MiSTer FPGA Forum

Controllers, controllers, controllers...

Having just converted a Hori RAP4 to real Sanwa and Seimitsu parts (and Sega Astro City artwork!!), I thought all that was left for the best stick
was to update the internal board with a Brooks universal. In my mind, from there, I'd have maybe the best stick in terms of versatility on retro consoles and modern as well as MiSTer at the sacrifice of minimal lag where some magical 'direct' interface via jamma (or non-USB) would be more accurate and direct.

I finally got to looking at this input lag comparison chart:
https://rpubs.com/misteraddons/inputlatency

...and was surprised to see the best of the best:

Device, Connection, Latency (in ms)

Buffalo - iBuffalo Classic Wired USB 0.69

THEN I saw:
bootsector - RetroPad32 Wired USB 0.711
MisterAddons - MiSTercade Wired USB 0.738
GamesCare - Multi Console Arcade Stick (Large) Wired USB 0.739
atrac17 + DJHardRich - RP2040 LS-30 Rotary Encoder Wired USB 0.747
DaemonBite - Genesis to USB Adapter Genesis 3 Button Controller
DaemonBite - Arcade Controller Wired USB 0.758
Brook - Universal Fighting Board [Wii U] Wired USB 0.767

I had previously thought that the Brooks universal was to be the gold standard. I then heard about GamesCare giving it a run for the money if not beating it. I saw it beat the Brooks in lag tests- THEN a YT comparison video had different lag results with rudimentary tests showing the Brooks beat it, but the GamesCare was 'no slouch' and the difference would go unnoticed. GamesCare's price is much better than Brooks here.

I thought a Jamma solution would be both more 'authentic' and basically lagless being directly wired and nothing lost from 'USB polling'. Imagine my surprise to see the RetroPad32 and iBuffalo 'beat' the jamma connection of a Mistercade [Granted, I and most people would not be able to notice such a tiny lag difference between 0.69 and 0.738].

What DOES beg the question then is for those of us that plan a Mister in an arcade cabinet: If custom building a cabinet JUST for Mister with ZERO plans for other arcade PCBs, is jamma even worth it? I think a cab where a Mister is easy to pull out and hook it up elsewhere is a plus.. but if I can also pull an arcade control panel as a USB controller on retro consoles, even better.

I'm currently thinking that if a GamesCare USB board and a MisterCade are identical in lag, (please no one argue a 0.001 lag difference), I'd rather spend $50 on a GamesCare board, and have it plug and play ready for a stick to be used on other systems.

Another option you may want to consider ($5 cheaper than the GamesCare):

https://misteraddons.com/collections/ar ... ting-board

Oh, and by the way...

.747 biatch

atrac17 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 17, 2023 11:56 am

.747 biatch

That misteraddons device is something to look at! I am confused on the graphic in the post. Does it mean you do not like Brook for some reason, hence the last pic/icon? I have no horse in the race but was curious as to why.

seastalker wrote: ↑Fri Jun 16, 2023 7:29 pm

I thought a Jamma solution would be both more 'authentic' and basically lagless being directly wired and nothing lost from 'USB polling'. Imagine my surprise to see the RetroPad32 and iBuffalo 'beat' the jamma connection of a Mistercade [Granted, I and most people would not be able to notice such a tiny lag difference between 0.69 and 0.738].

How does the MisterCade route the Jamma inputs to the DE-10? Are they directly wired or via USB?

seastalker wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 8:49 pm

I am confused on the graphic in the post. Does it mean you do not like Brook for some reason, hence the last pic/icon? I have no horse in the race but was curious as to why.

No no, I have several Brook products and they are great. I was just pointing out that there is no "s" in Brook

goldenage wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 11:18 pm

seastalker wrote: ↑Fri Jun 16, 2023 7:29 pm

I thought a Jamma solution would be both more 'authentic' and basically lagless being directly wired and nothing lost from 'USB polling'. Imagine my surprise to see the RetroPad32 and iBuffalo 'beat' the jamma connection of a Mistercade [Granted, I and most people would not be able to notice such a tiny lag difference between 0.69 and 0.738].

How does the MisterCade route the Jamma inputs to the DE-10? Are they directly wired or via USB?

The mistercade usb encodes the jamma inputs. There's no physical way to directly wire them the DE-10

Lightwave wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 12:29 am

seastalker wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 8:49 pm

I am confused on the graphic in the post. Does it mean you do not like Brook for some reason, hence the last pic/icon? I have no horse in the race but was curious as to why.

No no, I have several Brook products and they are great. I was just pointing out that there is no "s" in Brook

Ahh! Wow! I missed the mark when I messed up the Brook name, AND missed it again when pointed out to me! I must be getting old where you start adding an 'S' to names, as in: "I'm going to run out to Targets for a bit..." The Delta ad reference is even funnier to me now!

To further my daftness, having no experience with Jamma yet (other than playing arcade games in the past): am I correct that the jamma connection on an arcade board is wired in a direct way to the edge connector which is akin to plugging in say, a Sega Genesis DB9 controller to a Genesis in that it should not introduce lag? I had thought in a Mistercade setup, the DE10 connects to the Mistercade board via the GPIO pins, and the arcade control panel connects with a jamma connector to the Mistercade. Does this GPIO connection introduce lag (or some other negative aspect) that a real arcade board of the same game would not?

A device such as MiSTercade is converting JAMMA to USB. There is no JAMMA type direct wire (SNAC) device I am aware of.

Latency is already so low, in devices like MiSTercade it is doubtful any human could tell a difference between direct wire (SNAC) or USB. SNAC’s purpose really is for peripherals that are extremely sensitive to timing like light guns, not standard controllers.

I have both a vewlix cab (not JAMMA with a LCD) and an astro city (JAMMA with a CRT). I can use mister in both (actually, at the same time as well), and the vewlix doesn't have a JAMMA interface, nor is needed (control go via USB to a mini-PAC, and video/audio directly through HDMI). But for the astro city, I use a JAMMA adaptor since all tthe wiring inside is JAMMA.

So in my opinion, if you have a "modern" cab like a vewlix, it doesn't make much sense to use JAMMA. But if you have a "classic" cab already wired for JAMMA, then it is much more convenient to use a JAMMA adaptor or a mistercade.

Wow, I seriously think the community needs a video based on the last comments here. Many of us are tinkerers yet with little to no arcade building experience... exactly why I started this thread and posed the question. Maybe a YT video will arise that is better phrased: "Who is jamma for?" I have always blindly 'wanted' jamma without considering if it was best for MY personal setup instead of USB.

seastalker wrote: ↑Sun Jun 25, 2023 7:34 pm

Wow, I seriously think the community needs a video based on the last comments here. Many of us are tinkerers yet with little to no arcade building experience... exactly why I started this thread and posed the question. Maybe a YT video will arise that is better phrased: "Who is jamma for?" I have always blindly 'wanted' jamma without considering if it was best for MY personal setup instead of USB.

It's pretty simple, you dont need a video.

If you have an existing, jamma wired cab, guess which solution is easier?

If you are starting from scratch (and have no plans to use real jamma boards) then design with what's cheap and easy.

seastalker wrote: ↑Sun Jun 25, 2023 7:34 pm

I have always blindly 'wanted' jamma without considering if it was best for MY personal setup instead of USB.

I largely agree with the points everyone is making; JAMMA as generally supported on MiSTer FPGA today provides few concrete benefits to a new setup.

But I just wanted to add that there is nothing wrong in principle with "wanting" JAMMA (or indeed switches wired directly, without JAMMA.)

JAMMA/direct-wiring is much simpler than USB, electronically, and therefore appealing as an aesthetic.

It no doubt consumes less power, because there is no need for a separate doohickey to convert signals before they're relayed to the MiSTer.

You can have a one-to-one mapping of controls to input functions, eliminating or reducing the need to elaborately configure input re-mapping.

There are a zillion Raspberry Pi's, Arduino's and ESP32's out there with game controls wired directly into their GPIO pins. DE-10 Nano's have those same GPIO pins… all that would be needed to close the loop would be pinout conventions and arcade core support.

Although, to be sure, we wouldn't be able to support full JAMMA here… not enough pins. No 4-player Street Fighter, I'm afraid.

paddle0 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2024 1:17 pm

There are a zillion Raspberry Pi's, Arduino's and ESP32's out there with game controls wired directly into their GPIO pins. DE-10 Nano's have those same GPIO pins… all that would be needed to close the loop would be pinout conventions and arcade core support.

Now that I wrap my head around the idea that Mistercade and Jamma solutions are basically still doing a conversion of JAMMA->USB, I'm wondering if a JAMMA-SNAC solution would be that much closer or equal to direct GPIO pins?

Though I hear JAMMA based Pandora box type boards (using emulation) are in general a sub-par experience with so-so emulation, I've yet to look into the technical aspects of any added lag from such a JAMMA setup vs the same using a 'real' arcade board.

seastalker wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2024 4:22 pm

Now that I wrap my head around the idea that Mistercade and Jamma solutions are basically still doing a conversion of JAMMA->USB, I'm wondering if a JAMMA-SNAC solution would be that much closer or equal to direct GPIO pins?

I'm not sure how things are implemented, but JAMMA is a parallel communications channel and SNAC is a serial communications channel. So I'd guess that there would still be some slowdown going from JAMMA to SNAC, versus using GPIO directly. But I doubt most humans could detect it. I would also expect it to be faster than USB… maybe a lot faster.