Joystick problem - Sanwa vs Controller vs USB Pad

RedMarsBlueMoon

Hello all!
I'm just realising that something does not seem right with how my arcade joystick works. I got a real Sanwa Arcade stick and a USB controller board to go with it. (The controller board was separate)

The problem is very noticeable when I play for example Ghouls & Ghosts using mame2010.
If I hold DOWN (to crouch) then circle change direction to RIGHT (via SouthEast), the character doesn't start walking to the right.

If I do the exact same dpad movement in the same game but with my Buffalo USB Snes controller the character stands up and starts walking to the right. Which is what I would expect.

Would anyone be able to recognize this behaviour and know what's going wrong with the Sanwa input?

Fred

RedMarsBlueMoon

(I was going to edit the OP but it seems not possible now)

Could this be a 8-way vs 4-way thing?
I'm finding threads where people talk about that and mention Ghouls & Ghosts having this 'issue'.
And something called the 'sticky mode' in Mame which sounds like an attempt to help the issue somewhat through software.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/583855-ghouls-n-ghosts/77813049
"Yeah 100%. I'm running GnG in my custom built cabinet with a Sanwa JLF Stick.
The game didn't feel like in the past. I had extreme problems with crouching and ladders which was very frustrating. So I switched the restrictor plate to 4-way. And voila, its perfect now. Much easier to play :-)"

mitu

It sure looks like an 4-way vs 8-way issue. For a software solution, I think Mame2003-plus has something to restrict movements - https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/pull/471 and can be controlled via core options.

NOTE: some hardware joysticks have a switch (hw or software) for 4-way vs 8-way setup (e.g. for instance Ultimarc)

RedMarsBlueMoon

Ok yes I think that's it. I'll have to read a bit more as I'm still not fully clear what the actual difference is in the logic between the dpad and the joystick behaviour.

Thanks a lot for the tip about that controller! Now I'm really tempted to get one but I'm still racking up little purchases to finish the arcade build as planned so I might have to wait a bit until upgrading the stick! :)

It's amazing how much there is to the nitty gritty details of all this!
I also suspect that my controller board is spamming random signals to what I have mapped as the 'start' button, causing games to randomly pause. But I'll investigate that separately and should be more easy to pin down.

Cheers!

RedMarsBlueMoon

I just got this to work and it does help making GnG much more playable!

Use the Hotkey+X combo to open the green settings screen. Find 'Options'.

I had to flip both 4-way and also analog->digital to get it to play well. It's not perfect since only an actual correct joystick would do that. But it's now completely playable so can recommend for others that are having this problem.