8 other PC’s I tried it with worked flawlessly) Enclosure used for my new dance pad controller: Really? We re-added the PS2 keyboard connectors and it would work? The answer is YES! If you re-solder some PS2 keyboard connectors onto your I-PAC VE it works (Note: I only had one PC where it wouldn’t power itself on with the PS2 mod. I-PAC states that the VE series is exactly like their original series in every way except for the non-volatile ram. The image pictured above is actually the I-PAC VE controller which is cheaper and had free shipping at the time I got it (around $32 US) and the only thing that separated this from the regular I-PAC is this one only had USB and this one resets it’s configuration to a default MAME mapping every-time you power it off (no problem I can re-configure the mapping in StepMania) So outside of lack of non-volatile memory according to Ultimarc the programming is incidental between the I-PAC and I-PAC VE. Thus, I can bypass the OEM Cobalt Flux PlayStation controller brick and pipe all of the wiring right into this unit. My Cobalt Flux just has pin-outs with a common ground. This means you can hold all 32 keys down at the same time and they would register at the exact time as just pressing down one. Even though it emulates a keyboard via USB it has an interrupt per key instead of sharing or ‘ghosting’ the interrupts. The I-PAC is more than acceptable for the feeling of the hard-core gamer. Enter the I-Pac ve controller:Įnter the I-PAC controller (Website here). going through some MAME forums I found this bad boy. Well! Mark this as strike two from china! Let us find the fastest converter in the world for my cobalt flux pads. With the quarter-second lag it’s enough to mess up just about any score in StepMania and as a result, was not a consistent solution for game-play. On others, however (mostly laptops) there was a quarter-second lag. On some chip-sets latency is virtually non-existent. However, the weird thing that was encountered depending on the USB chip-set is latency. We first tested this adapter by hooking PlayStation controllers to there were no perceivable problems. It’s a PlayStation to PC adapter that China makes for anywhere from $5-$15 dollars. From the soft-mat days, we had this adapter. Getting bored withPS2 DDR it was time to hook the Cobalt flux Pads up to my PC. And these things still work to this day (my pads acrylic is all scuffed to hell! but otherwise perfect!) The Chinese PlayStation 2 to USB adapter: With giant holes burned into our pockets at the point of the game, it simply was not worth it. I minus well buy the whole damn arcade machine!). Arcade parts do go on sale but every time they are listed they can cost up to $700 per pad (so if I wanted doubles. It was a godsend! The only thing that would be better than this would be the actual Arcade Pads ripped right off of a machine. Moving onward to the Cobalt Flux for $300 per pad with the arcade riser kit as shown in the picture. Needless to say, these pads only took a total of a few months of abuse and i had to open them repetitively because the aluminum tape was sticking to the sensor PCB. Turns out that a 70lbs child can max out the pad as it’s your weight times three would be the pressure of the pad. These mats can hold up to 250lbs of pressure! If you scroll down most of these eBay sellers There will be a disclaimer on them where it said: And a guy like myself around 280 lbs found these pads too flimsy. BIG MISTAKE!! Pissing $150 (Plus $75 shipping and handling for how awkward they are to ship) away they were made with 1/8ths inch thick plywood with another 1/8ths-inch thick ply for the pads. People were getting injured on these mats because the mat flew out from under you during a song twisting your ankle if you didn’t tape it down! Ouch! The Chinese hard pad: An upgrade was necessary and we didn’t want MadCatz soft-mat or the ultra-crappy OEM dance mats. The best attainable grades were B’s and A’s on heavy’s when I was doing it non-stop for months at a time. The SoftPad:įor a long-time, we got into Dance Dance Revolution and eventually Stepmania. Let us take a tour of all of the different hardware we used and the experiences that have occurred with it. We were going for a solid solution when I moved my pads from PC to PC. Just keep in mind that my solution is not the cheapest in the world. StepMania love coming at you! This is a quasi blog and guide on how we got our dance pads to work well with StepMania thanks to the I-PAC. Stepmania + Pads + I-PAC = solid response times!
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