Daemonbite Saturn Not Working With 3D Controller?

[lajcik]

I got the Daemonbite USB adapter for Saturn pads and it seems it doesn't like the Sega 3D gamepad ( https://segaretro.org/3D_Control_Pad ) The regular gamepad works perfectly though.

I hooked up the adapter to my pc to see whats happening with the inputs and to my surprise buttons 2,3,4,6,7,8,9 are reported as pressed all the time.

Screenshot_1.png (10.03 KiB) Viewed 2358 times

When the gamepad is in dpad mode button 5 is constantly blinking and when the gamepad is in 'analog' mode it stays off.

I fired up the actual console to confirm the gamepad is working and its fine so the issue seems to be with the adapter, maybe the 3d pad sends some weird signals because of its dual nature.

Does anyone have experience with this?

I honestly don't care about the analog stick, only a few Saturn games made use of it anyway. I just always liked the feel of the pad

[dazzer69]

According to MickGyver’s GitHub, 3D controller not supported.

[lajcik]

Thanks for pointing that out.

Followup question then:

After a bit of googling around I've found this https://github.com/sonik-br/SaturnLib which seems to support the 3d controller and a bunch of other stuff to boot. Can anyone experienced with arduino tell if this code is even remotely compatible with the deamonbite adapter?

I might try and take a stab at this when I have some time during summer. Having never touched an arduino before it will obviously take a good while, but it might be a fun learning experience

[Waifu4Life]

I tried a few Saturn to USB converters in the past and the 3D controller didn't work on any of them (TwinSticks worked however). Let's hope for a Saturn SNAC adapter in the future, a dual one with some luck for dual gun support!

[hipsofjw]

Raphnet adapter works perfectly fine with the 3D Pad. If you want one, I'd order now. There are often big availability gaps with their products recently due to supply chain issues.

https://www.raphnet-tech.com/products/s ... /index.php

[fierman]

Thanks for pointing that out.

Followup question then:

After a bit of googling around I've found this https://github.com/sonik-br/SaturnLib which seems to support the 3d controller and a bunch of other stuff to boot. Can anyone experienced with arduino tell if this code is even remotely compatible with the deamonbite adapter?

I might try and take a stab at this when I have some time during summer. Having never touched an arduino before it will obviously take a good while, but it might be a fun learning experience

Do it Even if you have no experience, with only a slight bit of knowledge of programming and some searching around you will have something up and running in a single afternoon. Don't try to reprogram your adapter though, but start from scratch with a new board.

[sonik]

Hi!
I'm the author of the SaturnLib. Also of the RetroZord adapter (which uses the SaturnLib).

If your adapter have all the saturn pins wired to the arduino then it's possible to use the RetroZord firmware on it.

By doing a quick look at the daemonbite page, looks like it uses some shared pins for player 1 and player 2.
If you want to use the RetroZord code, then you will be limited to just one controller connected a time. Sharing those pins makes it impossible to use some more advanced saturn controllers (like the analog or multitap).

I can help you with this if needed. Just send me a PM.

[lajcik]

Thanks for the replies. I'm happy to hear that this looks within the realm of possibility. I don't mind if it limits the adapter to a single controller at a time. To be frank I don't really care about the analog stick. It would be a nice bonus to get it to work, but I always liked the 3d controller primarily for its dpad and button placement.

I guess an ideal scenario would be retain the support for 2 controllers when the 3d controller is in dpad mode. Or if that's impossible to just be able to switch between "3d controller" mode and "2 regular controllers" mode automatically. But that's what you'd call a stretch goal

I will probably be reprogramming my adapter though since its the easiest way to start without investing any more money into this endevour. Is it possible to damage it by reprogramming in any way? If so are there any precautions I should take? I was assuming that worst case scenario is having to recompile the original code and reprogramming it back onto the device. I don't really mind losing the adapter, never liked the original sega controller so it wouldn't get much use like this anyway. Would be a shame to screw it up on the first try though

@sonik I might take you up on that once I actually sit down to poke at it in July or later during summer Thanks! If you can recommend any reading material on how the saturn controllers work it would be helpful in understanding your code.

[sonik]

Just flashing a new firmware will not break the arduino in any way
If the flashing goes bad you will just have to reflash it. Worst case scenario you will need to "press the reset" before flashing and it requires wiring the reset pin to ground pin.

The 3d pad in digital mode works differently than the common digital pad. It uses another protocol.
I don't recommend at all to connect 2 controllers if using my firmware with this board as it have the two pins wired together for P1 and P2.

As for reading material you can start here:
https://hackaday.io/project/170365-blue ... -to-saturn

Also look for the controller patents and the "Saturn Technical Bulletins". Official Sega documents for game developers. It leaked on the internet but I cannot share it here