Anyone using an X-Arcade?

Discussion of keyboards, gamepads, joysticks and other input related peripherals.
johhenrik
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Anyone using an X-Arcade?

Unread post by johhenrik »

I have been thinking about buying an X-Arcade, because I kinda like having a nice two-player solution etc. It's seems like a pretty decent stick. Is anyone using it with Mister? Would it even work? Or do you have any other recommendations for good sticks for the Mister?
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Mellified
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Re: Anyone using an X-Arcade?

Unread post by Mellified »

I have a ~15 year old two player tankstick from X-Arcade. I have upgraded it to the latest USB-based hardware but it does not have the trackball sadly. I tested it in Mode 3, which is DInput. Mode 4 is XInput and Mode 1/2 are keyboard-based. I configured both sticks in the main MiSTer menu successfully.

I played two player Mortal Kombat 3 Ultimate SNES against myself using both sticks! Works as expected. I didn't test the dual-stick mode where Player 1 has both sticks assigned. I did not test the analog stick emulated modes - just D-pad input.

Hope that helps!
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Re: Anyone using an X-Arcade?

Unread post by lagomorph »

I have an old X-Arcade that I recently upgraded with the USB board and it works well with the MiSTer in its default configuration (as a keyboard). One thing I like about it is you can configure each stick as four way or eight way. I keep one a four way for Arcade games like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.
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Re: Anyone using an X-Arcade?

Unread post by Newsdee »

I have an older HotRod Joystick that is over 20 years old... I modded it a while back with a IPAC2 (it shows up as USB keyboard), there are probably better options to rewire it by now. Still, it works great with my MiSTer.

For 1 player, my favorite is the Hori Real Arcade Pro VLX. The encoder board it has is a bit slow though, so it needs replacement for best results. Its very easy to mod it, at least.
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Re: Anyone using an X-Arcade?

Unread post by netbeui »

Newsdee wrote: Fri Sep 11, 2020 12:52 am I have an older HotRod Joystick that is over 20 years old... I modded it a while back with a IPAC2 (it shows up as USB keyboard), there are probably better options to rewire it by now. Still, it works great with my MiSTer.

For 1 player, my favorite is the Hori Real Arcade Pro VLX. The encoder board it has is a bit slow though, so it needs replacement for best results. Its very easy to mod it, at least.
I have the same HotRod stick as you, also upgraded but with a USB harness from X Arcade. I can’t figure out how to get the 2nd player working in any of the Street Fighter games in MiSTer. Player 1 controls are fine after I go into the define joystick menu but player 2 low/med/hard kick buttons are all not recognized out of the box (all other player 2 controls work). If I go back into the sf2 define joystick menu and define player 2 buttons the low/med/hard kick buttons work but those plus all other buttons are mapped to player 1 (e.g. player 2 controls are mapped to player 1 in sf2). If I go back redefine player 1 controls everything works great for player 1 but player 2 is missing low/med/hard kick buttons again. If you have any tips or pointers on how to get both players working I’d really appreciate it!!
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Re: Anyone using an X-Arcade?

Unread post by Hawk78 »

Mellified wrote: Sat Aug 22, 2020 9:05 pm I have a ~15 year old two player tankstick from X-Arcade. I have upgraded it to the latest USB-based hardware but it does not have the trackball sadly. I tested it in Mode 3, which is DInput. Mode 4 is XInput and Mode 1/2 are keyboard-based. I configured both sticks in the main MiSTer menu successfully.

I played two player Mortal Kombat 3 Ultimate SNES against myself using both sticks! Works as expected. I didn't test the dual-stick mode where Player 1 has both sticks assigned. I did not test the analog stick emulated modes - just D-pad input.

Hope that helps!
I have a Tankstick as well but so far I did not get Player 2 Control to work with NeoGeo Core. Do I need the TriMode USB Board? Which Mode do you prefer? MiSTer does not ask for Player 2 Controls during setup - how did you do this?
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Re: Anyone using an X-Arcade?

Unread post by tlaloc »

I have a tankstick as well and it runs with most all arcade cores I’ve tested it with, except in the ao486 core - Doom does not recognize it as a joypad... so that was a snag.
Anyone here know what would be most optimal (e.g. mode3/Dinput or mode4/xinput) to allow doom to recognize the tankstick as a joypad, but still allow me to assign say the escape key to a button on the tankstick? Thanks for any guidance
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Re: Anyone using an X-Arcade?

Unread post by Mellified »

Hawk78 wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 8:33 pm I have a Tankstick as well but so far I did not get Player 2 Control to work with NeoGeo Core. Do I need the TriMode USB Board? Which Mode do you prefer? MiSTer does not ask for Player 2 Controls during setup - how did you do this?
I haven't tried the keyboard mode, but I would recommend the Tri-mode board in any case. It's a lot more responsive.

You can go back into the MiSTer main menu and map another joystick for player 2. Be aware you may need to use the "player 2" toggle in some cores for P1 and P2 to be where you'd expect. You also may need to reset the player mappings in the core menu, which will make P1 whichever stick is used first.
tlaloc wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 11:28 pm I have a tankstick as well and it runs with most all arcade cores I’ve tested it with, except in the ao486 core - Doom does not recognize it as a joypad... so that was a snag.
Anyone here know what would be most optimal (e.g. mode3/Dinput or mode4/xinput) to allow doom to recognize the tankstick as a joypad, but still allow me to assign say the escape key to a button on the tankstick? Thanks for any guidance
Without the tri-mode board, the X-arcade Tankstick is a keyboard.

With the tri-mode board, the stick is a keyboard (mode 1/2), DirectInput joystick (mode 3), an XInput joystick (mode 4). There's no option to do both keyboard and joystick emulation.

You can use the MiSTer mappings to get a core menu key from the DInput or XInput modes though. That's not the same as keyboard ESCape however.

Beyond that I haven't tried to use a controller with ao486, just a keyboard and mouse.
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Re: Anyone using an X-Arcade?

Unread post by Aspie »

I have an old X-Arcade joystick, it must be nearly 20 years old now. It has the old style round keyboard connector, no USB whatsoever. If I bought the upgrade pcb does this add a USB connector to the joystick?
Hawk78
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Re: Anyone using an X-Arcade?

Unread post by Hawk78 »

Aspie wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:44 am I have an old X-Arcade joystick, it must be nearly 20 years old now. It has the old style round keyboard connector, no USB whatsoever. If I bought the upgrade pcb does this add a USB connector to the joystick?
You can choose different Upgrade kits depending on what connection you have:
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