Does anyone have in mind what are the best, or among the best video game controller to PC USB cables? I'm trying to use controllers like the N64 one, or Dreamcast controller, to connect to my PC and use them on certain emulators I have. ;-) A Playstation to USB cable can also substitute for the NES/SNES capabilites. Anyone have any suggestions?
the ones from elecom are the best IMO. I use one for PS controllers, even arcade sticks work very well through it.
At this point, buy a xbox 360 wired controller No hassles, its for an upcoming system, and its damn nice Edit: Post 666
I use a ps to usb adapter I got from Radio Shack for about 10 bucks and it works great, I mostly use it for playing mame games and nes, snes, and other older console emulatiors. My uncle and I use 2 of the adapters in our home made arcade machine. We chopped up 2 playstation controllers then soildered the wires coming off the real acrcade controls to the button points on the ps controller board. Then hooked the chopped up controllers to the pc usb connector and it works PERFECT and best of all no ghosting like you get when using chopped up keyboards ^^ The arcade cab we made it out of was a old super pac arcade with the origonal controls so it wasent to hard to do.
There is the homebrew driver for the current Xbox pads. Get a USB converter and away you go. * Exports ~32 controls to Windows * Controller buttons, axes, and the digital pad can be mapped to any of the controls exported to Windows. * Supports up to 8 different configurations. The active configuration can be selected by pressing both Analog Sticks simultaneously. * Threshold settings for Buttons, Triggers, and Axes. * Deadzone settings for Analog Sticks. * Scaling of axes for sensitivity. * Gamepad settings can be saved to a file for later use. * Rumble support. Adjustable maximum force for each actuator. * All buttons are supported as digital buttons. * Supports different configuration for the Left Analog Stick, Digital Pad, and Right Analog Stick. Configurations can be switched by pressing both Analog Sticks. * Triggers can be used as buttons, Slider X+, Slider X-, Slider Y+, or Slider Y-. * Supports separate custom Threshold for Buttons and Triggers. * Custom settings for dead zones of Analog Sticks. * Configuration of buttons and axes supported through XBCD Setup application. * Start+Back can be used as a shortcut to switch Slider Y control. * Slider axes can be used as Throttle, Rudder, Z, X Rotation, Y Rotation, or Z Rotation. * Digital Pad can be used as 4 extra buttons(13-16). * Floating-point calculations can be enabled for more accurate Analog Stick precision. * Gamepad settings can be saved to a file for later use. * Rumble support. Adjustable maximum force for each actuator. * Added support for the spring and friction effects in the Rumble DLL. http://www.redcl0ud.com/xbcd.html
I also use the Radio Shack PSX-->USB adaptor, with my Namco PS1 joystick. I play Guilty Gear XX#Reload and Melty Blood REAct and emulateurs with this setup and it's fantastic. That stick was a great flea market find; I talked the seller down to $15 from $20 even though $20 was already less than half what the thing goes for on ebay :evil:
I use the Radio Shack PSX-USB as well. I consider it absolutely awesome. It has all that's necessary and it cost 100 pesos. For less than ten dollars, you can do much worse. I also have a USB/PS2 joystick (it has both ports) with vibration feedback, which I use on the PC for Mame and NeoRage, and on the PS2 for shooters.
you know there is a guide out there to make a homeade saturn usb controller, im thinking about doing it since i have a controller that has a broken wire.
Man, that so called Saturn to USB tutorial is insane. It requires some pretty good soldering skills and--I can only imagine--a ton of patience. It's essentially a guide for how to turn any controller into USB since it actually involves taking the USB encoder out of a PC controller and bypassing all of the Saturn controller's internal signals to route them to the USB encoder, which is obviously a technique that could be used for any controller. I'd love to have a real Saturn controller on my computer or an adapter that I could use for anything (whic could pretty easily be made using that same guide), but I know for a fact that I don't have half the skill or one eighth the patience to actually follow that guide. Of course, from what I've read that USB Satrun controller that Sega is selling doesn't actually perform as well as a real Saturn pad, so if you just have to have a USB Saturn controller, that GamesX guide may be the best way to go. There is at least one USB converter that takes Saturn pads, too, though. I haven't tried it put the Joybox 3-in-1 actually takes either Saturn, Dreamcast or Playstation controllers. It's supposed to work pretty well from what I hear, though doesn't support the NiGHTS pad unfortunately. My experience is that most all of these USB adapter work just about the same, so I wouldn't worry about which one in particular I got, just so long as it worked with the system's controllers I wanted it to. The only adaptation I've tried is the Xbox thing and I can say that building the adapter is trivial since the Xbox controller is USB to begin with right down to the color coding of the internal wires, plus it has that breakaway connection thing. Very easy to hack up. And the driver someone else mentioned works fine (even supports the Xbox memory card as a USB mass storage device in XP, which is pretty cool), but I really can't get into an Xbox controller; it just seems to have buttons all over it willy nilly and uselessly placed. The Street Fighter Anniversary controller has a much nicer layout (patterned on the Saturn obviously), but is just a bad controller in every other way. Plus, I just can't get used to the fact that every PC controller needs such constant attention to recalibration and shit like that, so I really never use that Xbox adapter I made. I only just started gaming on my computer recently and in the end after much experimentation with said adapter with different Xbox controllers, a couple PC controllers and much consideration of other options, this is the controller I use with my laptop: It's the PowerRamp Mite from ACT Labs and I'm very very happy with it. Two things that are nice first of all are that the functions of all the buttons can be reprogrammed in the controller itself without having to use any sort of Windows calibration utility and indeed the most cool thing in my opinion is that it plugs into the PS/2 keyboard port rather than USB or gameport and it's actually recognized as a keyboard so there's never any fiddling with drivers or calibration of any kind that I found with all the other controllers or adapters I tried, plus there's never any worries about support even for old abandonware games that may not have supported controllers in the first place. Obviously it doesn't have any analog sticks, but I realized at some point that I had absolutely no need for analog since I was just using the controller for 16-bit and earlier emulators and occasionally doujin or classic PC games. For anything like that that doesn't need analog, the layout is really perfect with six face buttons like a Saturn and four shoulder buttons like a Playstation, it's the best of both worlds, plenty of buttons and the right layout for just about anything, even SNES feels right. Also, in my opinion the buttons have a great feel and response and the dpad is one of the best I've used--great for fighters, probably second only to the Saturn dpad. ...word is bondage...
Thanks everyone. I'm looking for the easy plug and play stuff! ;-) For the N64 to USB converters, is Adaptoid the only one that supports the rumble feature?
Exactly what I did, except I built the USB converter myself. Two USB A->B cables and two no-name Xbox extension leads (the type which is like a really long version of the inline connector->front of xbox stubby cable) from eBay, total cost £5, then just solder together. Bear in mind if you use no-name extension leads instead of official ones you'll have to check the wire colour! For some reason mine had 5V=Blue and 0V=Red, so I blew up a controller testing it and had to take it back to Toys'R'Us :redface: Worked beautifully once I got the wiring correct though, and with the Xbox end you can make some adaptors to plug USB devices into a modded Xbox Stone
So let's say I already have a wireless PSX/PS2/XBOX (I don't see why an XBOX) controller, and I connect it to one of these USB converters, would they still work?
In theory they should, so long as no crazy voodoo magic is happening. Xbox most likely would, but may require different drivers. I think the PS1/2 should work perfectly with wired drivers
to an xbox controler all u need to do is get a usb cable cut it open cut xbox cable open and then join the coloured wires together. THe xbox uses usb just in a different connector. Also there are usb drivers for it inc for rumble and the headset! Paulo
