MadCatz PC Con

[WILL]

I'm sort of beside myself with how there can be NO documention about the Axis, Hat, Button specs of the MadCatz PC controller. I mean... it's a great controller... wouldn't someone want to at least have a mini-diagram of what axis is on what stick and where all the button are?

Anyhow, I've been playing with JEDI-SDL and my MadCatz controller. I'll make one up myself as I discover all the nice perks of this baby! ;)


If anyone knows something that I don't, please let me know. 8)

[WILL]

If anyone is interested in working with the MadCatz PC controler, I've made up this nice little diagram here. :)

http://upload4.postimage.org/1572122/MadCatz_TechnicalDiagram.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/1572122/photo_hosting.html)

[mrpascal]

Not sure if you still need it but:

Left Stick:
Horizontal=X axis, Vertical=Y axis

Right Stick:
Horizontal=Rz axis, Vertical=Z axis

Hat:
Standard POV values (ie; not axes or buttons)

Buttons:
As in your diagram.

Left Trigger:
Button 10 (for drivers reporting 4 axis) or Rx axis (for drivers reporting 6 axis)

Right Trigger:
Button 11 or Ry axis

[NecroDOME]

does it have shoulder buttons or axis?

[WILL]

mrpascal:

Thanks! :) What are those from anyhow?

I actually figured it all out by just playing with the SDL joystick functions. Took me a matter of a good solid 15 mins. ;) So pretty much the most difficult programming I've ever done. :lol:


NecroDOME:

Well if you checkout the digram, I've clearly --or at least a clear as I can make it in 2D-- marked all of it's controls.

Basically it's just like an X-Box 1 controller. It has 2 triggers that are setup as a 5th and 6th axis. (Treat them just like Your first 2 joysticks)


Other technical stuff I missed:

iirc, they rest at -32768 and can be squeezed to the value of 32767. But thats basically the main difference.

I find the hat to be a bit cumbersome to handle sometimes, but I don't use it all that much.

Oh and the joysticks themselves push in like buttons too. Hence my indication of button numbers on them.


Anyone else use these controllers? Any good games to recommend it for?

[NecroDOME]

I got the Cordless RumblePad 2.
I never installed any drivers so the rumbling doesn't work within games. (only when you press the "vibration" button :) )

It also has a button to switch the POV with 1 analog stick. (can come handy sometimes :) ) Ans it's wireless :D !!

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/ProductImageCompressAll200/26-127-209-01.jpg

[WILL]

Ah nice. :) Maybe you can prompt players to 'Press Vibration' to get the full FFB effect out of all your games. :lol:

PC Con has a wireless version too. (USB cable version has a really long cord though :P)


How about a set of Specs to match my MadCatz PC Con digram? ;) We can start a whole collection here.

[NecroDOME]

4 axis, 12 button (4 shoulder buttons, 2 extra buttons in the analog sticks) 1 POV, a button to switch the POV with analog stick 1 and a button the enable/disable vibration...

thats basicly it...

o did I mention it was wireless :P !

[chronozphere]

I've bought the Speedlink strike2 which is also a nice controller. I only couldn't find a good-looking picture which matches the one i bought. :(

2 Analog sticks
1 POV button
12 buttons (including analog stick buttons and 4 shoulder buttons).
One POV-analog toggle button. :)
And it has macro/turbo/clear buttons which enable the user to enter button sequences which can be played when the appropriate shoulder button is pressed. Very handy for fight combo's :) :razz:

It has forcefeedback and of course a wire. ;)

I cant wait to implement Force-feedback in my engine. :)

[WILL]

Nice. Got a pic thats close? ie. the one I submitted was close but not exactly like mine as I have what are now apparently the rare white
gel grips & gray sticks, POV etc.

Oh and because I've not posted it :roll: If it where not attached.

MadCatz PC Con Controller:

6 axis, 1 hat, 10 buttons + programmable auto rapid-fire buttons & rate of fire.


Anyone interested in making a Popular Joystick chart? (Oh that reminds me, I should update and post my chart on the front page. :))

[NecroDOME]

About programmable buttons, I made a tool to config a joystick/gamepad to use it within windows (and games).

http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Project.nss?project=App_JoystickTool

You can also add functions by making a plugin dll...

[WILL]

Oh man, this is so cool. Make a new thread in My Projects and I'll put it on the News page. :)

(Maybe I'm just excited because I don't get to use my joystick enough *shrug*)

[mrpascal]

mrpascal:

Thanks! :) What are those from anyhow?

[chronozphere]

One question: Can a computer distiguish a gamepad, a steering wheel and a joystick, or does a computer always refers to them as game-input-devices. :?

Technically, joysticks, gamepads and steering wheels all have axises and a number of buttons. The Only difference is the shape. :)

So... do all "game input devices" need the same DX calls, or are there any differences??

[WILL]

Well if you look at the two screenshots shown above it's pretty obvious that the configuration is fairly different. Son in that sense, yes, the mapping is the same, but different.

I'm not too sure about riving wheels & foot peddles though. I would assume that they are about the same. Which would lead me to my questions of how a game would manage a wheel device that turned all the way around. :) Or are they even able to do as much. Sorry, I've never used one myself.

I'd be interested in seeing a technical spec of a wheel though. Specifically how it's axis is oriented.

As far as libraries go... in the case of DirectInput(or any other API), it's really just reading states, which will probably be the easiest part of your game engine. ;) The slightly trickier part is designing a layer on top of that to read information that the API gathered and turn it into something useful for your game. It's the same with SDL or any other API that will read the states of your game devices for you.

[mrpascal]

There are some description values in DirectX that drivers return. For example MOUSE, KEYBOARD, JOYSTICK, GAMEPAD, DRIVING, FLIGHT. There are loads of other values such as DUALPEDALS, REMOTE and LIGHTPEN so as long as the driver describes itself correctly, DirectX (and you) know what the controller actually is.

But they all return data in the same group of axis, POV and button data. How the data is actually stored there is up to the driver. Some gamepad drivers that return the DPad data as axis, some as POV and some as buttons!

I'm guessing for a wheel it returns 32767 when centered but behaves just like a thumbstick - the further it is moved the more that value alters. Full left would be 0 and full right would be 65535 with lots of values in between.