Add 8-Way joystick patches into MAME 2003 for Defender and Stargate.

Pussyfoot

Considering that the MAME baselines for MAME 2003 and 2010 are quite old, it should be possible to add the code in to allow users to select "8-way joystick" mode for Defender and Stargate. Here's an old thread showing the code changes:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=108813.0

It would be nice to enable 8-way mode when using a gamepad.

(I think) I'm looking at the MAME4ALL source code here: https://github.com/squidrpi/mame4all-pi/blob/master/src/drivers/williams.cpp

It looks like it already has it. Can anyone confirm it's working in the old version?

Pussyfoot

If you go into the input setting for the game in MAME 2003, there is an option for left and right, but it's impossible to assign anything to it. There are no dip switch settings for this rom. MAME 2010 does not have these options. I can't get into the TAB menu in MAME 2000 to see if there's anything there.

EDIT: I put the appropriate version of Defender in MAME4ALL and it works! The joystick mappings are perfect as is. Unfortunately, the emulation isn't as good as in MAME 2003 or MAME 2010. It would really be nice to get those MAMEs patched to have this as an option.

EDIT 2: Well what do you know... MAME 2003 has the code in it. All that needs to be done is to enable cheats. I will create a new post about this in another part of the forum...

ward614

Is this code usable in any game that is traditionally 4-way? if so it would make Pac-man and the like much easier to play on a gamepad.

caver01

@ward614 This is code that was specifically designed to replace the "reverse" button used in Defender and its sequel, Stargate with joystick only movement. It is programming for those ROMs, not as a way to add logic to handle 8-way input for 4-way games.

Pussyfoot

There was a patch for battlezone using a single joystick, but that can be done by clever remapping thanks to @caver01

Pole Position 1 and 2 can work with a gamepad, but it requires resetting the controls for that game. I don't know if cheats need to be enabled.

caver01

Yes, the method to make two-handed "tank" controls work on a single 8-way joystick does not require any cheats, just a clever set of controls mapped to what is sometimes called a "tankstick". The mapping makes use of <CODE_NOT> logic where you are actually excluding certain input combinations. MAME lets you setup mappings like this by using a double-tap of an input while in the GUI menu which changes it to a <NOT>, so if you do several inputs in rapid succession, before MAME accepts an entry, you can make some combinations that work in interesting ways.

Here's a mapping for a single 8-way joystick to control two tank sticks like Battlezone:

Game Control           Mapped to
Right/Up               Up <not> Right     or    Left <not> Down
Right/Down             Down <not> Right   or   Right <not> Up <not> Down
Left/Up                Up <not> Left   or   Right <not> Down
Left/Down              Down <not> Left   or   Left <not> Up <not> Down

There is an odd situation for Keyboard controller users in lr-mame2003 that requires you to first set all retroarch inputs to NUL using a per-rom config file if you want to do this. You can read about it here.