This page came about as a suggestion from Tom61, after a discussion on a perceived problem with MAME and custom arcade controls.  Once suggested, it was fairly obvious that a section on getting your favorite game or emulator working with your project was a missing component.  If you have any suggestions on a particular software to hardware situation, please let us know!

Look at the table below for your favorite emulator or game.  Any information we've gathered regarding it's usability with customized controls will be noted.  If there are special notes on a particular emulator or game, clicking on the link will bring you to a brief discussion.  Also be sure to check out the general tips piece at the end.

All games & emulators listed, unless specified otherwise, are the DOS or Windows versions.  This is not an exhaustive list, and is not meant to be.  It's mostly a sampling of the more popular games and emulators.
 

MAME (DOS)

MAME has a couple of considerations.  When you run a game for the first time, or run a game that has known problems, they require you to type "OK" to proceed.  However, in deference to customized arcade controls, it will also accept a left and then right input instead.  Thus, there is no need to put O and K buttons on your controls.

MAME has built in support for the HotRod by Hanaho.  To use it, you'll need to put a -hotrod on the command line, or edit the MAME.CFG file and change the "hotrod = no" line to "hotrod = yes" ...

MAME supports the use of arcade monitors and TVs through the use of tweaked video modes and the -NTSC switch.  This topic is discussed elsewhere in the FAQ and in the MAME docs.

VidKid's Console Controllers and MAME.  From their web site:

From DOS Mame v.36b1 onwards, the latest Allegro WIP releases are used. This means that the PSX and N64 controller drivers are now included. This page is here to help people figure out how to use their console controllers with Mame.

DOS MAME Help Page - From their web site:

These pages are intended as a guide for anyone who may be experiencing DOS software or hardware related problems with whilst running or compiling MAME in real DOS mode.

Please note - all info on MAME is assuming you have one of the original versions from the MAME team, and not one of the derivative works.

Cinelatr

I believe the keys in Cinelatr can be modified via editing the .cfg file.  There is no documenation on how to do so however.  Anyone with any input on this please?

SNES Pad

All SNES pad support information came from the excellent SNESpad SUpport Center.  They are your best resource if you're looking for help with hooking up SNES pads to your system with your favorite game.  They are also more likely to be up to date on systems that support the SNES pad than this table is.

By ShamanRa on Arcade@Home's message board.

Problem:  Holding down a joystick direction with a keyboard interface produces jerky motion.

Solution: You want to completely turn off typematic rate setting in your BIOS.

Explanation: You must have only one keypress when you press a button or move the joystick and you need that keypress held down until you release the joystick or button. The typematic rate setting causes keys to repeat, so when you hold the joystick in a direction, instead of sending one long keypress, it's sending many shorter, repeated keypresses.