MegaPad Plugin !!!

[NHervé]

Open the champagne !!!

I've here a new pad plugin I wrote. It's MegaPad and it uses SDL. No worry, the latest actual version of the SDL (1.2.12) is provided.
This plugin offers, as LilyPad, a complete pad support, many possibilities, but is much simpler than LilyPad.

First place SDL.dll in the root PCSX2 folder (not the plugins folder), else the plugin won't start.

1. Mapping and config

After having selected MegaPad in the Pad plugins list and launched its GUI by clicking the
Config button, you must configure it. You can select the Pad 1 or the Pad 2 with the
buttons in the top-left corner of the window. For mapping press any of the 20 buttons.
The pressed button will become grayed. Then you can do various things :

a. Keyboard

For the buttons press a key and the selected button will be bound to the pressed key. Pressing
Escape or Backspace allows you to delete a value. For the axes press any key with old versions, or click right button whth new versions, and the selected
axis will be bound to the mouse. Note that if the axes of the 2 players are bound to the mouse,
they will move simultaneously.

b. Joystick

For the buttons press a button, a POV hat in the wanted direction or move an axis in the wanted
direction and it will be bound to the selected button. Note that if you bind an axis to a
pressure-sensitive button*, the pressure will match the value of the axis. Try this feature in
games which need pressure sensitive buttons. For the axes move an axis and it will be bound to
the selected axis. Warning : the GUI has a little difficulty to detect the moves of the vertical
(y) axes, but there is no problem in the games.

c. Misc

There are 4 general options under the mapping buttons.
1. Axis sensitivity : can be 3 values (affect the GUI as the games). This is the sensitivity of the
plugin to axis moves.
-Very sensible : for precision games or low-sensibility axes.
-Normal : default, I recommend you to use it.
-Low sensibility : use it if your axes are very sensible.
2. Enable logging : This enables a pad log stored in logs\megapad_log.txt, which can be used only for
debugging purposes. As mentionned, this logging makes the emu slower.
3. Always show cursor : Use it with ZeroGS if you use the mouse, to see where is the cursor.
4. Low-visibility cross cursor : The arrow cursor is replaced by a low-visibility cross cursor.
Use it if you don't want to see the arrow cursor.

Then click OK.

2. Emu

I think I don't need to detail how to use the keyboard or the joysticks, but I will tell you how does
the mouse support work.
Press the left button for left axis, the right button for right axis. When you release a button, the
corresponding axis will be "centered". When you press a button the cursor is automatically centered.
Move it as an analog axis. When a button is pressed the cursor cannot get out the GS window. The
mouse support has been seriously improved in the new version, axis positions are calculated from
the size of the GS window, so it works better than PadWinKeyb mouse support.

If you encounter any bug using this plugin tell it to me.

The plugin is in the attachments, with screenshots of the GUI.
Sorry I changed the attachments because I provided a wrong dll.

Version 1.1.0

I released a new version with 2 little fixes. It is in the attachment.
The 2 problems were on the first launch of the plugin.
-Axis sensitivity list was blank, now it is set on the default value "normal".
-On the first launch config was not saved, now it is, you don't need anymore to re-launch the gui to get config saved. If you are interested by technical details, see bugreport.txt in the zip.

Version 1.2.0

See readme.txt to know exactly what has been implemented.
You will need to re-map your buttons because of a changed config system.
You can bind keys to analogs, and when, for example, you press Up, the character goes up, you press Down while pressing Up, the character goes down, you release Down, the character goes up. In TwinPad topic, some guys asked for it.

Version 1.3.0

F keys work now, thanks RpgWizard for signaling me this bug, the GUI does not allow you to bind them to any control, and if the input detection loop detects that a F key has been pressed it directly returns.

Version 1.3.1

Fixed a bug with the axes.

Version 1.3.2

For those who get a bug while mapping the buttons, download this version.

Version 1.3.3

The bug on first launch was because PCSX2 does not call PADinit on first launch ("pcsx2 needs to be configured" message), and SDL init is in PADinit. So if PADinit hasn't been called by PCSX2 it is called by the GUI. So the bug that version 1.3.2 was supposed to fix is really fixed here.

NHervé.

[refraction]

stickied good job

[NHervé]

thanks a lot

[ShadowCast]

I have no clue on how to make the plugin work..i put the sdl in the root...but I'm not sure what to do next...

[NHervé]

Simply launch pcsx2, run Config and select MegaPad in the pad plugin lists.

[RPGW1ZaRD]

A new plugin cool.

Unfortunately it's not showing up in the config for me and in console it seems to complain something about line 126 in the MegaPad dll file. It's probably me missing some dll file.

[NHervé]

rpgwizard : put sdl.dll in the pcsx2 root folder. if it does not work put it in the "plugins" folder.

[paulsy]

is this windows only?

[RPGW1ZaRD]

Originally Posted by NHervé

rpgwizard : put sdl.dll in the pcsx2 root folder. if it does not work put it in the "plugins" folder.

Lol yea sorry was tired and only had the sdl.dll file in plugins folder but putting it in the root pcsx2 folder new problems arise. Now it opens a similiar config window as SSSPSX pad has, far from what it looks like in the screenshots above when selecting megapad. lol

When I choose configure it shows up a small window with title "PadwinKeyb Msg" and only says "-1 buttons" and this simplified SSSPSX pad plugin gui shows up as in screenshot below.

[NHervé]

paulsy : yes it is windows only for the moment. Maybe it will be for linux later, I don't have linux.
rpgwizard : i'm sorry i surely put one of my first builds. The dll in the zip was 27 kb heavy whereas the good dll is 632 kb heavy.

I changed the attachments of the first post.

[Hard core Rikki]

Way to go, Ngry
Putting fixed DLL and new versions in first post would give it more visibility.

For Linux, trying with Ubuntu seems a fine idea.
Free CD's+Free shipping too

[NHervé]

hard core rikki : I put the good dll in the first post.

I remember why I provided a wrong dll :
I took the dll which was in the release folder, but I configured visual studio to build the dll directly in the plugins folder of pcsx2 a long time ago, so the dll in this folder was an old dll.

I forgot to tell you
the first time you launch the gui, you must select the axis sensitivity (blank because the ini file does not exist yet), click ok, close the plugin selection window and then re-launch the gui.
I will work to solve this in the next version. I want to wait having at least 3-4 bugs in my bug report. I won't release a new version each time somebody tell me there is a bug, because Megapad is relatively young and could have many bugs I haven't noticed.

[refraction]

Originally Posted by RPGW1ZaRD

A new plugin cool.

Unfortunately it's not showing up in the config for me and in console it seems to complain something about line 126 in the MegaPad dll file. It's probably me missing some dll file.

yeh anybody who gets this, its not line 126, its actually error 126 which means "missing DLL link file" aka, youve put SDL.dll a place it cant find it ;p

if you wanna be doubly sure, stick it in your windows\system32 directory.

[NHervé]

Here is a new version of megapad with 2 little fixes :
version 1.1.0
The 2 problems were on the first launch of the plugin.
-Axis sensitivity list was blank, now it is set on the default value "normal".
-On the first launch config was not saved, now it is, you don't need anymore to re-launch the gui to get config saved. If you are interested by technical details, see bugreport.txt in the zip.

For visibility reasons I put the attachment in the first post.

[mchomicz]

Originally Posted by NHervé

Here is a new version of megapad with 2 little fixes.

Thanks for the plug-in. I just want to make sure I understand the purpose of it: would it be the sort of plug-in one would use to configure, say, a game pad like this one for use with PCXS2?

Thank you,
Michael

[NHervé]

Yes, I have myself a Logitech Cordless Rumblepad 2.
My plugin supports up to 5 gamepads and, for each gamepad, all its buttons, 4 of its povs and all of its axes.
This plugin supports mouse, keyboard and 5 gamepads !!!

ps : my plugin does not support vibration yet, but the sdl does not support vibration yet too...
When it will support vibration, I will try to implement it in my plugin.

This plugin is here to make some rivalry to ssspsxpad. As I said in the first post, this plugin offers, as ssspsxpad, a complete pad support, except it has more options.
As with ssspsxpad, you can :
-use gamepads.
-bind axes to buttons (i've implemented a feature : if you do this, this axis will be considered as a pressure-sensitive button, the axis value will be the pressure).
-bind buttons to buttons.
-bind axes to axes.
-bind keys to buttons.
Now i've implemented some features :
-As said upper, the feature of axes and pressure-sensitive buttons.
-Mouse support (based on the GS window, works better than padwinkeyb mouse support, but could not work very well, it's experimental and it was quite hard to implement), ssspsxpad does not allow you to map another thing than axes to axes, so if you want to use the analogs with ssspsxpad you must have a gamepad, with padwinkeyb you can only use joystick buttons. With my plugin press any key while mapping an axis and the mouse will be bound to the selected axis.
-Some options:
-Axis sensitivity for the joystick axes.
-Logging (for debugging purposes)
-Always show cursor, so you can see the cursor with ZeroGS.
-Low-visibility cross cursor, so you don't have to see the arrow cursor.

[RPGW1ZaRD]

Found a problem, it's only allowing 1 direction key at the moment to be pressed so you can't get those smooth movements which is crucial for enjoyable gaming. So you cannot first press down and then press down and right after and then release down button to move in right direction for example. With this plugin it won't work.

Also I noticed switching save states would switch it 2 steps when both pad1 and pad2 are selected as megapad, an option to "disable pad2" within the plugin would be good.

[NHervé]

Okay, if you really want to bind directional keys or numpad to analogs, i will implement it in the next version.

If you want to disable pad 2 in megapad, simply select another plugin for pad 2.
I think it will be implemented in the next version too.

ps : your "problem" is not a problem : there are 2 direction per axis :
X : horizontal
Y : vertical
You can bind them to the Mouse or to a joystick axis.

[RPGW1ZaRD]

ps : your "problem" is not a problem : there are 2 direction per axis :
X : horizontal
Y : vertical
You can bind them to the Mouse or to a joystick axis.

Yeah I knew you would reply with that lol. But I'm a keyboard user and for us it's a problem. But I thought at least D-pad movement would have to behave in that way as even the ps2 controller on a real ps2 controller would be able to do that what I specified as a problem.

But it's up to you of course how "univeral" you want to make this plugin, there are already TwinPad and Lilypad which are excellent for us keyboard users. Lilypad also has pad/joystick support if I'm not mistaken but TwinPad is purely made only for keyboard users. So of course you can choose this plugin to be targeted for pad users, it's just matter of which aproach you decide to go and how much time you want to spend onto it.