I was looking at Ultimarc’s website and reading about the I-Pac interface, and it seems really easy to use. I don’t really have pad hacking skills, although I have tried.
I was wondering if I would be better off putting an one of these I Pac things in the
cabinet. Looks like they have Xbox, PSX and DC adapters for use with I Pac, dunno how well they work or ease of use really.
Originally I had planned on just putting some hacked dual shock PCBs in there, and using USB/Xbox/DC adapters and switching out when switching consoles in the cabinet. Seems easy to do, but a pain for switching out all the time.
Then, there is the matter of monitors and audio…
Any opinions comments would be appreciated. All I want to do is play fighters on this cabinet I’m making, Is I PAC lag free?
The fellas over at arcadecontrols swear by the I-Pac. I think it’s the absolute best thing to use if you’re making a stick for PC use. Since it’s built around MAME I doubt there’s any lag. It is simply a great piece of engineering. Solder free too. And I believe it works with other emulators.
As for the converters made for it, I’m not sure how good they work. It would be great if they worked without lag or input problems. Then you’d pretty much have a universal PCB to use for joysticks.
The stick I’m making just for MAME will have an I-Pac in it. I can’t wait to get it done.
you could try to hook up something like a system selector that with a flip of a switch you can turn on specific controllers or something, but that’d be something that I have no idea on how to accomplish lol
I was originally planning to hook my PS2 up to my cabinet. After reading through the Ultimarc forums, the problem with PS2 converters seems to be that they work perfectly… for every game except 3rd Strike. There were a couple of other 2d fighters that it didn’t work with, too, if memory serves.
If you’re going to play 2d fighters, look around the forums they have, ask some questions, but my advice would be to pick up a cheap Xbox and get the Xbox converter. I just (literally, 30 minutes ago) finished setting mine up and it works beautifully with 3rd Strike.
It’s relatively stress-free if you know what you’re doing - I’d never opened up a cabinet before in my life, I didn’t even know what color was grounding, and I was able to set it up fairly quickly (but with a little stress provided by the learning process).
Long story short, I’m really really happy with my Xbox converter.
Thats good news, because I only play a handful of PS2 fighters, most of my stuff is xbox.(including 3s) I’ll go ahead and order it, in that case. Thanks for the advice. I’ll let you guys know how it works!@
I bought the original ipac when they first came out. I still use it today. I’ve never had any issues with it and it’s seen a ton of use over it’s many years.
I haven’t used any adaptors with it. I don’t even know if my version would work with them (it’s ps/2 not usb).
I’ve got Xbox->JPAC hooked up in my cabinet, and it works great. HSF2 is the only Xbox game I really play on it, but I’ve got MAMEoX on there, too. No, there is not any lag whatsoever. If you already have your cabinet wired to a JAMMA connector, then the JPAC is what you want.
I have an I-Pac with PS2 hookups and USB. I mainly play Tekken games on my PS with no lag from the inputs. Works great. I have my cabinet built just like Tekken 5 arcade machine. It can accept inputs from the joystick or with PS pads. I’ve placed the hookups on the sides underneath the controllers. Have a look.
That’s an awesome cab ling. Uncluttered and space between 1 and 2 player. The way it should be. Did you write up a blog of the build in progress? I love reading those…
Oh, and to clear it up, you used the USB I-Pac or the standard PS/2 version? And there was absolutely no lag for tekken? Have you tried it with any other games?
Yeah the cabinet is an old Mortal Kombat 3 machine. If only I had taken photos of the thing before I had started. It was a giant mess. I only paid $100. Its a throw back to the good ole days of Street Fighter. I didn’t write a blog. Tho I have much work still to do. I may just start one. I purchased the USB version. The playstation 2 adapters needs a ps/2 hookup btw. They sell USB to PS/2 cords. But I found that to be too much trouble for my setup. What I did is use a USB to PS/2 adapter to connect the PS2 adapter to the playstation. I can easily switch from Mame games to PS2 games with ease.
No lag with Tekken even when doing just frames. Perfect!. I did try out a few other games that worked. Those games had no lag. With the I-PAC PS2 adapter you can even switch from analog/digital with combo key presses.