Opinions -- KeyWiz or iPac or another encoder??

[nizzoatlarge]

I am building my own cab and I have done some research on the control panel side. I have been looking around for a good control encoder. I am not sure which one to use. So, I thought I turn to the cabinet community and see what your opinions were for encoders.

If you could, please give which encoder you use and why you chose that encoder. If one encoder is just totally awesome or one just plain stinks, then I would like to know. I want to take player and builder opinions into consideration before purchasing the one that I believe will work for me.

I searched around the forums for any thread on this, but came up empty.

[Necromancyr]

I like my iPAC, but it doesn't wake from sleep entirely correctly which might be an issue for you.

[nizzoatlarge]

wake from sleep? how do you mean?

[bkenobi]

I've been using a GP-Wiz forever. I started with the GP-Wiz32 and liked it well enough. GGG released the GP-Wiz32-RX, so I upgraded to that since I have mechanical rotary joysticks. The only thing I'd say I would rather have is the 40 input version of the same controller. I had to map 2 of my functions to combinations since I ran out of inputs. I don't think I have ever had an issue with either controller.

Oh, the only thing I would have liked to see included with this controller is a way to map player 2 inputs directly to a second HID. If that were possible, games that don't like sharing inputs for multiple players would be easier to set up. Instead, I have to set both players to keyboard input and use XPadder to remap joystick to keyboard. Not a big deal, but would be a little easier.

If you want to do that and don't have a rotary joystick, take a good look at the Ultimark UHID controller. It can handle digital, optical, and analog inputs at the same time and can output digital, analog, and keyboard inputs for multiple HID's as I recall. It's pretty sweat, but a bit pricey as I recall.

[Brian Hoffman]

U-HID from Ultimarc all the way! I just bought two, for mine and a friends arcade. They are super sweet (get the wireharness)! It is completly programmable and any input can be a Keyboard,gamepad, analog or mouse device. You can upload configs to it on the fly via command line and it stores your main config in flash rom.

Oh yes, it also drives LEDs. Its like a IPAC,GPWIZ and LEDBlinky in one.

http://www.u-hid.com/home/index.php

[nizzoatlarge]

I will check out the UHID. It sounds like it might fit the bill of my control panel easily.

I guess i should post what my 2 player control panel setup will use also. I will be using 2 - Ultimacs Mag-Stik Plus (which are not rotary, I dont think) 1 - GGG TurboTwist2 Spinner, 1 - GGG Groovy-TB 3" Trackball, and about 31 inputs (joysticks and buttons included). Thats it, preety basic control panel from what I have seen.

Any other other suggestions?

[simbamame]

I suppose for me it was all to do with cost, i went for the I-Pac2 from ultimarc and to be honest its brilliant has never let me down and is so easy to program simply wire up your controls run the program press config hit the button on your cab and way hey done i programmed my whole cab of 20 buttons and 2 sticks in about 10 mins.

So i`m very happy with it, would recommend to anyone and would definitely buy again if needed, but that's just my opinion.

[nizzoatlarge]

So Brian, let me get this straight. You can upload configs by the command line?? Which means that if I put a command in the GamEx command line within a particular emulators setup(example SNES) it will load specific control configs for SNES....and change when I load TG16 or MAME emulators?

[bkenobi]

I will check out the UHID. It sounds like it might fit the bill of my control panel easily.

I guess i should post what my 2 player control panel setup will use also. I will be using 2 - Ultimacs Mag-Stik Plus (which are not rotary, I dont think) 1 - GGG TurboTwist2 Spinner, 1 - GGG Groovy-TB 3" Trackball, and about 31 inputs (joysticks and buttons included). Thats it, preety basic control panel from what I have seen.

Any other other suggestions?

I think you'll max out a single U-HID with all of that. Those encoders aren't the cheapest you'll find, so you may consider a combination of multiple. If you are going ultimarc, you might want to go with a mini U-HID and a IPAC to get the needed inputs and cut some cost. If you can afford the dual UHID, that'll be a pretty nice setup.

[nizzoatlarge]

I think you'll max out a single U-HID with all of that. Those encoders aren't the cheapest you'll find, so you may consider a combination of multiple. If you are going ultimarc, you might want to go with a mini U-HID and a IPAC to get the needed inputs and cut some cost. If you can afford the dual UHID, that'll be a pretty nice setup.

There is another way I can do this. I can put the spinner and t-ball on there own USBs. This way it wont touch the interface. I also miscounted my inputs I have 8 for the 2 player joysticks, 6 buttons each for each joystick (12 total), pause, esc, enter, config, p1 coin, p1 start, p2 start, p2 coin, and 2 for volume up and down (which I may get rid of the volume up/down). I think thats 30 total. I have attached a layout of the controls to check out. I have taken off the trackball and spinner, but they will go in the big empty spot in the middle.

[Necromancyr]

wake from sleep? how do you mean?

Based on comments directly from Ultimarc, the IPac driver/setup isn't configured to have it be a device that can wake up a computer from sleep. So if you're going to have you're cab 'sleep' instead of power on/off, you'll need a mouse or some other method to wake it from that state. I personally configured my cab computer so the power button wakes from sleep and that made it a non-issue. Would be nice to wake from any button on the controller, but wahtever.

Other thing, semi-unrelated, is the PacDrive doesn't respond to sleep signals and leaves the LED's in whatever state they are when the computer goes to sleep. Tangential, but a good thing to know if you're going to use one.

[nizzoatlarge]

Based on comments directly from Ultimarc, the IPac driver/setup isn't configured to have it be a device that can wake up a computer from sleep. So if you're going to have you're cab 'sleep' instead of power on/off, you'll need a mouse or some other method to wake it from that state. I personally configured my cab computer so the power button wakes from sleep and that made it a non-issue. Would be nice to wake from any button on the controller, but wahtever.

Other thing, semi-unrelated, is the PacDrive doesn't respond to sleep signals and leaves the LED's in whatever state they are when the computer goes to sleep. Tangential, but a good thing to know if you're going to use one.

I did read that too. I was going to do what you did on your cab. I am putting a button on the side or front of the control panel that links to the power switch on the computer. Once pressed it will turn on and put to/pull from sleep. I was also reading that the UHID does the shift feature, so I dont have to have a ton of buttons to do specific things. I figured i could lose about 4 (or more) buttons by using the shift feature. Now I just have to figure out the command line part........

[Brian Hoffman]

I did read that too. I was going to do what you did on your cab. I am putting a button on the side or front of the control panel that links to the power switch on the computer. Once pressed it will turn on and put to/pull from sleep. I was also reading that the UHID does the shift feature, so I dont have to have a ton of buttons to do specific things. I figured i could lose about 4 (or more) buttons by using the shift feature. Now I just have to figure out the command line part........

You save the settings as *.HID files. From my understanding you can load these settings on the fly via commandline. I have the UHID but have not tried this feature yet. I would assume that it would be straight forward Executable.exe Config.hid

[Necromancyr]

...I also miscounted my inputs I have 8 for the 2 player joysticks, 6 buttons each for each joystick (12 total), pause, esc, enter, config, p1 coin, p1 start, p2 start, p2 coin, and 2 for volume up and down (which I may get rid of the volume up/down). ,,,

Just a few suggestions - you have too many buttons on there for non-controls.

Enter and Config you don't need. Enter, using a keyboard encoder, can be mapped to one of your buttons readily (and is a default mame control for P1/B1) so having a separate button isn't needed. Config should almost definitely be shifted unless you're putting the button inside the cab itself - otherwise people are going to be hitting it and screwing things up readily. Same for the volume buttons - just shift them if not hiding inside the cab.

My 'default' config for my cab has the following:

2x 6 button joystick setup (10 inputs each) - 20 inputs

2x Player Start Buttons - 2 inputs

2x Coin Buttons - 2 inputs

1x Config Button (Inside Cab) - 1 input

1x Esc - 1 input

1x Pause (Hidden under the lip of my cab's lower marquee) 1 input

So...27 out of 28 inputs? (I have the old, original iPac2).

However, I also have a mouse interface (forget which one, older with 3 axis and 3 buttons) and a PacDrive for LEDs.

[nizzoatlarge]

Brian -- I love the idea of being able to load different configs on the fly. That would make things much easier. I will try it out for you and see how it is working.

Necromancyr -- Thanks for the input. I was thinking about doing exactly what you mentioned. Shifting Config, Vol up, Vol down, p1 coin, and p2 coin (have kids and they will earn $$$ to play games by doing chores, homework, and being good. a reward thing, so I dont want them to know about the p1 coin and p2 coin. I have a working coin door that they will have to put 25 cents in play....hehehe...i know mean dad!) Pause and Esc are going to stay on the top of the cab.

I guess the bottom line is the UHID is the one I will get. Thanks to everyone that chimed in on the topic.