arckex

I literally pitch co-op games as party events. I'll be like "Come over on Thursday, we're going to drink/smoke and play 8-player bomberman" and most people are like "wtf" and some people are like "hell yeah" then i just run with it. i get shitty beer, and i try hard to have everything set before anyone comes bc people are SO skepitcal of: -playing a game from pre-2000 -playing a game that wasnt meant to run on computers so i've got all my controllers labelled with tape with the player number on it (1-9) and i've got my config INI backed up in case i did something stupid recently. party on garth

NONE. Ive never experienced any input-related lag ever with ssf. this guy did, though: http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34916&start=20 and no one is sure why he lags. so, input lag is uncommon and from an unknown source, most likely an old version of ssf.

if you had powered usb hubs i bet you could get a stupid amount of controllers plugged in. my 9 controllers were: 2 saitek cyborgs (these are the best gamepad ever btw) 1 gameelements recoil 1 tremon gamepad 1 gravis gamepad pro 1 microsoft sidewinder 1 psx-n64 to usb converter 2 usb keyboards i also had a mouse plugged in and working. as a test, i had all of these devices plugged in through 3 daisy chained usb hubs. so 1 plug and windows had no problem finding all devices. quickly, too. again, i think powered usb hubs are the key here.

I was very determined to fight through the ssf hassle to do ten man bomberman. i did it, and here are my hassles. (Well, i lied. I've only got 9 going now, but still.....) Here are some tricky non-obvious things to make sure of off the bat: ONLY PAL BOMBERMAN WORKS. this is the most important part. (japanese version might work too...?) US version has netlink enabled, and no netlink-enabled games can boot in SSF. make sure your region is set to europe appropriately. make sure your PORTs have the "Multi Terminal 6" plugged in. make sure all your controllers are "Control Pad"s; "Multi Controller"s dont work for me. I've got 7 usb controllers (craigslist is your friend for all of this) and 2 usb keyboards controlling 9 saturn controllers, and it works prefect- once you manage to get through a slightly wonky set up. some controllers misbehave slightly. (i use three 4-port usb hubs, only 1 is externally powered. one unpowered hub is direct into computer. the powered hub is connected via a 25ft usb extension, and the last unpowered hub is plugged into one of those powered ports on the end of the extender. All hubs are in USB 2.0 ports. Also, some controllers (some any usb devices, really) can misbehave in a USB 3.0 port, so watch that) one controller is a sidewinder (joystick+ bomberman = respect), and if plugged directly into my computer, it sends the input config into an uncontrollable stream of nonsense data. the only (confusing) fix i can find for this is to plug the joystick into the unpowered usb hub on the end of the extender, at which point it behaves normally. I have no explanation for this- my only guess is something about voltages. that usb 3.0 hub is tricky. some controllers plugged in there will make the input config hang with a blank input window and no prompting text. some dont. play around if you have this problem with different setups. i do have a single usb controller that always makes the input config hang no matter where it is plugged in. it's a n64/psx-to-usb converter. i cant boot ssf with this plugged in and change anything about my config. what i CAN do, however, is use a piece of software like XPADDER to map this controller's input to keyboard keys. So, i set up XPADDER with my keyboard keys, boot SSF with only this one controller UNPLUGGED. I then plug in my controller after loading SSF, go into input config, and then set the keys for that controller. SSF only thinks its getting keyboard input (b/c it is) and it doesnt even see the controller itself, and it works. Another tricky thing to note here is that SSF only is allowed to use letter-keys and arrow-keys. this is annoying and is an easy fix if the source code is out there (anyone?) another good (and strange) note is how SSF handles usb controllers in different ports. if you configure gamepad #1 in port #1 as player 1 and gamepad #2 in port #2 as player 2, and you booted SSF with both plugged in, you can literally unplug them and swap ports and SSF still see them as the originally assigned controller (gamepad #1 now plugged into port #2 is still player 1). The significance of this is that you don't have to remember which port you had your gamepads plugged into when you configured them all. SSF will magically know and get it right. The further significance of this runs a little deeper. Say, I also have an interest in playing a 4v4 hockey, other crazy multiplayer sports game, etc..... but SSF saves a unique setup file for each game it loads. So, if i have all 10 controllers setup for bomberman, and then load NHL, i have to go through the hassle of assigning buttons for 8 controllers? NO, NO I DONT. go into: \ssf\Setting\Saturn\*yourGamefileHere*.ini (for example, MK-81070_SATURN BOMBERMAN.ini). Copy everything from PortFlag0= to the end of the file. you can then replace this same text in the ini file of whatever game you want to play and not worry about the setup process. if anyone knows a way to make this set by default, please share. So, knowing these last two paragraphs, I have a piece of tape on the front of every controller with a number on it- the number of the controller as it's configured in SSF. Even if I have this massive 9-controller setup, I can boot SSF with only game controllers #1, #5, #8 (for example) plugged into any port at all, and I can play bomberman (or any multiplayer game) with the great knowledge that these controller are, in fact #1 #5 and #8. I think that's it. get ready for the best party game of all time. seriously.