For steering, acceleration and brake, this should work. It might depend upon the game how gear shifting is implemented. Most games likely will use automatic shifting with just an up / down option. A small program on an arduino could convert an arcade gear shifter into some gear up / down key presses. You will need to know what gear the game starts in so that your absolute gear (stick position) matches the game gear at startup. Some racing cabs like outrun 2 also only use up / down for gear shifting. On the first outrun cabinet, the gear lever doesn't return to the idle position, so it's either low or high.
ridge racer cab plug and play between pc/pcb
- Thread starter yoganuggy
- Start date
I got this going last week.
I went a slightly different route with the connectors and picked up the JAE50 /JAE60 Male connector blocks and soldered the uhid/audio/vga to these. It literally takes 30 seconds to swap out from the rave racer pcb to the pc.
Part numbers:
1756520 (50pin jae)
1756525 (60pin jae)
1756501 (20pin jae)
Ultimarc parts were the uhid with type 3 harness and vga amp. Then I picked up an audio amp from arcadeworlduk
For controls, I stripped around 15 wires from the uhid harness and soldered to jae50 connector (io board).
E.g for steering I soldered harness wire from j2 pin4 to B22 on the jae50 then programmed j2 pin 4 to be x axis with the uhid software. Did the same for the other inputs gnds and vccs for total of around 15 wires. I used uhid modes Z axis for acceleration and slider for break. There are schematics online for this, some easier to read. My cab is a twin so the shifter is up/down. Not much documentation on this but it's Jae50 A1 for shift down, B1 for shift up and A3 for shift gnd.
PC is an i7 6700k and the graphics card is the r380x (last analogue card made that is calamity driver/groovymame compatible) so it's a bit of a beast and runs everything.
I calibrated the uhid inputs on the pc with the game controller calibration tool built in to windows 10.
Running the latest grooveymame, you have to manually configure the controls for each game. Remember to set analog inc and dec to none. Initially the steering was way off compared to the real pcb but this turned out to be a simple config option in mame. Open mame.ini and search for deadzone. Set this to 0.01 (1%) as by default it's 30% meaning you have to turn the wheel 30% before it registers! There is also a setting below that for max rotation set to 85%. Again this feels weird compared to the real thing as it makes the turn 100% when you are only at 85% turn. Change this from 0.85 to 1.
Have to say the emulation in mame is really spot on although my best time on the real pcb for course 1 is 51.03 seconds, on mame I can get 50.6 so make of that what you will.
So anyone with a faulty pcb, try the above and you have a really good alternative.
Not to mention all the other 270 degree driving games available too! Forgot how good I was at rad mobile
The remaining things to work on are:
1. Hyper spin setup for all 270 degree driving games. Lots of you tube videos for these but nobody sharing. Ill DIY this some day.
2. Force feed back. My rave raver twin doesn't have ffb but I bought rave racer ffb wheels from a member here a few months ago. Sadly they don't work on the real pcb as I'm missing the ffb control boards. However they look like happ ffb wheels so if I can find someone selling an immersion usb ffb to pc board I'll be installing boomslang's ffb mame plugin straight away
3. Linking cabs. So far I've only 1 side set up for pc swapping. I plan on doing the other side soon and using the m2 emulator link option. Linking feature for rave racer is currently unemulated in mame but m2 links Daytona etc.
yoganuggy2019-10-05 12:16:56
I went a slightly different route with the connectors and picked up the JAE50 /JAE60 Male connector blocks and soldered the uhid/audio/vga to these. It literally takes 30 seconds to swap out from the rave racer pcb to the pc.
Part numbers:
1756520 (50pin jae)
1756525 (60pin jae)
1756501 (20pin jae)
Ultimarc parts were the uhid with type 3 harness and vga amp. Then I picked up an audio amp from arcadeworlduk
For controls, I stripped around 15 wires from the uhid harness and soldered to jae50 connector (io board).
E.g for steering I soldered harness wire from j2 pin4 to B22 on the jae50 then programmed j2 pin 4 to be x axis with the uhid software. Did the same for the other inputs gnds and vccs for total of around 15 wires. I used uhid modes Z axis for acceleration and slider for break. There are schematics online for this, some easier to read. My cab is a twin so the shifter is up/down. Not much documentation on this but it's Jae50 A1 for shift down, B1 for shift up and A3 for shift gnd.
PC is an i7 6700k and the graphics card is the r380x (last analogue card made that is calamity driver/groovymame compatible) so it's a bit of a beast and runs everything.
I calibrated the uhid inputs on the pc with the game controller calibration tool built in to windows 10.
Running the latest grooveymame, you have to manually configure the controls for each game. Remember to set analog inc and dec to none. Initially the steering was way off compared to the real pcb but this turned out to be a simple config option in mame. Open mame.ini and search for deadzone. Set this to 0.01 (1%) as by default it's 30% meaning you have to turn the wheel 30% before it registers! There is also a setting below that for max rotation set to 85%. Again this feels weird compared to the real thing as it makes the turn 100% when you are only at 85% turn. Change this from 0.85 to 1.
Have to say the emulation in mame is really spot on although my best time on the real pcb for course 1 is 51.03 seconds, on mame I can get 50.6 so make of that what you will.
So anyone with a faulty pcb, try the above and you have a really good alternative.
Not to mention all the other 270 degree driving games available too! Forgot how good I was at rad mobile
The remaining things to work on are:
1. Hyper spin setup for all 270 degree driving games. Lots of you tube videos for these but nobody sharing. Ill DIY this some day.
2. Force feed back. My rave raver twin doesn't have ffb but I bought rave racer ffb wheels from a member here a few months ago. Sadly they don't work on the real pcb as I'm missing the ffb control boards. However they look like happ ffb wheels so if I can find someone selling an immersion usb ffb to pc board I'll be installing boomslang's ffb mame plugin straight away
3. Linking cabs. So far I've only 1 side set up for pc swapping. I plan on doing the other side soon and using the m2 emulator link option. Linking feature for rave racer is currently unemulated in mame but m2 links Daytona etc.
yoganuggy2019-10-05 12:16:56
Great write up
I hadn't even considered using jae connectors as I had no definitive wiring schmatic for Ridge Racer, best I could find was for a Ridge Racer 2 twin, but good plan, may be a future option for me as certainly makes the swap a bit quicker.
Interesting points about the Mame config, mine is similarly setup I think my deadzone is slightly more I will check but pleasing to know that you feel the emulation is good and you have the real PCB, I've no benchmark but my memories.
I'm still booting direct into Ridge Racer as I kinda like the "authenticity" so still not looked at frontends, but it's on the list. Be interesting to know how you proceed with this.
Lets hope the two player emulation for the Ridge Racer series in Mame is feasible at some point it would be great to have this incorporated for twin cab setups.
Arcman2019-10-07 19:43:10
I hadn't even considered using jae connectors as I had no definitive wiring schmatic for Ridge Racer, best I could find was for a Ridge Racer 2 twin, but good plan, may be a future option for me as certainly makes the swap a bit quicker.
Interesting points about the Mame config, mine is similarly setup I think my deadzone is slightly more I will check but pleasing to know that you feel the emulation is good and you have the real PCB, I've no benchmark but my memories.
I'm still booting direct into Ridge Racer as I kinda like the "authenticity" so still not looked at frontends, but it's on the list. Be interesting to know how you proceed with this.
Lets hope the two player emulation for the Ridge Racer series in Mame is feasible at some point it would be great to have this incorporated for twin cab setups.
Arcman2019-10-07 19:43:10