Help! Flashback Paddles with Retronic Adapter on Stella

[+stephena]

I will have to do further research and testing on this. What games are you playing?

[Tinman]

Circus Atari and Kaboom! Same behavior on both.

[+stephena]

I'll try to find some time this week to look into it. For now, you can keep track of the progress here:

 

https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/issues/192

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I am still having some troubles, however, as the paddle movement does not correlate well with the on-screen player. (In this case, I was trying Circus Atari.) At either end of the paddle movement, there are "dead zones" where moving the paddle does nothing. And in the center of the paddle movement, the player darts across the screen, but lagging behind the actual paddle movement.

I think that's the adapter, because I cannot explain dead zones at both ends.

[mr_me]

 

I was able to test this with some success! Stella does now recognize the paddle! So I think your solution is the correct one.

 

I am still having some troubles, however, as the paddle movement does not correlate well with the on-screen player. (In this case, I was trying Circus Atari.) At either end of the paddle movement, there are "dead zones" where moving the paddle does nothing. And in the center of the paddle movement, the player darts across the screen, but lagging behind the actual paddle movement. I tried calibrating the paddles using the Windows calibration tool in joy.cpl and that helped some, but did not fix the issue. Not sure if the problem is in the Retronic adapter or Windows or Stella... Any ideas?

 

It's behaving like a digital joystick rather than a paddle. I don't think deadzone settings should have any effect with paddles and deadzone should be zero by default in Stella. Stella seems to map the mouse and a digital joystick to the paddle by default. The paddle mapping needs to be corrected to analog; to do that go here.

 

"Options > Input Settings > Emul Events" and select "paddle 0 analog"

 

Click the map button and move the paddle. Although it will say "action: Jx/A0/+|-" only the positive movement is used.

Edited August 13, 2017 by mr_me

[JFD62780]

. . . I think it has more to do with the paddles themselves and how they work on real hardware.

 

They really worked more in the middle-ish position with deadzones on both ends anyways, and I knew the position would be absolute anyways in terms of onscreen position.

 

The paddles were merely glorified potentiometers anyways so they did not need to be centered unlike joysticks, like for the 5200. They did tend to jitter, though, when dust got in 'em. I should know; I witnessed a relative taking 'em apart and cleaning the things when I first got my 6-switcher at that garage sale. The results spoke for themselves.

 

The lagging behind could be an issue tho; the things are supposed to be instant on actual hardware.

Edited August 14, 2017 by JFD62780

[mr_me]

If the paddle is behaving like a digital joystick to Stella then it could give the impression of lag rather than absolute position. It could also explain some of the false deadzones. Setting it to an analog mapping should correct it.

[Tinman]

 

It's behaving like a digital joystick rather than a paddle. I don't think deadzone settings should have any effect with paddles and deadzone should be zero by default in Stella. Stella seems to map the mouse and a digital joystick to the paddle by default. The paddle mapping needs to be corrected to analog; to do that go here.

 

"Options > Input Settings > Emul Events" and select "paddle 0 analog"

 

Click the map button and move the paddle. Although it will say "action: Jx/A0/+|-" only the positive movement is used.

 

Yep, that did it! There are still dead zones at either end of the movement, but in the middle it works well; no lag at all.

 

I'll work on the paddle properties in Windows to try to get rid of the dead zones.

 

Thanks all for the help!!!

[mr_me]

 

Yep, that did it! There are still dead zones at either end of the movement, but in the middle it works well; no lag at all.

 

I'll work on the paddle properties in Windows to try to get rid of the dead zones.

 

Thanks all for the help!!!

Isn't that normal with real hardware; that only a small portion of the paddle zone is used.

 

Edit:

I notice that Stella paddles only use the positive portion of an analog control. It could explain a good chunk of the deadzone.

Edited August 14, 2017 by mr_me

[Tinman]

Isn't that normal with real hardware; that only a small portion of the paddle zone is used.

 

Up to a point, yes, but this is excessive. I think I can make some adjustments to improve it.

[dualcam]

The two outside marks are the entire range used on the real console (moves player from screen edge to screen edge) -

 

 

Paddles on the 2600 is about using very fine precise control.

 

Tom

http://2600-daptor.com/

Edited August 15, 2017 by dualcam

[Tinman]

Yes, but if you make the usable area wider, you get more precise control.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

But the games are tailored to exactly those controllers, their range and and their precision.

[dualcam]

Just saying if you wanted the duplicate the original feel which is usually the point of using original controllers. Else one could just use a mouse.

 

Tom

http://2600-daptor.com/

[mr_me]

 

Up to a point, yes, but this is excessive. I think I can make some adjustments to improve it.

Is that default range smaller, bigger, or similar to what Dualcam has shown in his photo?

[Tinman]

Hard to say. Feels very small, but Im not sure if its smaller than what the photo shows.

[Tangentg]

I'm using a 2600-daptor II and trying to use Paddle controllers on my computer but even though the adaptor is flashing and is in the controller database, nothing I do with the paddles register in either both DIP switches up or down (the thing doesn't make clear which way is up). The most I've gotten is making the mouse move down when I press one of the paddle buttons with both switches "down" (to me).

 

Edit: never mind, I got it working now after some settings

Edited August 19, 2017 by Tangentg

[dualcam]

I'm using a 2600-daptor II and trying to use Paddle controllers on my computer but even though the adaptor is flashing and is in the controller database, nothing I do with the paddles register in either both DIP switches up or down (the thing doesn't make clear which way is up). The most I've gotten is making the mouse move down when I press one of the paddle buttons with both switches "down" (to me).

 

Edit: never mind, I got it working now after some settings

 

If you have trouble, be sure to say what emulator and OS.

 

 

Tom

http://2600-daptor.com/