Pictures please, it's exciting :) The first one was pretty cool, so if the second one is better... !!! :D
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Pictures please, it's exciting :) The first one was pretty cool, so if the second one is better... !!! :D
It's the same as a Stick, the neGcon just has the X-Axis (left/right) where the Stick has and X-Axis (left/right) and Y-Axis (up/down), so you'd just connect it to the spots the X-axis of the Stick are using, which going by that diagram is A/B/C, with B being the Wiper (center pin) then A and C being power/ground, and if ya get the power/ground backwards it'll just work backwards is all and swapping them will fix it.
thanks, I'll give it a try soon.
xavier, I'll post the pics after I finish my xbox version
xbox negcon now is a reality. I wish I had the thrustmaster wheel for it, but I ended up just using the yamaha motorcycle wheel that was made for it (kinda). The yamaha wheel comes with a controller converter for xbox/gamecube, and has sensitivity settings, although with this game, I would rather have it perform like it does on the other wheel, set at 45 degrees. Anyway, I think this will work well when I get used to it.
IH8you, I was wondering how the one you were making was working out?
I've just succeeded in building a microcontroller-based circuit that allows me to use an unmodified negcon on the ps3. I'm pretty pleased as I've spent practically every spare moment for the last three weeks trying to figure this out!
At the moment it only works on full sensitivity. This should be trivial to code a solution for, but I'd like to use a potentiometer to calibrate sensitivity so as I have to learn ADC routines for the controller it might take a little while to get right! Also, only the twist is analog. I think I should be able to get the other buttons analog but it's not a priority as I've never used them that way. Likewise the lack of home button.
quick picture: (my camera is :turd) http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/alb...pictureid=2081
more details to follow!
That sounds very promising. An analogue option would be good, but I'm not sure about analogue buttons for WipEout HD. With the sideshifts and barrel rolls, I think digital would work better. So perhaps full analogue is not a necessity for HD but may be for the other games.
lovely!
You guys are genius ! You should use Webex and cooperate among all of you and maybe this could be financed one day?
I had chance to get into my hands Al's HD Neg V1.0, i sent it back to him to get the new V2.0 :hyper
Special greetings to you Element42, Mister Mo(lybdenum). great to see back an old Neggie lover :beer
I'll buy 2!!! :D
More progress, have successfully added potentiometer for calibration, as well as some push switches to map the buttons not on the negcon (L2, L3, R2, R3 & select). I have attempted the home button and analog buttons but no success... actually, I could use a little help here.
I need to see some HID reports for other PS3 devices. An HID report is a little chunk of code that tells a host device exactly what a USB peripheral is and can do. I managed to get my adaptor working after essentially copying the report from a standard PSX -> USB adaptor. If I'm going to get the home and analog buttons working, I think I'm going to need to see the HID report of something else with a home button and analog buttons! The Sixaxis/dualshock3 has a report that is very complicated so ideally what I want is a report from a steering wheel with analog throttle & brake (like the Arno-con! which presumably maps the analog buttons), and a PS3 adaptor something like this:
http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/alb...pictureid=2084
That's a PS3 adaptor that will take a PSX controller and a PSX memory card. Unfortunately mine doesn't work! But importantly it has a home button.
So, how do you find out the HID report?Right, that's all for now. The home & analog buttons are really just a software issue so I can get on with some stripboard soldering to properly 'make' this thing...
- Install USBlyzer (trial version) from http://www.usblyzer.com/download.htm
- plug in the gamepad to the computer.
- Install & open the program
- In the top-left panel (device tree) click on the port that is directly above the gamepad (should say something like Port x: USB human interface device)
- In the bottom-left panel, scroll down to the bottom section (Interface x: HID report descriptor). This should begin with something like "Usage Page (generic desktop) 05 01'. Select to the bottom, copy and paste into notepad or something.
- It would also be useful if you could go to Control Panel -> Game Controllers -> Properties and find out which button number lights up when your press the home button.
- Shoot me a PM with the info! :g
I'm not sure I fully understood that but....
I have a PS2 controller and a PS3/PC adapter which maps the home button to the analog button for use on PS3. The only thing is that when plugged into a PC, I don't know what the analog button will actually do. But the PS2 buttons are all analogue I think, so I can record the HID report if you think it might be useful.
EDIT: OK, now I'm not so sure. My firewall/anti-virus says the uninstaller is a virus.:eek
Do you mean the uninstaller for the device monitor software?
Hmmm. That could be a problem. I used it okay, but I've only got AVG installed on my Windows partition (I use linux mostly :rock). I expect there's other stuff out there that'll do the job, I'll investigate.
Yup, the uninstaller for the HDD USB Monitor. It says, "heur.suspicious@25132460". I use COMODO firewall and anti-virus. Maybe it's just being paranoid, but I'd obviously rather not install it if there's any risk that the uninstaller is going to be unavailable when I come to use it.
I agree, better to be safe. I've edited my post. I have found three alternatives but it'll have to wait until tomorrow for me to check how to use them as my laptop with Windows on is at work...
Thanks afatsuoM, but I've already seen those... the sixaxis HID is very complicated - I've tried using the appropriate parts but failed. I might still be able to use it if all else fails, though.
I've found another USB analyzer program that to the best of my knowledge is not malware. It's called USBlyzer. I've adjusted the details in my previous post. Please let me know if any security suites detect any issues :redface:
This one comes up clean for me. Will try it later tonight when I finish working.
@element42 What kind of controller do you use? and what do you code it with? Assembly or higher level? What do you use to interface with USB, is USB integrated into the controller or do you just bit bang the USB protocol?
I did as per the instructions for my Dualshock2. File is attached with the HID report, but in the game controller menu nothing is shown when I hit the analog button (which on PS3 works as the home button with this adapter). All it does is decrease the two bars for the stick input for a split second as the analog light flickers off and on quickly. So I guess the home button thing only works on the PS3 and does nothing on a PC. Maybe the HID report is the same anyway? I have no clue, but it's there in case it helps at all.
That looks like it might be very useful, :beer thanks a lot SaturnReturn! The report is very similar to what I'm using, but with an additional undefined axis (this might be the home button), four more buttons (perhaps d-pad double definition), and a further section on the end which I'm pretty sure governs the analog button responses...
@wich - I'm using an AVR ATMega8 - see http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/index.html for details. I've no real idea how it does its magic. In particular, my project is adapted from the PS2USB project by Primož Kranjec which uses the serial interface on the AVR chip to communicate with the PS controller. I'm coding in c, which I've never used before and am having to learn as I go!
I'm putting together a web page with details which will hopefully be ready by the end of the week for anyone who wants to try making one...
Cool, how do you program the AVR, via serial port or a special programmer? Oh, and what environment do you use to code in?
I guess I should give a go to making my own version.
I'm using the AVRISP mkII which I believe is a USB serial port implementation. I run (k)ubuntu linux so it's avr-gcc & avrdude from the command line, although I've played with AVRstudio a little bit - it runs nicely under wine, don't know if it'll actually communicate with the AVRISP though.
Anyway, mk1 is finished! Quick photo here. The little red things on top are miniature push switches. I'm not really satisfied with it, actually. It would be nice if I had a psx controller & mini-A USB socket instead of the pigtails. Also, the potentiometer to adjust sensitivity is inside (screwed-in cover), so if I want to adjust it I have to take it apart. The justification for this is that I didn't want an external knob that might be knocked after finding my perfect calibration, so I'm not really sure what to do about that. And I haven't got the home button or analog buttons working yet. But... it works!
The details are available from:
http://ps3negcon.element42.org/ - page still in progress. It's really quite easy to put together, the most trouble I had was getting it all together in the case!
Looks neat. Glad to help in any way possible, as I know a lot of people would love this.:+
sounds great, glad more people are getting into this now. I think you should put a knob on the outside, mainly for sensitivity changes with different ships, or even different games. My negcon worked awesome on ridge racer 7, smoother than wipeout since there are more degrees of movement in that game. how are you handling the sensitivity?
1) do you have the pot from the negcon plugged into something that can be adjusted?
2) If so, I would really like to know how to do this, this would save me the time of breaking a yamaha motorcycle wheel every time I make a negcon :)
The negcon is completely untouched! It plugs into the device just like it would into a PS1. You just need a playstation extension cable to attach to the circuit.
The sensitivity adjustment pot basically just multiplies the incoming value from the negcon by whatever factor before passing it to the PS3.
If you can read circuit diagrams there's one in the zip package on the website. Otherwise I will be putting up a building guide sooner or later which hopefully will be easy to follow! You won't need to break any more wheels 8)
It would be good to get a comparison between my version and the 'hardware' approach... I wonder if they actually 'feel' the same in the game? It's possible - though unlikely I think - that having to interface the negcon with the microcontroller produces some lag.
Huge kudos to you both, element42 and jabberjaw. It blows my mind that you figured this stuff out! :dizzy
Next you need to build a little warehouse in China and start selling...to everybody here, lol.
about time someone did this :hyper:clap
thanks element42 for the awesome work!, seen microcontrollers doing wonderful stuff over the years(think I saw someone have a ball wired up via microcontroller to a Dualshock2 to play Supermonkeyball ), I just didn't think their was anyone here that had the know how to pull this off
while a bit hokey looking if you can't find a PS extension cable(hard to get here) you could always use the controller port straight out of a PS1, ever so plentiful
-zer:donutshen
so your negcon potentiometer, passes to a sensitivity adjustment potentiometer,
if this is the case, then with mine, I could do the same thing, except from that adjustment pot, it would go straight to the final input on the wheel board, yes?
where did you get this particular device? picture? link?
Man, If this works, I will really be pysched, I will basically have a programmable wheel, with sensitivity adjustment. It would also save me 25$ or so cutting my parts price down even more.
you say there is lag? alot, small amount?
The device is based around an AVR ATMega8 microcontroller which you should be able to get from most electronics suppliers. The negcon information is passed to the microcontroller, as is the information from the calibration pot, and a suitable output value is calculated by the microcontroller before sending the info to USB.
Lag: I don't think there's any, but I have spent more time building this thing than testing it. It's plausible because where the PS1 would just read the negcon and use the data, the microcontroller has to read the negcon and then pass the data to the PS3.
Is it possible to have just the three pot wires go to this microcontroller, then be able to adjust sensitivity with a Knob or such. this would be the final touch on mine. It works great as is, but the adjustment, and less $ making it would be great.
@ JABBERJAW From the schematic I can see that the pot is just a voltage divider, the output of which is used on one of the 10 bit ADCs in the microcontroller. So in the controller you simply have a digital value between 0 and 1023 that you can use.
@element42 Thanks for all the info and the project page. I'm definately ordering some parts. Hopefully I get to play with this this weekend, otherwise the next. ;)
Btw, what would you guys think of a "do barrelroll" button so that you don't have to do the annoying LRL or RLR? Or would you say that is cheating?
Al, If I understand what you're thinking, you'd need to use the microcontroller in a completely different way to how I'm using it. It would probably be possible though.
Wich - definitely cheating :naughty
Besides, I hate br's enough as it is... :p
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I've done mk1.1 - with an external adjustment pot. Picture here. There's no knob because I don't have any knobs :p but the lower couple does mean accidental adjustements are less likely.
I've also adjusted the code to double the serial interface speed with the negcon. This does mean my dualshock doesn't work anymore. I should do some testing to see whether the increased SPI speed is actually beneficial, but in the end I expect I'll just chuck the code for interfacing the standard pad! I could optimise the code a bit more if I do that.
uttermost respect to all involved :)
Thanks's to Al's testing, the adaptor has an additional pot for adjusting the dead zone.
Also, it turns out that WO:HD has a 'built-in' dead zone. That is, Wipeout ignores any input below a certain value (specifically, given a full input range of -128 to 127, it ignores any values between -49 and 48 ). I've coded around that but it does mean that any games with a different built-in deadzone will function less optimally. I could add a third pot to adjust this, but that would be three pots and it's starting to look ugly :frown: or I could leave it coded for WO. Given that I've only ever used the negcon with WO I'm thinking the latter, but I suppose it makes sense to make it as adjustable as possible...
UPDATE: Added the third pot. Three adjustments can be made now: sensitivity, deadzone, and 'built-in' deadzone defeat.
Just the analog & home buttons to go...
AWESOME WORK! I think that is a good idea too. I am going to test your negcon right now with ridge racer 7 or gran turismo
OK, just tested it out. For my negcon, the dead zone was smaller for ridge racer, and gran turismo, than for HD. For element42's negcon, it did not work for GT (odd), but it worked really good for Ridge racer, and the dead zone was smaller.
I've spent a lot of the bank holiday weekend trying to get the analog buttons to be analog and the home button working but with no success. So I'm going to stop development on this, for a while at least. I think the adaptor is working well as it is, certainly enough to satisfactorily use a negcon to play Wipeout HD with.
yeah, I would stop too, there is nothing worse than spending alot of time on something and not getting it. weird that the home button is so difficult. It works perfect as you have it anyway, and the analog buttons wouldn't really help wipeout anyway, BUT they would help the other racing games like gran turismo. Nice work
Update on the negcon. Element has sent me his new masterpiece. It has a steering sensitivity dead zone, and built in dead zone. If there is a built in dead zone in the game, it can start the steering where that ends if you like, then you can adjust the steering sens as needed. This thing was incredible with HD, making the turning perfect, exactly where you want it, without worrying that increasing the sensitivity will also increase dead zone. This is certainly the best negcon converter by far at this point. He also added switches for some personal preferences. OH, also, this will work with the pc and mac! They recognize the controller. I just need to dial it in for 2097 mac still since I did not understand how exactly it worked when I tested it the first time. Amazing work, and a huge round of applause for element42
You guys are impressive !
Hey guys,
I m so much supporting this project...
....dreaming of the Negcon when I play Wipeout Hd...
If I own a Negcon,
Is there a ''simple'' way to make it work ?
Besides if you guys want to market some Negcon adaptator, I m sure some people are interested to invest few bucks in it.
Keep it up :)