A couple of thoughts... Servo sticks sound cool, but may be frustrating. You may want to purchase one and test it before you commit.

Not every game works with a 4/8 way joystick and a set of six buttons. You will need to plan accordingly.

I highly recommend purchasing a control panel with everything configured on it, you will spend the next 200 hours of your life configuring everything to work with your controls. It’s a process that I have worked through for years to get things just right with emulation. I hope it’s a ton of fun!

I like the ultrastick 360. it is an analog stick that works great with games that require an analog stick like empire strikes back and star wars, tailgunner, red baron, escape from the planet of the monster robots and a few other games. since you are using mame you can create an electronic map in mame for each game to optimize the joystick for each game. this comes in handy for games that use 4 way sticks only since it disables two inputs at the same time if you go into the corners which would screw up pacman if they both registered. other inputs that can be adjusted would be for qbert which basically needs a 45 degree joystick to get the right feel for the game, the joystick mapping would make using the ultra stick a no brainier though you would not have the physical gateing system to restrict your movement but if you are close you will not notice it too much. for my system I modded the stick to have a thump button on top.

So the Ultrastick will work well with PacMan when set for 4-way? This is one thing I have wondered, not having one to test. I've been thinking about getting one of these. That should be good for everything 4-way and 2-way. Unfortunately Qbert and Zaxxon won't work out unless there is a way to rotate it 45 deg.

Check out the leaf switches, basically the same as on a pinball machine.

https://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=365

the ultra stick 360 doesn't have to be rotated 45 deg to work with qbert or zaxxon. use a program called mame joy map to create some joystick maps for mame games. http://headsoft.com.au/index.php?category=mame&page=joymap

Create an ini file named as the rom/game you want to digitally restrict. The ini files go in Mame>ini>presets

I used an app called 'MameJoyMap' to make these...

2-way horizontal:
joystick_map 444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.

2-way vertical:
joystick_map 444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.444555666.

4-way:
joystick_map s8.4s8.44s8.4445

Tron:
joystick_map 788888889.4s88888s6.44s888s66.444555666.444555666.444555666.44s222s66.4s22222s6.122222223.

Q-bert diagonal 4-way:
joystick_map 4444s8888.4444s8888.444458888.444555888.ss55555ss.222555666.222256666.2222s6666.2222s6666.

you don't need an 8 way map because the analog stick will being used in mame will default to the 8 way map. the other maps will allow mame itself to remap your analog stick to be a 4way and 45 degree 4 way without reprogramming the stick itself saving joystick reprogramming cycles. I have fine tuned my own files a little to refine how the stick chooses what the input will be by using some sticky settings which are described in the program instructions. this method is very seldom explained in mame that it can be done. you would be amazed how many games in mame actually play best with a pure analog stick with no joystick map

Looking for some help from anyone who might know what the heck is happening.

I have finally gotten the time to finish my very long term mame project. I have the Ultimarc ipac, uhid trackball adapter, and an arcade VGA adapter card. I bought an old bowler for the working WG monitor a nice cabinet.

Long and short of it is I finally have my hyperspin FE all set up and working perfectly with the ROM's I want when I use my LCD monitor hooked up to the PC. As soon as I unplug the PC monitor and plug in the vga output in the same card to go to the WG monitor, the controls go absolutely wacky and after 30 seconds or so completely locks up hyperspin. I have not been able to duplicate this issue while hooked up to my LCD monitor so it has to do something with hooking up the VGA display.

Any thoughts on this? It's the last obstacle I have to overcome to get my cabinet finished up and I really want to avoid putting in an LCD as I prefer the original CRT look.

Thanks in advance!

What happens when you load the games up outside of hyper spin?

That's a lot of games. I used to have a lot more games on my system, but selection paralysis became real issue. I found I had to keep my choices under 500.

Totally...
It really gets to be a hassle to navigate through the menus. Even when you skip to just the starting letter. I also don't like complete sets and I hand select everything. If a game looks interesting I put it on my pi and I play it. Sometimes I'm wrong and the game is a stinker, but most of the time I don't play the games.
But, I do try to play all the games that really impress me during my research or online channel browsing.

Still, I find I'd be happy probably with just handful of truly great games. Like, if I'm feeling the need for a twin stick shooter, then Robotron, Smash Tv, or Total Carnage are great choices.
A fun maze shooter. Berzerk or frenzy will be amazing... Vanguard if I get bored with those two.
Beat em ups... X-men, Punisher, TMNT(both of them), Cadillac and Dinosaurs,Dungeons and Dragons(both of em), and Double Dragon(cliche but I still love em), and final fight.
A run and gun. Narc(its so bloody its awesome), robocop and robocop 2(not the best but fun and its robocop). Sunset Riders, cowboys of moo mesa, and crap... I forget the name of the ninja game that's like sunset riders. Its really fun.
And of course the metal slug series.
Sports games... Nba Jam, Arch Rivals, and the neo geo gold game Turf Masters(I think that is what its called). Really, really good golf game. The AD football is not quite as good as Arch rivals but still fun.

Ohhh... And here is a deep cut for you all. It's a on rail shooter where you are a tank and its called En Force. Really, really fun game. Fast moving, kind of a bit difficult, but not impossible. Super good scaling with the sprites, great enemy design, and its just really fun.

So. While I have over 2000 games on my pi, those are the arcade games that I play the most. There are others of course. And I do play 2400, and sega games quite a lot, and some gba games too. But, those are the mame games I play most frequently. I know I probably left a few out, that I'll kick myself for later, but these are without a doubt my favorites.
Yeah. As I said in a past post, I really enjoy beat em ups.

Look what showed up at the company office this morning. I can see how something like this could lead to 50,000 questions from people. I spent 20 minutes this morning playing around with it. It appears to be a customized XTENSIONS arcade. Super fun, but I am beginning to get the idea behind what people mean by selection paralysis. I may or may not build out my Golden Tee now that I have access to one of these whenever I want. The way it is set up you can't go back to a higher menu without Ctrl-Alt-Deleting out of it. Beggars can't be choosers and this is a lot of fun.

20191202_054619 (resized).jpg

I'll have to check out En Force. If you are curious my list is in post #139. I only have arcade games on my MAME system. I then have a Pi that plays a lot of the older systems, but honestly I play my Wii more then anything. I still enjoy setting up Guitar Hero on the projector when people are over.