Need a Mega-drive to xbox controller converter

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Droid party
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Need a Mega-drive to xbox controller converter

Post by Droid party »

It's just a case of I play a lot of my old MD games via emulators on my Xbox 1 and while the xbox pad is fine for snes games (similar layout and all ,analogue sticks notwithstanding) it's absolute crap for 6 button MD games.

If anybody has seen something suitable and can let me know I'd be in your debt, also I guess a saturn controller would work fine too or the ability too use either on the pc could also work as a last resort.
JT wrote:Yeah, like vampire aliens invade and hit us all with a ray beam that paralyzes all of our arms. The only way to deactivate the ray beam and fight back the vampire alien threat is with a complicated series of foot patterns on the device's control board that looks remarkably like a DDR pad. We will all praise this man for saving our lives and buy him a mountain of stuffed animals.
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Post by opethfan »

The Xbox pad is just USB. Get a USB MD controller (or a retrofit kit), and put on the end from an Xbox Controller. Needs a bit of soldering, but it should work.
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Post by CantStrafeRight »

opethfan wrote:The Xbox pad is just USB. Get a USB MD controller (or a retrofit kit), and put on the end from an Xbox Controller. Needs a bit of soldering, but it should work.
i dont think that will work as the xbox is only designed to work with xbox pads (it doesnt have drivers for any opther type of pads)
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Post by lordofduct »

the XBOX pad may be USB, but the software you use on the XBOX (i.e. emulators) need to add support for different USB pads. The USB controller chip for the XBOX controller defines the keys with different call names from the generic USB controller chip found in most common USB controllers (including the USB adapters for game controllers... like the joypad).

A couple of the emulators out there have the support added, but not all of them. I personally haven't ever used any emulators that have the support. But I've used other software made for the XBOX that does... so it is possible. That's up to the developer of the software... OR if you have any experience in programming, add the feature yourself if you can get your hands on the source yourself. But heh, that's a big project on its own if you don't know what your doing.

An option you DO have though which is a little easier, but still a bit complicated. Is tear apart an XBOX controller and chop it up to get just the parts you need, and build a new controller shaped like a genny controller.

It would take a lot of work, but it's basically similar to doing the same thing as making a Sega Saturn USB controller, who's tutorial can be found here on Racket's website. This time though instead of sticking a USB controller into a Sega Saturn controller, your gonna jam a XBOX controller into one. (I say saturn controller as they are a little larger the a genny one, but still have the same lay out... I personally love the Saturn controller!)
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Droid party
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Post by Droid party »

An option you DO have though which is a little easier, but still a bit complicated. Is tear apart an XBOX controller and chop it up to get just the parts you need, and build a new controller shaped like a genny controller.

That's sounding like the way to go but I was hoping to just buy something rather than trash 2 controllers to make 1 . Thanks for thr help anyway :)
JT wrote:Yeah, like vampire aliens invade and hit us all with a ray beam that paralyzes all of our arms. The only way to deactivate the ray beam and fight back the vampire alien threat is with a complicated series of foot patterns on the device's control board that looks remarkably like a DDR pad. We will all praise this man for saving our lives and buy him a mountain of stuffed animals.
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Post by skywriter »

Might be easier just to buy something like this streetfighter controller: http://cgi.ebay.com/Akuma-Street-Fighte ... dZViewItem. I have one of these and it is great.
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lordofduct
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Post by lordofduct »

welll... technically, if you want to use a Genny controller, there is a device you can build, AND it wouldn't kill any controllers... but it WILL make 1 XBOX controller really ugly.

Here's the idea... see most later controllers (i.e. Playstation, Saturn, Dreamcast) use special controller chips to digitally tell the console what button you are pushing. This is how they can put so many buttons on a controller that has only a few wires (i.e. USB only has 5 wires, 2 of which are just power alone, but the controller can support a LOT of buttons in actuality... 1000's if you really wanted to put together the algorithm... the saturn and dreamcast and the sort use special proprietary forms of the same basic concept of a USB controller).

But old school game controllers worked in an analogous manner. For instance, the 9 pin connector of the Genny was wired up with a non-digital algorithm. And then the controller chip in the genny converted these input signals to digital information depending on the algorithm.

How it worked is one of the pins was ground and another power. The rest of the wires were circuit completions. Every other pin was defined a value digitally, when the button was pushed it completed the circuit for 1 pin, and depending the pin it meant you pushed a certain button. This worked great but was limited to only 7 buttons (4 of which were took up by the D-pad). This limited the amount of buttons on the controller. So they added little resistors... this added a small fluctuation into the signal when one of the extra 6 buttons was pushed... this requires a more complex program that can't be easily faked analogousily.

so, unless you know how to use engineer a pretty complex controller board, or design a logics chip (with like an eeprom or something)... this means your options are limited to the 3 button controller solution.


SO, in the case of a 3 button controller:
All you'd have to do though is get the pin out of a genny controller port. Get a female Amiga adapter (you can get em at radioshitz) and then jam that female adapter inside an XBOX controller (possibly in the memory card port or something for asthetics) and wire each pin to the button you want it too... oh and of course grnd it and power it from the correct points in the XBOX controller (luckily USB and the genny use the same voltage, 5v). You should also stick some diodes on the ends of the wires for each button before connecting it to the touch pad of the XBOX. With out it, if you pressed any buttons on the XBOX controller it'd send a signal back at the genny controller, create a loop and fry both controllers... and possibly the the player port on the XBOX.


[Edit]
while writing this I found a tutorial on XBOX-scene.com that descibes how to do this same thing, but with an Amiga controller (which is the same kind of cable as the genny, just different pin out).

here's the link to it - http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/amiga-connector.php

and here's a link to the pin out of the genny controller port (don't know if to trust it though, do your own research) - http://pinouts.ru/Game/genesiscontroller_pinout.shtml


[another EDIT]
Oh, and there COULD be some software already made out there that adds generic USB controller support to you XBOX... but I haven't heard of any. The thing is I haven't been in the scene for a couple years now... I will go take a look though. From what I've seen though (such as that Amiga tutorial I posted) there is a high chance it hasn't been done, seeing as there would be no need for the Amiga mod with such a program/driver made, and xbox-scene doesn't list that tutorial in their defunct tutorial sections (which is the section for mods that really are useless due to better advancements in homebrew coding).

so far all I've found is http://www.mod-chip.com/en/dragon_joypad_adapter.php
it's a device that allows you to use PS2 controllers on an XBOX or gamecube. This is the same idea I was talking about if you can create your own logics chip (impossible really without commercial level tools) or an analog version of a logics chip (requires a HUGE ic board to put it together on and some decent education in basic computer engineering)
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Droid party
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Post by Droid party »

Fucking awesome I'm gonna do both. Thanks Lordofduct and Skywriter . The Sf pad looks the business and the controller mod looks fun so I'll give both a go.

Why I didn't look at xbox scene sooner is beyond me, so thanks for putting in the leg work on these guys. :D
JT wrote:Yeah, like vampire aliens invade and hit us all with a ray beam that paralyzes all of our arms. The only way to deactivate the ray beam and fight back the vampire alien threat is with a complicated series of foot patterns on the device's control board that looks remarkably like a DDR pad. We will all praise this man for saving our lives and buy him a mountain of stuffed animals.
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Post by lordofduct »

skywriter wrote:Might be easier just to buy something like this streetfighter controller: http://cgi.ebay.com/Akuma-Street-Fighte ... dZViewItem. I have one of these and it is great.
Oh, they make those for the XBOX too? Sweet, I'll have to check that out. I got one for the PS2, they are sweet.
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Droid party
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Post by Droid party »

Oh, they make those for the XBOX too? Sweet, I'll have to check that out. I got one for the PS2, they are sweet.
Sorry mate I just bought it. I feel kinda bad ,if I'd seen that you wanted one I would have given ya dibs. But anyway thanks again guys I was just comeing back to say I bought it.
JT wrote:Yeah, like vampire aliens invade and hit us all with a ray beam that paralyzes all of our arms. The only way to deactivate the ray beam and fight back the vampire alien threat is with a complicated series of foot patterns on the device's control board that looks remarkably like a DDR pad. We will all praise this man for saving our lives and buy him a mountain of stuffed animals.
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