Problems with PS2 Dance Pads
Some of you may know that I am a big DDR fan, and have several “mixes” for the PS2. For the holiday, I received a new dance mat (I’ve worn out three so far) and the two latest DDR mixes (Supernova and Extreme 2).
However, I haven’t been able to play yet. There seems to be a problem with either the game, my PS2 controller interface, or the game pads I have tried. When trying to play DDR Supernova or Extreme 2, one of the arrows stick in the main menu and traverses all the options (which results in an annoying sound). When using the pads on any of my older games, they all work perfectly. I have tried three different pads — Red Octane’s Ignition Pat, Pelican’s Dance Pro Universal Pad, and Psyclone’s Universal Dance Mat — all with the same results. Pelican’s pad actually says on the box that it supports DDR Supernova as well.
I emailed Konomi’s customer support to inquire about any known problems, but they refused to comment since I wasn’t using Konomi brand dance pads. I sent mail to Pysclone’s customer service this afternoon, but couldn’t find contact information for Game Stop (who owns Pelican) except for a snail mail address, and haven’t contacted Red Octane yet.
A few days ago I took Supernova over to Elwing’s place and tried it with her PS2 and Colbalt Flux metal pad where it worked perfectly. The only troubleshooting option I haven’t tried yet is taking Supernova or Extreme 2 with one of the pads which don’t work on my PS2 and trying it on someone else’s PS2. If it works on their system, then there is something b0rk with my controller interface. I haven’t had any problems with other games or controllers.
Has anyone experienced problems like these or know of anyone who has? Any suggestions on a dance mat to try?
Wow, I just got a dance mat today. It is this one: http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-1i-49-en-15-dance+mat-70-1jkd.html and it works fine with stepmania. I also got a PS2->USB converted (Super joy box 5 pro!) to use one of my friends ps2 dance mats with, but linux being linux I can’t get it to work. It is recognised by the USB system, but doesn’t create any devices in /dev/input. Anyone managed to get that to work (it works in windows predictably).
Actually scratch that, I just tried it again and now it works. Possibly you have to have it plugged in when you turn the computer on.
I gave up trying to chase the PS2 releases years ago. Just get a couple generic ignition-style pads of eBay ($50-70/pair), a $5 usb adaptor, and use StepMania. There are plenty of good free songs/steps for it. Linux support of common usb adaptors is varied because the manufacturers of this junk don’t follow the usb specs. They cut corners to save a few pennies on the controller chip. Newer kernels (2.6.16+) have workarounds for popular PS2 usb adaptors in the usb-hid driver. You can usually patch this driver for unsupported hardware easily.. just figure out which “quirk modes” need to be enabled for the given manufacturer and device ID. (see hid-core.c, struct hid_blacklist) I’m not sure why this ghetto hardware works on Win by default. Some devices seem to require a hacked usb driver provided on disk. Others may rely on Win being more tolerant of non-conformant hardware. (perhaps it auto-attempts workarounds if the device won’t talk)
Hi there. I’ve been having the same problems too. I also got DDR SuperNOVA (with pad) for x-mas and I have already taken it back to wal mart once and got a new one (which worked great for awhile) and this week my game wont work anymore. I’ve cleaned my PS2 already, lowered the laser disc, etc. and it still wont work. Actually, right now I’m messing with my PS2. Can’t get the damn thing to work for the life of me. Are all of the DDR games like this? Cause if they are, I won’t buy games that won’t work. I have a used copy of Final Fantasy 10 and it works perfectly!! What’s up with that? I think I can get it to work, but I’m really frustrated. I want to DDR!
I’ve only had problems with the two newest DDR games, Supernova and Extreme 2. All of the older ones (DDR, DDRMax, Max2, Extreme) work perfectly fine.