast city cab, everything is looking great games, sound, Super Attract mode, Favourites ... but I have hit a snag. I can not configure the JPAC

My Keyboard ID from the JPAC is d209:0301

I have done the below :

; JammaSD/J-PAC/I-PAC keys to joysticks translation
; You have to provide correct VID and PID of your input device
; Examples: Legacy J-PAC with Mini-USB or USB capable I-PAC with PS/2 connectors VID=0xD209/PID=0x0301
; USB Capable J-PAC with only PS/2 connectors VID=0x04B4/PID=0x0101
; JammaSD: VID=0x04D8/PID=0xF3AD
jamma_vid=0xD209
jamma_pid=0x0301

I then select "Define joystick buttons" and press Enter
I can set up the first 6 buttons and select and start but then it says mouse right and I press space and nothing happens and I can't move on.

I have tried plugging in a xbox 360 controller and there is no problem all the buttons directions define and I can skip via space bar on my external USB keyboard.

I have checked and my JPAC is an older PS/2 to usb connection.
I hope someone can help as I can't finish the project.

Also another thing i noticed that if I configure in say street fighter 2 alpha I can set all six buttons coin and player one start but when i try the game player 1 and player 2 don't respond and the last kick i.e button six from player 1 side is now button four on the second player side.

Any ideas ?

[AmanoJacu]

I then select "Define joystick buttons" and press Enter
I can set up the first 6 buttons and select and start but then it says mouse right and I press space and nothing happens and I can't move on.

Maybe the problem is that the JPAC is acting as a keyboard, so now the space from a real keyboard doesn't actually work as such. Does your mister have physical buttons? Maybe you can skip it by pressing one of them.

Another possibility would be just connecting a real mouse.

[Giddygoon]

Ok, I will try that ... My mister does have the three buttons on the top ... and if that does not work I will connect a mouse

If all of this does not work, do you think buying a new JPAC with mini USB may work better

is anyone here using the latest JPAC?

Does it configure, no problems?

Thanks for any help

[Giddygoon]

Ok, so the mister button USER does work as a ( Space to skip ) and i can now skip functions i don't need to set.

Thank you

I tried to configure Street Fighter II and the Mister takes the six buttons and player 1 player 2 which I set for coin and player 1 but when I start the game I don't have the full 6 buttons. e.g the button six hard kick is now located as button four on player 2 and player 1 and player 2 buttons don't do anything
I can't add a coin which is 5 on the keyboard

My JPAC is wired correctly with a kick harness which works with my PCBS and my Mame set up

Any ideas?

[AmanoJacu]

I tried to configure Street Fighter II and the Mister takes the six buttons and player 1 player 2 which I set for coin and player 1 but when I start the game I don't have the full 6 buttons. e.g the button six hard kick is now located as button four on player 2 and player 1 and player 2 buttons don't do anything
I can't add a coin which is 5 on the keyboard

My only idea is that maybe your JPAC is not 100% configured as following the default MAME keyboard buttons, which can be found here:

https://docs.mamedev.org/usingmame/defaultkeys.html (default arcade game controls)

You would need to connect it to something with a USB port that registers as a keyboard (such as a PC), press each button on the cab, and see what keyboard key registers.

This is what happened to me, I bought a pre-configured vewlix cab with a minipac for controls, but configured in a very weird way. I had to use ultimarc's WINPAC to reconfigure it. I don't know if it would be possible to do that in your older JPAC.

I also don't know if you wouldn't have problems with a newer JPAC, all I can say is that my minipac, after configuring it to default MAME keys, works fine.

[Giddygoon]

Thanks for the advice, I put it down to it being a really old JPAC PS/2 version which is PS/2 to USB

I can get it to work and its too old to adjust with Winpac of flash the firmware

I have just bought the latest JPAC mini USB version

I will post an update here if it works ( :

[Giddygoon]

I have just bought the latest JPAC mini USB version, and now been able to set up jamma_vid=0xD209
jamma_pid=0x0450 player 1 and player 2 with Winpac to flash the firmware.

But for the life of me I can't set up the coin buttons, I have a Sega Blast City cab with 2 joysticks, 6 buttons aside and two player 1 and player two buttons.
All set apart from coin 5 and coin 6

I have tried the 1 player and slide to 5 doesn't work, is there any other way?? I am so close to finishing this project, just two more settings

I also have no idea how to set an OSD two button combo with the JPAC, also i cant finish the OSD set up, a few this still left to do

If anyone has done this on correctly on a Sega Blast City with Mister, please tell me what your config is

Thanks again

[AmanoJacu]

I'm sorry I can't be of more help, I have a Vewlix cab (actually a chinese copy) that doesn't use JAMMA, I directly connect the Mister to the screen via HDMI, and the controls are directly wired from the cab buttons to the miniPAC, and from there via USB to the Mister. I have two buttons for coins in the cab, that in the miniPAC are wired to keys 5 and 6, and they just work as they should. The OSD is assigned to another button in the cab.

[Giddygoon]

I will play with JPAC later, I may just make some extra switches on the cab for coin and OSD menu, if only Mister could multi config the same buttons i.e player 1 + player 2 +player 2 button 3 + OSD menu ... things like like that

everything went together so easy e.g the correct 31khz output, SAM, Favourites list, I never thought the USB controls were going to be this difficult

Thanks for the advice ( :

[Giddygoon]

Success !!!

This is the end of my journey with Mister and Jpac in my Sega Blast City.

Things i could not work out was to set up a combo button player i.e mame player 1 is also mame 5 = credit

So i set up my Jpac to standard mame keyboard settings i.e left ctrl, left Alt, etc

And I just want to point out that mame ( I ) is not recognised and has to be re-programed with WinPac to (E)
Anyway I lucky I still had my coin mech working and was able to set the coin mech to mame 5 for credit

All working now, I open the service door and just use the I/O board buttons to get into the OSD. Reset - OSD - User

Just thought I leave a road map for anyone using a real jamma cab with no extra buttons

Very happy with the results ( :

[AmanoJacu]

I'm glad it worked, congrats!

Things i could not work out was to set up a combo button player i.e mame player 1 is also mame 5 = credit

You should be able to do that, but in each core. When you configure the buttons, use the "alternate buttons" to assign two functions to the same button. Is the standard way to have the same button two different things, or have two different buttons for the same thing.

[Giddygoon]

OK, Update !!!

Almost perfect

I set up all my games from A to Z and found that things are not perfect Ataris Gauntlet I and Gauntlet II only sees the Jpac as one joystick, the same goes for Neo Geo games, i.e Metal Slug, two player at the same time is not possible as the Jpac is seen as one controller.

So this is a deal breaker ) :

I have my Jamma connector in Sega Blast city is original, is there anything else on the market that will connect to the Jamma and also been seen as two controllers or HIDS

I am going to have to remove the Jpac and replace with somthing thats seen as two controllers

any ideas, what are other people doing with there arcade cabs, thanks again for any advice

[AmanoJacu]

I set up all my games from A to Z and found that things are not perfect Ataris Gauntlet I and Gauntlet II only sees the Jpac as one joystick, the same goes for Neo Geo games, i.e Metal Slug, two player at the same time is not possible as the Jpac is seen as one controller.

Well, the whole tutorial in the first post is about having 2 players in the same USB device. In my case, it worked fine, as long as the miniPAC was wired exactly as the MAME default. Then the second player button configuration would mimic the first player one. In my vewlix cab, that doesn't have a JAMMA connector (no need for it, the screen is a modern LCD with HDMI inputs) the controls are directly wired to the miniPAC, and from there a USB cable to the mister or PC.

It is still not clear to me how you have your cab and the mister exactly wired. Are you using the JAMMA connector? There are mister-JAMMA adaptors that already convert the button inputs for both players and don't need anything else. I don't own a JAMMA cab, but I got my mister and a JAMMA adaptor from Antonio Villena (I live in Spain):

https://antoniovillena.es/store/product/jamma-adapter/

And I have tried it in a JAMMA cab and it also works fine. Notice that if your mister is not from Antonio Villena, there might be som compatibility issues.

[Giddygoon]

my Sega Blast city is wired like this,

standard 2 player 6 buttons each side and player 1 and player 2 select buttons, street fighter set up

inside the cab is a started jamma loom wired jamma standard and the also additional capcom kick harness for the last three kicks on each side.

Arcade monitor is a VGA 31khz which has a direct signal from the Mister FPGA

I have all the joysticks and Sanwa buttons including kick harness are connected to SEGA Blast City I/O Converter Board and a jamma loom comes from there and connects to the latest JPAC adapter with then goes to USB A to the Mister.

Vip -209 Pid 450

in the Mister ini, but Neo Geo games and Gauntlet, only see the Jpac as one keyboard ... I'm out of ideas

I was thinking to purchase Antonio Villena JAMMA adapter, It looks like its the perfect JPac replacmeant

[Giddygoon]

Ok, things have improved, I set the Jpac to Mode 3 by holding down the 3 button and 1 player

This changed the device to a Gamepad instead of a keyboard, same ID and I did'nt re define the key still on Jamma standard
And Gauntlet now works but still unable to select player two for Neo Geo games i.e Metal Slug

[AmanoJacu]

Ok, things have improved, I set the Jpac to Mode 3 by holding down the 3 button and 1 player

This changed the device to a Gamepad instead of a keyboard, same ID and I did'nt re define the key still on Jamma standard
And Gauntlet now works but still unable to select player two for Neo Geo games i.e Metal Slug

If you have the Jpac in controller mode (that is, not keyboard), do you have 2 players in the mister (in at least some cores/systems)? That's weird, according to this tutorial, you can only have 2 players in keyboard mode and doing all the explained setup, otherwise only one player can use it, and the second player controls act as the same first player, since the mister detects only one USB controller and there's no other workaround than the explained here, as far as I know.

As matter of fact, since in my vewlix cab I also use a PC, having the miniPAC configured as a keyboard was quite trouble. As I explained in my first posts in this thread, in the PC I had a program that converted the keyboard to controllers. But some time ago I decided that program was giving a lot of extra trouble, and I decided to put my miniPAC in controller mode. Now the PC works much better, but in the mister, I can only play one player. I don't really mind since I don't play 2 players that often in the mister and I have other setups for it including a CRT, and if I want to have 2 players in the vewlix cab, I can put the miniPAC in keyboard mode again temporarily.