Switch Setups

[DialKnight]

The Nintendo Switch is getting most of the STG love this generation. The list seems to grow every month, which is awesome. How are you guys enjoying the system? Do many of you utilize the on the go TATE or do you flip monitors at home? Do you use the Joy-Cons or the wired controllers? How many had to buy a new stick for the occasion, or kept to the tried and true through various adapters and work arounds?
I flip a small LCD with a SFIV SE-> mayflash adapter hooked to the dock. What are you guys doing?

[FRO]

I backed the Flip Grip on Kickstarter, so once those ship and I get mine, I'll be using it for vertical games, and probably bring it to work with me, to play on lunch.

[DialKnight]

I backed the Flip Grip on Kickstarter, so once those ship and I get mine, I'll be using it for vertical games, and probably bring it to work with me, to play on lunch.

That sounds like a good idea, I forgot about that Kickstarter.

[Mark_MSX]

The Nintendo Switch is getting most of the STG love this generation. The list seems to grow every month, which is awesome. How are you guys enjoying the system? Do many of you utilize the on the go TATE or do you flip monitors at home? Do you use the Joy-Cons or the wired controllers? How many had to buy a new stick for the occasion, or kept to the tried and true through various adapters and work arounds?
I flip a small LCD with a SFIV SE-> mayflash adapter hooked to the dock. What are you guys doing?

Cool thread!

I have kind of a weird setup, but one that I think is pretty low latency. I have padhacked a switch pro controller and use it with an arcade stick, and then I have the HD fury HDMI to VGA cable that I use on a CRT monitor. Kind of an out there setup, but the best way I could find to cut down on lag.

[DialKnight]

I have kind of a weird setup, but one that I think is pretty low latency. I have padhacked a switch pro controller and use it with an arcade stick, and then I have the HD fury HDMI to VGA cable that I use on a CRT monitor. Kind of an out there setup, but the best way I could find to cut down on lag.

Nah man all good here, I'm working on down scaling the 360 and Dreamcast. Mulling over something rather similar to you. Pad hacks are always the best, you know how a stick collection grows to monstrous levels. I use a cigar box with pad hacks for SNES, GEN, & NES. I'll let you know if I get a good thing going for the hdmi games.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I've got a Swtich setup with a Hori RAP V arcade stick and use a Viewsonic LCD 16:10 aspect ratio widescreen monitor with a tate stand to rotate it properly for those tate Switch based shmups. I notice if I select PC mode through HDMI input, more of the LCD screen shows the entire screen properly (than if I were to use TV mode with HDMI input setting which cuts off some of the Switch game screen portion easily) -- strange but it works like a charm nevertheless in going the PC mode HDMI route.

It's awesome to be able to play Sunny Tam's Danmaku 3 on the Swtich in proper tate mode with this dedicated setup.

I can use an optional Toodles produced SLG (Scanline generator) on the Viewsonic's VGA input for those simulated scanlines for completeness.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[MachineAres 1CC]

Doesn't anyone else find it pretty counter-productive that you have to jump through a dozen hoops just to make shmups accurately and acceptably playable on Switch? Seems like the Nintendo Defense Force that makes 100 excuses for everything Nintendo does has kinda worked its way into the shmups community now and people just accept and say it's "fine" that the system isn't actually equipped to handle these games out of the box.

[ATTRACTS]

Doesn't anyone else find it pretty counter-productive that you have to jump through a dozen hoops just to make shmups accurately and acceptably playable on Switch? Seems like the Nintendo Defense Force that makes 100 excuses for everything Nintendo does has kinda worked its way into the shmups community now and people just accept and say it's "fine" that the system isn't actually equipped to handle these games out of the box.

"Jump through hoops"

Def not a big Nintendo fan but what exactly is jumping through hoops. Arcade sticks exist for the system (and if you don't like them, you can make your own or use an adaptor for a legacy stick that you do like). The system can play through your TV (and its up to devs to decide whether or not to make the games Tate-able) and for most of the games, you can flip the Switch undocked vertically and play shmups on a portable tate screen. So aside to having do either rotate a monitor or find a stick that you like (which is what you had to do for every other console on the market), what is the gripe? You're mad because Nintendo didn't foresee a fairly dead genre to be super supported with releases and provide you with what exactly?

[DialKnight]

Honestly I am happy to see new stuff all the time now, and those developers are doing a good job with giving us nostalgia filters for the classics, and pulling visual muscle on new titles. We're all kinda anal about it, but the reality is we are as close to renaissance in STG in a long time. How many games new games are on sale now? Besides we're consumers and can harass devs if we try, right? I know a lot of titles are available across platforms, but Nintendo is the odd top competitor for our money this round. They haven't had this many STG since NES times. Hoops or not I'm throwing my cash in for support of new games. Right now it's the switch and steam,and things look good.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Even to be able to play Psyvariar Delta on the Switch platform is quite impressive -- sure if you wanted to play the original Psvyariar Medium Unit or Psyvariar Revision games on the original arcade format (namely the Taito G-Net platform), it'd be running at 240p with 60fps framerate at best with a candy cab or supergun setup (but those particular formats must remain stationary at all times as they aren't portable to begin with). It's quite nice to be able to play Psy-D on the go or on the big HDTV setup at home for that slick "larger-than-life" overall visual presentation. As the ol' saying goes, you can have your cake and eat it too.

Makes me wonder what new STG titles are coming up for the Switch platform. Having a real arcade stick setup sure does make quite a difference compared to using the supplied Joy-con or optional Nintendo Pro controller setup, indeed, for any STG title on the Switch any ol' day.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Guardians Knight]

My missus bought me a little stand so i can tate on the go. Best present ever!

I've also got a second dock which I've set up with my tate'd old flat screen tv mounted on the wall. Makes Gunbarich epic.

[louisg]

I've got a Dell monitor that can rotate and I use the Hori pad. That Flip Grip looks cool-- I'll have to look into getting one once they hit online stores but.. you have to still use Nintendo's d-pad, right? Or did someone make a JoyCon replacement with a decent d-pad?

[DialKnight]

Louisg, the dpad joy con is made by Hori, is available via import or pre order in the US, and can be had for 25-45 bucks. Check it out http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/0 ... ndo_switch

[Guardians Knight]

The wired hori pad and arcade stick are both awesome bits of kit.

Nothing surpasses the Sega Saturn control pad for me tho so I'm hoping there'll be a thing that lets third party usb controllers work soon!

[FRO]

louisig - there are also other solutions, where you can modify your existing left Joy-Con to install a new shell. From what I understand, the Hori Joy-Con option is okay, but it lacks most of the good options of the official Joy-Con, and also has some issues.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2017/12/05 ... ch-joy-con

[DialKnight]

The wired hori pad and arcade stick are both awesome bits of kit.

Nothing surpasses the Sega Saturn control pad for me tho so I'm hoping there'll be a thing that lets third party usb controllers work soon!

Doesn't the Mayflash adapter do that? I'll have to try and see if it works with the Saturn adapter too.

[jandrogo]

A Setup thread without pics is like a shmup without bullets...

I padhacked a switch pro controller

Do you have any source or pro controller pcb pic to see if it’s an easy work? Why pro over joycon or any other option?

[DialKnight]

A Setup thread without pics is like a shmup without bullets...

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/HB7Yuq6

Plate holder as a stand on a bar.

[drunkninja24]

Louisg, the dpad joy con is made by Hori, is available via import or pre order in the US, and can be had for 25-45 bucks. Check it out http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/0 ... ndo_switch

The only problem would be, if someone wants to use it with the Flip Grip, the Hori joycon won't work because the joycons with the Flip Grip are still operating wirelessly since they can't connect directly to the switch, which the Hori joycon can't do. Only option there would be to get one of those alternate cases with a d-pad insert and swap out a Nintendo left joy-con for it, which I've heard mixed results from folks on.

[OmegaFlareX]

Wait, so Parish thinks shmup fans (his target audience) are going to be ok with using the analog stick?

Anyone who backed that thing needs to pull out, that's some gross incompetence on his part.

[FRO]

Wait, so Parish thinks shmup fans (his target audience) are going to be ok with using the analog stick?

Anyone who backed that thing needs to pull out, that's some gross incompetence on his part.

Or perhaps he thought users would adapt to the Joy-Con configuration in whatever way they chose, whether analog or directional buttons. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And I would think his target audience is more general, and not the hardest core of shmup fans.

[Marc]

The directional buttons are a pain in the ass, but useable for the amount of time I'd ever really spend playing undocked, so still a buy for me.

[Goompaolo9500]

Shouldn't this be on Hardware Thread? It appears that you are talking about setting up the Switch for STGs.

[DialKnight]

Shouldn't this be on Hardware Thread? It appears that you are talking about setting up the Switch for STGs.

That's a good point, somebody should move it?

[Mark_MSX]

A Setup thread without pics is like a shmup without bullets...

I padhacked a switch pro controller

Do you have any source or pro controller pcb pic to see if it’s an easy work? Why pro over joycon or any other option?

Sorry for the extreme delay in my response. Forgot the subscribe to the topic haha.

I could take a picture of the controller board when I get home. I'd say that, overall, pad hacking a pro controller is a royal pain in the ass and I only did it to do lag testing for the shmup switch ports. I went with the pro controller because padhacking the joycon is crazy difficult, if not impossible without specialized equipment.

The issue really comes from trying to hack into the shoulder button inputs, there's no where to solder and they use that weird carbon paper. Forget the start and select buttons as well. Luckily there is a wierd work around where you and use the left and right stick buttons in combination with the face buttons to trigger start, select, and home ... it's very strange but really lucky for me. The battery of the controller is also an issue to contend with.

Overall, the best way to go, ease of use wise, is to get yourself the hori switch arcade stick, but that's $200, which is not cheap haha.

[Mark_MSX]

Louisg, the dpad joy con is made by Hori, is available via import or pre order in the US, and can be had for 25-45 bucks. Check it out http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/0 ... ndo_switch

The only problem would be, if someone wants to use it with the Flip Grip, the Hori joycon won't work because the joycons with the Flip Grip are still operating wirelessly since they can't connect directly to the switch, which the Hori joycon can't do. Only option there would be to get one of those alternate cases with a d-pad insert and swap out a Nintendo left joy-con for it, which I've heard mixed results from folks on.

You are exactly right and I share this same concern with the flip grip (though I did back the project). I have the hori dpad joycon, as well as the case mod for the dpad insert for the official joycon. Far and away, as far as playability, the hori dpad is much better than the case mod dpad. Like you said though, the hori joycon won't work with the flip grip because it lacks wireless ability.

At this point I haven't been able to think of a solution to this problem, other than doing something crazy like building a connection harness for the hori joycon or something.

[orange808]

Switch wired controllers have been widely reported to have more latency than wireless controllers.

This is likely related to the way the Switch polls the controllers. N chose a nonstandard (and odd) approach. The most likely reason was to save battery.

Here's the important bits:

[USB] (p)oll rate...appears to fluctuate in report speed, and hovers around 75Hz. You get one 8ms between packets then 2-3 of 16ms between packets. Kinda weird.

Full details here: https://gbatemp.net/threads/reverse-eng ... de.475226/

[SNK-NEO-GEO]

I am still waiting for someone to create a set of joycom (left) with a traditional Dpad only on the top and (right) with 4 or 6 buttons for classic gaming. That is all I ask.

[NoAffinity]

The 8bitdo sfc30 is an easy pad hack. Just like any other retro controller pad hack. You have to provide for a usb cable to get out of the stick case, in order to be able to charge it. Also, have to dig on 8bitdo's site, to find their legacy section in order to get the support software and firmware. It works great paired with sanwa, seimitsu or whatever your button and joystick preferences may be.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk