Interested in how your controls are setup for N64 emulation

[harveybirdman]

So in my cabinet outside of Mame I am emulating several other consoles.

Trying to make a decsion on the scope of what systems I plan to emulate.  As of today I have NES, SNES, and Genesis solutions and they should translate just fine to the control panel I plan to build.

I know that I will probablly go with PSX as well if nothing else for better emulation of 3D fighters.  I think I can live with 8 buttons per player.

But when thinking about the N64 I'm worried about the analog control stick, as it seems to me some games use both the D-pad and the analog stick. plus the darn thing has 9 buttons.  

For those of you that are emulating the N64 are you using native controllers or do you have it wired to your control panel?  Can you get decent gameplay with only 8 buttons?

There aren't too many N64 titles that I really want to play probablly Mario64, Goldeneye, Diddykong Racing, one of the WWF wrestling games whose name escapes me right now... So before I go to the trouble of setting up the emulator I want to make sure I have a reasonable non-frankenpanel way to deal with the controls.

[Donkbaca]

Not worth it in my opinion, but here is some info:

Don't worry about the 9 buttons, most of the games only use 6. In some cases the same input will be mapped to different buttons, like the trigger button and a shoulder button.

You can't really play most of the fun games with a d-pad, you need an analog stick

An xbox 360 pad or a PS3 pad will work, they have analog controls, but its frustrating because the layout of the N64 pads has 6 face buttons. 

I was all fired to play some golden eye, fired it up and it was massively disappointing.  So much better to just play the more modern FPS games, the controls are pretty clunky

[ark_ader]

I have the read deal. 

Emulation doesn't really cut it.

[Aberran]

I am planning an 11 button panel per player 2 players in total.  I have my ideas for n64 but it involves two smaller than regular size thumb buttons under the regular 8 buttons.  Also one of my eleven is a dedicated shift button I plan to make a smaller pushbutton as well and make it an on/off not momentary button. As N64 goes I shoudnt have to use the shift button. Just R and L on the lower thumb buttons and Z as the far right lower row and Start as the upper far right push button or something like that.  Configuration and play testing might render me using a different setup or multiple setups depending on the game.  For arcade games those lower buttons are most likely going be start and coin.  I do wish there was a analog solution, but in my price range only the U360 comes close and it has a limit on the buttons it can have ( with one able to shift the other 7.  This would be to clunky for n64 and psx and I am trying to avoid virtual controllers since I have yet to find one that is not terrible cumbersome.  Might need to limit myself to the games that play well in digital only modes.  Also would love to be able to switch the joystick from digital to analog and back easily ... Anyone have any suggestions.

[Donkbaca]

Why on earth would you need that many buttons and why on earth would you need a shift if you had that many buttons?

I am telling you several games will not be playable without an analog stick

[Howard_Casto]

What he said. 

With the exception of MKT  all the best n64 games REQUIRE the use of an analog stick.  Heck even Mario 64, the launch title, requires analog precision to play.

The maximum number of buttons you need per player is 6...... 7 if you want to add a "neo-geo" button or 8 if you are really really lame at fighters and need the assist of the "all punch/all kick" buttons. 

But 11, that's just insaine. 

Also you can't play n64 games on a arcade cabinet... that is unless you are a glutton for punishment.  Get a n64 2 usb adaptor and use the real controller, or better yet, get a n64. 

This goes for virtually every console ever made btw... they aren't suited for arcade cabinets in general, the play length is different and more importantly the controls are different. 

The very few console games that are worth playing on a arcade cabient are only going to use a few of the controller's buttons.  So if you are adding buttons for all the console buttons then you are wasting your time.  Hell, look at official arcade controllers for console games like the hori sticks and madcatz controllers.  They only have 6-8 buttons. 

If you are designing your cabinet specifically around console games then you are doing the equivelent of designing a car's driver compartment around flying through the air.   You use a arcade layout and work with it, not the other way around.

Also the fact that you mentioned that you want to put arcade start buttons on a row directly below the gameplay buttons shows that you haven't thought this through.  Think about it... it doesn't matter where the start button is as it isn't used for gameplay, and yet you are going to put it next to gameplay buttons so it can accidentally be hit instead of putting it in the usual arcade position where it looks best and is out of the way.  Ask for help in the main forum, those guys will set you straight. 

[Donkbaca]

^^^ I agree with everything this man says.   Old PC's are so cheap and easy to find,and CRT's are free or close enough to it.  Build a dedicated console machine

[Howard_Casto]

Well that never happens. 


I forgot to point something else out just for other's benefit.  If it were a 4 player cabinet, players 3 and 4 only need 4 buttons max.  The more players there are, the fewer buttons are used per player.  I see that mistake made a lot as well.

[Donkbaca]

I think a 3 or four player is always a mistake, but once again HC is right. 

Pick the games you really want play, customize your controls for that game/set of games and then see what else you can do with that setup. 

If you don't like the Capcom fighters, there is no need to even go 6 buttons, 4 would probably be fine.

[harveybirdman]

Thanks for all the replies, I have decided leave N64 out of my cabinet and eventually will build a dedicated console machine.

[Mario]

The maximum number of buttons you need per player is 6...... 7 if you want to add a "neo-geo" button or 8 if you are really really lame at fighters and need the assist of the "all punch/all kick" buttons. 

But 11, that's just insaine. 

For each player, you need these buttons: A, B, the four C buttons, L and R shoulder buttons, Z trigger, and the Start button. This makes 10 buttons.

Mario

[Donkbaca]

AND HOW many games use all those buttons exactly? 

[Vigo]

N64 on the arcade machine is fine, as long as you are willing to accept that you will only have a handful of arcade "go to" games, and are willing to go through the setup work for those few games. I have maybe a dozen games that I play on my arcade from N64, and those games are the ones that are forgiving when it comes to button layout and also even more forgiving on the analog controls when only using a switch based joystick. The kind of game that you only jam on the analog joystick at full force at all times.

Is it worth it? Meh, I could live without those dozen 64 games on my machine, but I still do access the 64 from time to time.

[Donkbaca]

Which games?  I am really curious, I can seriously only think about 5 games from the N64 that I really liked, and none of them would work well in a cab, excpet maybe one of the wrestling ones and MK

[Vigo]

Yeah, we are not talking a whole lot of gaming when it comes to my list. The only action one that I can think of that was N64 is battletanx 1 and 2. Although there is advantage of going slow in cartain situations, I always jammed on the controls and did fine. Just about any of the shooters or 3d environmental games sucked on arcade controls, and that meant losing the best games for the 64 (e.g. goldeneye, ocarina). I remember that the powerpuff girls game was ok on arcade, but I only played that because I loved powerstone for the DC, and it was a somewhat passable knock-off. My computer didn't have the speed to run the DC at the time. I can't remember if Gauntlet legends worked ok or not, but I haven't tried it since I got the DC version to play.

The 2D's played pretty good, but often found on other systems, Worms armageddon, dr mario, that south park trivia game. I think Kirby was OK. One of the tetris games was good.

I'm going completely off the top of my head here for this list, I am sure there are a few I am missing, and probably a few on my list sucked more than I remember.