The Wiz Naked

[Squirrel61]

I have a question, though: Can you really prevent game lockup with software control? The problem is, what happens when you are playing an intense game, and go from up to down, but because it lacks a pivot point, it is still hitting both? Does the "software protection" tell it to go up, down, or nothing? I do not understand how this could work.

I have never encountered any game lockups because of simultaneously pressing of two opposite directions. It can't, because every program is sequential. That means, if you accidentally press "left"+"right" at the same time where you meant to press "left" only, and, let's say, processing of the "left" action in the programs appears after processing of "up", "down" and "right". In that case, your character will move right first, but immediately move left again. That makes the character stay where it was, "freezing" it, as someone called it. However, if to your right there's some kind of trap that you wanted to flee from, you're dead! That's why a good dpad indeed features some kind of protection for this and a pivot point is one way to do this.

QUOTE
This is a big flaw, IMO. The GB micro dpad is one of the best I have ever used, and it also has the HIGHEST pivot point of any dpad I have ever used.

Having a pivot point however has one big drawback. The pivot point has to rest somewhere in the centre of the button contacts, which usually are on the motherboard. That means that every move you make puts stress to the motherboard. If the motherboard isn't properly supported from the underside, by some part of the consoles case, you will end up damaging the motherboard.

The PSP-1000 has this kind of flaw in the design. Although the dpad contacts are situated on a separate carrier and thus separated from the mainboard, the carrier, being made of plastic, can bend under intense gaming pressure. Stress is then applied to the mainboard, which in the end results in the nand chip, exactly on the opposite site of the mainboard, breaking loose from it's solder points. This effectively bricks the PSP beyond repair, since usually the solder pads are torn from the mainboard (although in one case, I managed to resolder the nand).

So I think the remark about the pivot point was a valid one, even if it had been made a thousand times before. It is an important part of the "feel" of the overall gameplay, but it has to be engineered very well or it might end up as a console killer.

 

[CronoTriggerfan]

Orkie, your ignorance and bias speaks for itself. As does yours, Peter, but not to such a rampant level, you're at least level-headed and seem like a nice guy. GPH could use sewing needles as buttons and put a trackball in the place of a proper d-pad and you'd still defend it to hell and back. :rolleyes: I'm just asking for some objectivity here. If you haven't noticed, I've stuck up for the Wiz on a number of occasions, yet have still been able to advise where I think designs could be improved based on my findings. Orkie, you might as well be on the payroll for GPH, so I advise you start doing the same. FYI, it's okay to criticize aspects of a product based on a personal opinion and not be "stupid" or, what was the word you used, prat? Who the fuck says that, anyways? Must be a European thing. Just wanted to have the chance to defend myself. Still wanna duke it out? Shoot me a PM, because I really am tired of getting harassed by you.

I will not fight in private, there is no accounting for what has been said. If you want to argue, I am happy to do so here, or in #gp2xdev. I am not pro-GPH, I am anti arsehole.
Well I'm not happy to do it here, as you've already screwed up half this valid thread already. To tell you the truth, I don't even need to argue with you. Argument ensues from differing opinions, not right and wrong. If I'm mentally content with the ability of my valid opinion to usurp any amount of bitching you might do, then we're done here. Well, I am, at least. <_<

And to everyone else who thinks lack of d-pad pivot is a problem, THANK YOU. Honestly, anyone contesting this point, here's your chance to make up for your ignorant defense of a product flaw. Name a SINGLE controller/handheld that lacked d-pad pivot that was any good, and then match that to your favorite d-pad. Which wins?

 

[Dunny]

I have a question, though: Can you really prevent game lockup with software control? The problem is, what happens when you are playing an intense game, and go from up to down, but because it lacks a pivot point, it is still hitting both? Does the "software protection" tell it to go up, down, or nothing? I do not understand how this could work.

It's quite simple - you take whatever comes first. If the user is pressing left, and a press occurs to the right, then you instruct the emulated system that left is no longer pressed. Obviously, this only occurs when both l/r or u/d are pressed together.

It does mean that you need to include this for every game/emulator/whatever, but it's a simple routine that you can add to any source with an appropriate #def directive. Compilers would include it for Wiz binaries, and not bother with it for Pandora or GP2X binaries.

Hope it does get fixed though.

D.

 

[DaveC]

I have a question, though: Can you really prevent game lockup with software control? The problem is, what happens when you are playing an intense game, and go from up to down, but because it lacks a pivot point, it is still hitting both? Does the "software protection" tell it to go up, down, or nothing? I do not understand how this could work.

It's quite simple - you take whatever comes first. If the user is pressing left, and a press occurs to the right, then you instruct the emulated system that left is no longer pressed. Obviously, this only occurs when both l/r or u/d are pressed together.

It does mean that you need to include this for every game/emulator/whatever, but it's a simple routine that you can add to any source with an appropriate #def directive. Compilers would include it for Wiz binaries, and not bother with it for Pandora or GP2X binaries.

Hope it does get fixed though.

D.


Well actually you could never just press L+R. Since the pad is one piece you would get L,R,U,D all at once.

Really I don't think there is a good way to do it in software. Yes you could filter out directions and just go by what was pressed first, last etc but it is still a problem. Say for example you wanted to do a "Hadoken" or a "Shoryoken"in SFII. It would be near impossible to do as you would end up getting all 4 buttons at once allot in the heat of battle and it would be even harder to figure out a filter algorythm.

The only good way is a real hardware pivot point. I guess one could be easily modded in.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

Well actually you could never just press L+R. Since the pad is one piece you would get L,R,U,D all at once.

Really I don't think there is a good way to do it in software. Yes you could filter out directions and just go by what was pressed first, last etc but it is still a problem. Say for example you wanted to do a "Hadoken" or a "Shoryoken"in SFII. It would be near impossible to do as you would end up getting all 4 buttons at once allot in the heat of battle and it would be even harder to figure out a filter algorythm.

The only good way is a real hardware pivot point. I guess one could be easily modded in.

I have fired off an email to GPH asking if the D-Pad in the official model will be pivoted, giving them reasons why it would be a good idea. Also I'm going to take a look at the D-Pad on my pre-production Wiz to see if it can be easily modded.

 

[Creature XL]

Will pay £1 to whichever moderator gives CronoTriggerfan a permaban.

To make the collection more interesting, I will stack 1 EURO on top

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

I have done a little modding on the D-PAD and it wasn't that difficult! All I did was uses a small blob of glue from a hot glue gun, I used this because if need be I can remove it easily, and I cut a small hole from the rubber mold underneath the D-Pad.

Here's a pic of the D-Pad, sorry it's not very good quality as it was taken with my crappy phone:

I must say it works a little bit better than I had imagined for instance, playing Ruckman is easier!

I wonder what feedback I will get from GPH.

 

[CronoTriggerfan]

Will pay £1 to whichever moderator gives CronoTriggerfan a permaban.

To make the collection more interesting, I will stack 1 EURO on top

You two do realize your hypocrisy, right? Criticizing me for threadcrapping and then continuing to post useless spam yourselves? At least my argument was based on a valid (and correct) premise, you just happened to disagree with the opinion and decided to be real asshats about it. I think it speaks far more for your lack of maturity than mine.

Also, dpads without pivot points are made of fail. How many of you have tried them on chinese PMPs? They are TERRIBLE! They feel squashy, hard to control, and imperfect, and you cannot press to hard for fear of pressing all directions at once.

This is a big flaw, IMO. The GB micro dpad is one of the best I have ever used, and it also has the HIGHEST pivot point of any dpad I have ever used.

@CTF: In my mods, I have found multiple boards to be better. You can move stuff around, re arrange it, rewire the ribbon cables, etc. With a solid board, you can rarely do that. One of the reasons I am liking the internal structure of the PSP for a mod I am doing.

Of course, the wiz is so small that these may all be moot points anyway.

Agreed completely with the first point; the fact that people are trying to justify bad controls by saying there's a software fix obviously isn't taking comfort and feel into consideration. No one has answered my question about a d-pad that didn't include pivot and felt good, either. This is less of an issue of people disagreeing with pivot and more of an issue of blind followers who have been in the tank for GPH for quite some time now.

As for the latter part, I dunno. A solid motherboard always makes me more comfortable, as they seem to be far more durable. Ribbon cables are usually SMD and proprietary, which not only makes them tough to replace, but hard to re-solder back on. I guess with a solitary mobo you can always just cut the pads off and relocate them or use tact switches, whereas with a mobo in pieces you'd sacrifice stability. Just my $0.02...

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

Okay I have it on good authority that the center of left D-pad shall be pivoted when WIZ is commercially released!

So no need to argue about it anymore now is there ^_^

 

[CronoTriggerfan]

Okay I have it on good authority that the center of left D-pad shall be pivoted when WIZ is commercially released!

So no need to argue about it anymore now is there ^_^

Yay!

 

[geise69]

It shouldn't even have been argued about in the first place. Especially since we have no control over it. Unless a dev with a prototype can maybe give suggestions, (which is probably why they have them to begin with) along with making certain apps for it. It's like the whole pandora thing. People finally stopped with all the add this, it should have that, no make it this crap since only a month ago. There's no pleasing everyone...ever. None the less it is good news to hear about the d-pad.

 

[sam fisher]

I have fired off an email to GPH asking if the D-Pad in the official model will be pivoted, giving them reasons why it would be a good idea. Also I'm going to take a look at the D-Pad on my pre-production Wiz to see if it can be easily modded.

Why does no-one listen to me? GPH told me months ago there would be a pivot and I posted it here in the fucking topic further up.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

It shouldn't even have been argued about in the first place. Especially since we have no control over it. Unless a dev with a prototype can maybe give suggestions, (which is probably why they have them to begin with) along with making certain apps for it. It's like the whole pandora thing. People finally stopped with all the add this, it should have that, no make it this crap since only a month ago. There's no pleasing everyone...ever. None the less it is good news to hear about the d-pad.

I think It's too late in the day for us to influence the physical design of the Wiz now due to production line tooling etc. But those of us with dev units can report bugs or software improvements back to GPH and hopefully when it's released it will be pretty much sorted, I hope!

I hope GHP don't think me a pain in the ass but I am reporting back all I find, good and bad! I will probably even buy a release model just to see the difference from what I have now! It's been really interesting being involved in the final dev stage of the Wiz, and if I help even just one little bit, I will be a happy bunny indeed!

I have fired off an email to GPH asking if the D-Pad in the official model will be pivoted, giving them reasons why it would be a good idea. Also I'm going to take a look at the D-Pad on my pre-production Wiz to see if it can be easily modded.

Why does no-one listen to me? GPH told me months ago there would be a pivot and I posted it here in the fucking topic further up.

Sorry Pete, I wasn't ignoring you, by the tone of the thread I just wanted to confirm it myself. Hopefully that's the end to the arguments. What you actually said was "I was under the impression that GPH are adding a D-pad pivot." Which doesn't imply a definitive yes, sorry. And please curb the language, no need to be nasty.

And I can say yet again, my mod definitely changed the feel of the D-Pad making it much nicer. I would advise you to do it also

 

[Alex.]

The Wiz dpad feels fine to me, but hearing it will get even better is truly a great thing, nice job GPH!

By the way, where would one find the Wiz Fenix runtime?

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

The Wiz dpad feels fine to me, but hearing it will get even better is truly a great thing, nice job GPH!

By the way, where would one find the Wiz Fenix runtime?

I will PM it to you if you like

Addition:
PM'd you the link!