PS3 NeGcon - Can it be done???

[wich]

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.

[element42]

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!

[SaturnReturn]

Looks neat. Glad to help in any way possible, as I know a lot of people would love this.

[JABBERJAW]

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

[element42]

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

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.

[Medusa]

Huge kudos to you both, element42 and jabberjaw. It blows my mind that you figured this stuff out!

Next you need to build a little warehouse in China and start selling...to everybody here, lol.

[BulletWraith]

about time someone did this
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

-zershen

[JABBERJAW]

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?

[element42]

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.

[JABBERJAW]

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.

[wich]

@ 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?

[element42]

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
Besides, I hate br's enough as it is...

___________________________

I've done mk1.1 - with an external adjustment pot. Picture here. There's no knob because I don't have any knobs 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.

[lovedr]

uttermost respect to all involved

[element42]

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 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...

[JABBERJAW]

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.

[element42]

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.

[JABBERJAW]

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

[JABBERJAW]

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

[Ace3cube]

You guys are impressive !

[SnoWStyle]

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