syntax_X Posted May 26, 2017 Share Posted May 26, 2017 (edited) So who here appreciates a massive amount of soldering?? Finished my center control panel today, which controls emulator functions such as exit reset save state turbo rewind ect. It also has 4 HDMI ports which are connected to a Bliss box 4-play. The reset buttons for the Bliss box are above each HDMI port. Player 1 and 2 are routed to a set of analog HDMI switches I made from old DB25 printer switches. These switch between using the arcade joystick and buttons or a compatible console controller. 88 solder points per switch end to end! Players 3 and 4 are directly connected to the Bliss box as I only have a 2 player arcade. Nice seamless switching between the arcade panel and console controls, with zero delay encoding. None of this joy2key/autohotkey/vjoy business. USB IDs never move also which makes hotswapping a breeze. Hardware all the way! ^ Wii-Classic (Ebay) controllers I padhacked to use with the blissbox, The female HDMI out is a fast way for me to switch between this emulator setup and a ps360+/Brooks for console gaming. This is not to be confused with the Blissbox HDMIs, I merely used HDMI because its a small factor reliable plug with more than enough pins for a standard common ground control panel. So my PS360+ also has a female HDMI and the control panel buttons and sticks are connected to a male one. Edited May 26, 2017 by syntax_X 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted May 26, 2017 Share Posted May 26, 2017 Thumbs up for craziness, I like it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLS Posted May 26, 2017 Share Posted May 26, 2017 Very interesting! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexis524 Posted May 26, 2017 Share Posted May 26, 2017 like your clean work. Very nice:) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
syntax_X Posted May 26, 2017 Author Share Posted May 26, 2017 (edited) 21 minutes ago, alexis524 said: like your clean work. Very nice:) Thanks I was actually surprised myself how nice the Wii-classic padhacks came up. Making the rotary switches as tight as I could was a bit of a mission. There's not much clearance for them in the machine as they were an afterthought. Still they seem to fit in nicely in the top corners as if I'd planned it Edited May 26, 2017 by syntax_X Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VACRMH Posted May 31, 2017 Share Posted May 31, 2017 (edited) On 5/25/2017 at 9:05 PM, syntax_X said: USB IDs never move also which makes hotswapping a breeze. I'm interested in this. So that means you can configure each controller, and then plug in whatever you want whenever? Like if you configure both SNES and an arcade stick for the buttons you want, just plug in the controller or arcade stick into the same port and just...go? That's something I'd love to have! Can you link to more details? Amazing setup BTW, love the safety toggle switch. Edit: I'm also wondering how the padhack classic controllers work. Where does the hdmi port on that you added plug in, and where does the black cable on the left go? Lots of cool ideas here, just trying to digest them all! Edited May 31, 2017 by VACRMH Added another question Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
syntax_X Posted June 1, 2017 Author Share Posted June 1, 2017 (edited) You can't really configure controllers just yet, but I spent some time with the BlissBox developer to make a global mapping which suits the majority of situations for Arcades. At the moment if you try to play a sega 6 button title on an SNES controller you wont have C because that is mapped to R2 which a SNES does not have. Use a PS2 controller on the same game R1 and R2 are C and Z. Use a saturn controller on that title the shoulders do nothing But as long as your going for a visually compatible controller everything's fine, i mean playing a sega 6 on a snes controller is gimmicky at best. Soon there will be an API for BlissBox which will mean we can check what emulator we are playing, and apply mappings to suit that emulator for any controller connected. Just finished writing up a batch file that scans the process list for emulators, if it finds one is present it will flash an I-pac to the desired mapping and monitor the program, on close it will flash the I-pac to a BigBox mode and continue to check for emulators till it finds one ect. You supply the i-pac IPC files and emulator names ect, its a pretty easy to follow batch. open in notepad++ highligh the name you want to change ctrl+f replace ect. This will easily be adapted to the BlissBox API I had to make this bat file because Launchbox currently has no method of starting external programs on emulator start or exit. There are autohotkey work arounds but I couldn't get them to work for custom platforms or MsDOS when no emulator is selected. There was talk awhile back of adding additional apps on startup per platform but that didn't include starting programs on emulator exit. It's pretty essential to clean the Ipac back to Big Box mode on each exit with my system. Some of the macros used for emulator hotkeys are damaging to Big Box. The below files have a short set of instructions inside. Best to use notepad++ to edit Ipac_Auto_Flasher.zip Edited June 2, 2017 by syntax_X Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VACRMH Posted June 1, 2017 Share Posted June 1, 2017 Interesting! My overall goal would be that every emulator has 2 configurations. One for my arcade stick and one for that systems controller. So if I'm looking to play SNES, I could plug in the SNES controller to play some Final Fantasy, or my arcade stick with Killer Instinct. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
syntax_X Posted June 1, 2017 Author Share Posted June 1, 2017 (edited) 24 minutes ago, VACRMH said: Interesting! My overall goal would be that every emulator has 2 configurations. One for my arcade stick and one for that systems controller. So if I'm looking to play SNES, I could plug in the SNES controller to play some Final Fantasy, or my arcade stick with Killer Instinct. With this you would only need the 1 config per emulator. You would have your arcade stick running off a PS2 or Wii-Classic controller, and would have the config file for the BlissBox API setup PS2 or Wii-Classic controllers to how you like your arcade stick setup, and the SNES controller for FF. For now I only have "1" config, and it works great. Here's the HID numbers for my Wii-Classic based CP vs a SNES controller. Edited June 1, 2017 by syntax_X Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VACRMH Posted June 1, 2017 Share Posted June 1, 2017 Would I need to go through all of that if I was just plugging the arcade stick in via USB? I could see if I was going the HDMI>Blissbox route that I would need to do that. However, I do have a ps360+ in my stick as well. I wonder if just forcing it to boot as a PS2 controller would work with the blissbox. I have to unplug it before booting my PC anyways because it's detected as something else on bootup and screws my mame config. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
syntax_X Posted June 1, 2017 Author Share Posted June 1, 2017 (edited) The BlissBox is compatible with a PS3! So 1 usb cable to the PS3 = 4 controllers, you could use a NES controller on it lol. Its one of BlissBoxes 4 modes. I still use my PS360+ for consoles though but i feel the BlissBox is on par or better than it on a PS3. The ps360+ and toodles boards even in forced modes are not compatible with the Bliss Box unfortunately. Maybe in Saturn mode but that lacks buttons. Good news for you though, I have a custom firmware laying around somewhere that will fix your ps360+ needing to be unplugged/cycled. **Edit** Found it! Bundled with instructions and flip installer. you need java runtime also but I didn't include that as its 50mb. The things I had to do for this firmware.... PS360+ Default PC.zip Edited June 2, 2017 by syntax_X 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VACRMH Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 Awesome! I'll have to get this installed soon, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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