Driver problems??

[rwigley]

I am appologizing in advance for what must seem to you as stupid questions... but we are trying to set up a DDR system for my daughter who has scoliosis and needs the exercise and we are all convinced this is the perfect solution.

I am the Mom and clueless about much of the language I have read here... so here goes.

We have padded mats.... probably not great but new, with adaptors for a PC. They plug into the printer port. We have a program for the PC system but there was no driver for the mats. We got one off the internet... but we think that there is a bug in it because the left arrow will not activate if the right foot is still on the right arrow. It will work if she slides the right foot off the right arrow and then the left arrow is hit. This is true for both mats.

The mats, we think could be hooked up to a play station.... and we have access to a playstation one..... with the PC we are only able to use one matt.

Any suggestions about a Driver
What about the PC vs the PS1?
Is there decent software for the PS1??

This system is not going to get real heavy use..... she is under 90 pounds and a beginner. But these things are frustating for her and take the fun away.

Thanks in advance.
Robbie

[Larrikin]

*This is all assuming you want to go the easiest route and not have to import or modfiy your consoles.*

OK the most recent versions are for the PS2. They are the best thing you can get for your money, theyre official and have incredible graphics. Music videos play in the backgrounds, arrows scroll at an extremely smooth rate. There also different modes to keep you coming back. Most of these modes would be used by a more experienced player, with exception of diet mode (a mode that counts calories burned) PS2 versions also feature the most songs on an official version. Theres a new one coming out in the fall. Best option

Next there is the PS1 versions, they all support diet mode. There are technically 3 versions out for PS1 but all but 1 are difficult to find. Konamix would be what you would find most likely. It contains a decent amount of songs, but if its going to be used heavily it may get boring after a while. Graphics are obviously below the quality of PS1. Arrows scroll at 30 FPS and if youve ever played on a PS2 version or the arcade this rate will appear choppy and may throw you off.

Next there is the official version for PC (Dance Dance Revolution), which also has diet mode. Im assuming thats what you have. About the driver problem Im unsure of what exactly is causing that. You may want to look into a Radio Shack USB adapter or some other kind of USB adapter. Depending on your computer and how you have the options set up will depend on the quality. Its an OK version, but I a player since 2000, did get bored with it in a week. Not sure how a non experienced player will like it tho.

Finally there is an open source simulator for the PC called Stepmania ( www.stepmania.com . It easily better than the PS1 or the PC version, but not quite there when against the PS2, it just feels different from the PS2 versions. It does not have diet mode. Requires the most work to get it running properly as it doesn't come downloaded with songs. Youll have to download the songs seperately from some place like http://www.ddrne.com/bttracker/ or www.ddruk.com for official songs. You could techincally put all the songs from all the DDR versions on here. It supports USB adapters and may or may not support the parallel port. All of this would be free. Also supports most of the features of the PS2 versions and some user made up features. It is also skinnable. Definitely the 2nd best option if set up properly.

If you want to stick with the parallel adapter you may be better off asking in the simulator section of these forums.
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[dlm]

Is it only right and left that do this? Or do all jumps have that problem? If it's all jumps...
It sounds like you just need to put it in dance pad mode. For most adapters/drivers, you do that by holding start, select, and up for 3 seconds.

If it's not...
Then I have no idea... good luck.

[vsamaco]

So the pads have printer port plugs? What is the name of the program used to configure the pads?

If the connection isn't different to a ps2 plug going into a printer port convertor, then you may be able to use other programs to configure the pads correctly. Before that, you may want to goto in windows control panel -> gaming controllers -> properties of selected device and check to see if only one button can be activiated at a time to verify that. Given that, you may be able to use a program called NTPAD, PPJoy, or DirectPad pro. A link to all the programs are here but may not be all working... I was able to get it to work with NTPAD.

For the PS1 mat, there are printer port adapters that go for $4 or usb adapter that go for $7-$20. The best candidates for usb are EMS and Super Dual box. A list of the most compatible adapter for PC can be found here. There are alot of PS mats on the market as opposed to PC or Xbox. Usually adapter are used to connect a ps mat to different devices. You can check out the soft pad discussion to see which pads are suitable for your situation and where to buy them here. First page for general information and the last pages for specific/more up to date info.

What DDR game was being used with the pads?
If you have a PS2, you can play the DDR Max,2 as well as all the previous PS1 DDR games. Although the PS1 mixes has some good songs, the graphics aren't all that great. PS1 Japan has better songs but those games require a import ps1 or modded US PS1. So I would suggest to get a hold of a PS2 and DDR Max if you choose the console. PS2 prices were dropped to 149, so an used one can prob be bought for 129 now.

As for the PC, there is very few official DDR releases.. (1 or 2?) and so the song variation won't be that great. Stepmania is a good alternative, it has great graphics as stated in the previous post, but you have to acquire the song files. The songs can be d/l but you may have a difficult time trying to get a sufficient amount of songs unless you know where to look. There are legal issues to d/l the song files being that you own the actual songs yourself but I won't tell...

So your best bet is probably with a ps2.

[rwigley]

Thanks everyone... we are trying to sort all this information out.

Robbie

[drsnooker]

I'm gonna be posting this message on a couple of threads so you might recognize this from some other place.
A friend of mine just introduced me to DDR, since I have a computer, I figured I'd be a soft pad of ebay and start practising. It came with a USB adapter, and I got stepmania. Long story short, I couldn't do the combo up+down and left+right. Since I sucked, at first I thought it was me. Then I went to control panel-> game controlers and selected my hardware and hit properties. I could see it register left or right pad but if I stood on the left pad, tapping the right pad did nothing. The same with standing on the back pad, and the front didn't respond.
I search the allmighty internet, and find a lot of people with the same problems. The usb adapter was the super dual joy whatever, the one that had to be reprogrammed to change to dance pad mode by sitting on select start and up all at the same time for three seconds. Everywhere it reads that that should fix my combo moves. Nothing works, and since I know a bit of electronics I decide to just cut the wires and switch the left pad with the bottom left and the bottom pad with the bottom right, since nobody oughta be doing those combinations. So I flip over my soft pad and unscrew the electronics cover and then I see it.
There are two more buttons! I had always assummed that the up-right was my start and my up-left was select. WRONG!
There are actually two small buttons above the up-right pad and up-left pad, above the words "select" and "start", I put my knees on those tap the up pad with my finger, et viola! All my problems fixed.

So for all you other people with not being able to do combo moves or wondering when or how to press the select+start+up at the same time. It works at any time, you only need to do it for a fraction of a second but you HAVE TO hit the "real" select and start button, not the up-left and up-right pad!

Afterwards you'll need to re configure your keys in stepmania but that should be a breeze.

Hope that solves most of your problems.

P.S. you might want to include this in your FAQ that it's not the up-right and up-left pad, but the small pad about the words "select" and "start"

[Cutriss]

rwigley, this is in the wrong forum - we have a dedicated thread for PC adapters in the Simulator forum. You should take your questions (and answers) there.
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