J-pac and playstation emu dilemma

[Thebutcherjb]

Ok, I've been working getting all my emus setup with my jpac for my jamma cabinet. The problem is that the psX v1.13 does not let you use ALT for a button. Is there any way around this issue, I don't want to reprogram my jpac just for this one emulator?

[EVEGames]

Butcher,
I'm going to sound like a broken record to some, because I've made this suggestion on this forum before, but for PSX and N64 emulation, you might want to consider using the authentic console controllers, via USB adapters. I say this because both these consoles used analog joysticks, which you're most likely not going to have on your control panel. True, you don't NEED the analog joysticks for PSX (unless you want to play Ape Escape:dong:), but it's just not the same. If this interests you at all, I can give you more info on the adapters, the software (JoytoKey), etc.

Suggestion 2:

I don't want to reprogram my jpac just for this one emulator?

You're probably envisioning remapping Player 1 Button 2 from "Alt" to some other character, and then going into all your emulator config files and MAME and changing those to reflect the new character as well. You do not have to do this. You can reprogram your JPac on-the-fly via a simple batch file. You would create one MAME batch file, and one PSX batch file. You would run the MAME one upon startup of your machine (in case you had to shut down while in the Playstation emulator - this will make sense later), you would run the PSX one upon launching your PSX emulator, and you would run the MAME one upon exiting the PSX emulator. It only takes a couple seconds for the batch file to reprogram the JPac.
::BBB - I forget, have you implemented Runbefore / Runafter on a per-emulator basis?::
For more info on this option, check out the Ultimarc site. If you can't find it, I can dig up a link.

[Thebutcherjb]

So your saying there's no way to play PSX games with a jpac? Isn't there an psx emulator out there that can do this?

[EVEGames]

So your saying there's no way to play PSX games with a jpac? Isn't there an psx emulator out there that can do this?

You absolutely can play PSX games with a JPac. If you can play them with a keyboard, you can play them with a JPac, IPac, KeyWiz, any keyboard encoder. What I am saying is two things.

1) If you want to use the twin analog joysticks on your PSX controller, the best way to do that is with a PSX controller, the digital joysticks on your control panel are not a good substitute for those. But as you know, MOST PSX games do not REQUIRE that you use the analog sticks, so you can still play PSX perfectly fine on your control panel.

2) In response to your original post,

The problem is that the psX v1.13 does not let you use ALT for a button. Is there any way around this issue, I don't want to reprogram my jpac just for this one emulator?
I was saying that you can reprogram your JPac on-the-fly automatically when you start up a PSX game. It's all there in my post, but if you don't want to bother with reprogramming the JPac, then your choices are simple...
-Reprogram the JPac and every emulator on your system, including MAME, to not use ALT as the keycode for Player 1 Button 2.
or
-Use another PSX emulator that does allow the use of the ALT key.
or
-Do not assign Player 1 Button 2 (ALT) to any of the PSX controller buttons.

psx is the most endorsed Playstation emu for HyperSpin, so everyone else must be dealing with the 'ALT' issue... what is their solution? (I use ePSXe, which does not have this limitation).

[lions3]

Ok, I've been working getting all my emus setup with my jpac for my jamma cabinet. The problem is that the psX v1.13 does not let you use ALT for a button. Is there any way around this issue, I don't want to reprogram my jpac just for this one emulator?

I had the same problem today and finally found a solution. Open the actual config file and put the number 56 next to whatever button you want to use the ALT key for.