Sanity Check my ideas?

[Praxi]

I am wanting to make a mame cabinet, I want to support a lot of games! More specifically, I imagine playing a lot of Gauntlet with the family (so 4 player) and the occasional Donkey Kong (think I want joysticks that support 4 and 8 way).  I have been doing a lot of reading, and want some sanity checking of my ideas so far.  I'm going to use a Raspberry PI running pimame.  I plan on running a pair of GP-Wiz40-Eco USB to support 2 OMNI2™ 4/8-way joysticks and 2 Roundhouse Arcade and Flight Sticks.  I plan on 8 buttons for the OMNI2's and 4 buttons for the Roundhouse's.  I planned on building a Control Panel similar to this one.    http://www.ogredog.com/mame_cp_construction.htm

Any comments or suggestions people can make?

[shponglefan]

If you want to support a lot of games, you might want to use something other than a Raspberry Pi for the brains.  It's main strength lies in the fact that it's cheap and compact; but it's underpowered for running anything besides classic MAME games (and even then, not perfectly).

Can't comment on the joysticks, but why 8 buttons?

[drventure]

Yeah, you won't need 8 buttons. Heck, I can think of only a handful of times that I've used more than 2 buttons, even though I have 7 for each player. Way overkill. But if you intend on playing lots of fighting games, you'll need at least 4.

For the sticks, I really like the Ultimarc U360's for their flexibility. They don't feel like standard arcade sticks though, so it all depends on what your shooting for there.

I wouldn't bother with a Pi. Pick up a cheap used machine off CL or something. That'll get you all but the most demanding games running.

Save the Pi for a bartop, dedicated shmup, micro machine or something similar.

[Praxi]

I thought some of the fighting games took 8 buttons?  Think I got 8 stuck in my head on some tutorial I read, probably about  console emulation.  How many buttons should I go with then to meet the majority of the fighting games? 7? (Thinking Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Combat)  I already have the PI, so I will try it first.  I have the second gen one with 512 memory, and I see a lot of threads about PSX emulation working well with that.  If it doesn't work well can always grab a spare computer later.  I looked at the U360's, they do look nice, but trying to do this on a pretty tight budget.  Its for the kids mainly, I would rather they beat the stuffing out of a $10 or $20 joystick vs a $60 joystick

Thanks for the input!

[PL1]

Welcome aboard, Praxi.

MAME fighting games use up to 6 buttons.

Neo Geo + MAME layout uses 7 buttons. (4 in a curved row = Neo Geo layout)

Some console games use 8 buttons IIRC.   


Scott

[Praxi]

One thing I'm still trying to understand, the 7 button neo geo is just a layout right, and some of the buttons are just repeats?

PS and thanks for the welcome!

[Chris John Hunter]

Welcome Praxi

Very few games use more than 3 or 4 buttons. The 7 button Neo Geo layout is overkill. Neo Geo games had 4 buttons originally in a curve going up and as I remember a lot of the games only utilized 3.
7 Buttons can sometimes be useful for playing fighting games. But I personally feel any game that uses more than 6 buttons is badly designed dross.

The originating reason we have six buttons at all is because of Street Fighter 2. Which came out in 1991. Previously there was wait for it! Street Fighter. (Which was a fairly good but not supreme side scrolling 1-on-1 beat em up a bit like Way of The Exploding Fist and many others of the time. )
which originally employed a 2 pressure sensitive pad-DEPENDS HOW HARD YOU HIT THE PAD WOULD MAKE YOUR FIGHTER PUNCH OR KICK HARDER system. But this resulted in lots of machines being broken and people hurting themselves. So they redesigned it and replaced it with Light Medium Heavy for both Punch and Kick, resulting in the 6 way button system. When Street Fighter 2 came out on Consoles, the most faithful conversions- six button controllers were sold specifically for SF2.

N:B I cant remember now if they came bundled with some versions but I believe they might have. 

Then we have six buttons. For everything before SF2, 1990 you need 2,3 buttons. Throw in a Pause button and you get 7.

I personally like to keep the system control buttons on the underside of the control panel and stick with less buttons.


What people tend to do is, keep all the buttons the same colour. Which is madness. The original games used colours to differentiate what each button did. Sadly this has fallen by the wayside somewhat and people have become drones/sheep and copy each other.

My two player button panel is quite unique because it uses different colours to show which but does what. All consoles did this. All arcade machines did this. Also its not a two player its a one player 2 joysticks setup (4 way) and (8 way)

I just find it easier to know what things do with Red is fire. Green is grenade rather than Button 3. Which one is 3 again?

Anyway, if your not a fan of fighting games, Mortal Kombat and SF2/3/4 modern games you can happily get away with 3 buttons. A lot of the old games only need a 4 way joystick also. 8 way can hinder older games because the game is looking for just UP DOWN LEFT RIGHT and not TOP RIGHT etc. So every time you press TOP RIGHT on a 8 way and its a 4 way game, it goes. What? You didn't do anything. But on screen a ghost has just had Pac Man for lunch.

[Chris John Hunter]

I am wanting to make a mame cabinet, I want to support a lot of games! More specifically, I imagine playing a lot of Gauntlet with the family (so 4 player) and the occasional Donkey Kong (think I want joysticks that support 4 and 8 way).  I have been doing a lot of reading, and want some sanity checking of my ideas so far.  I'm going to use a Raspberry PI running pimame.  I plan on running a pair of GP-Wiz40-Eco USB to support 2 OMNI2™ 4/8-way joysticks and 2 Roundhouse Arcade and Flight Sticks.  I plan on 8 buttons for the OMNI2's and 4 buttons for the Roundhouse's.  I planned on building a Control Panel similar to this one.    http://www.ogredog.com/mame_cp_construction.htm


Any comments or suggestions people can make?

If money is tight and you want your kids to enjoy arcade games, Buy an old XBox with Coin Ops 5 from Ebay. And a Flat Pack Bartop kit. Plonk the Joysticks and buttons in the control panel. Assemble.

Praxi I think you might have seen another discussion some of us were having about R Pis. That only holds true for OLDER games. Its also quite a challenge. Easiest way is to get an old pc with win XP and 1mb ram and install Mame on it. Put it in a or build a four player cabinet. It will happily handle all the games you want.
There is no point putting a PI in a big cab. And you will need a big cab for 4 player so you might as well just put an old XP pc in there.


 


 

[Chris John Hunter]

I am wanting to make a mame cabinet, I want to support a lot of games! More specifically, I imagine playing a lot of Gauntlet with the family (so 4 player) and the occasional Donkey Kong (think I want joysticks that support 4 and 8 way).  I have been doing a lot of reading, and want some sanity checking of my ideas so far.  I'm going to use a Raspberry PI running pimame.  I plan on running a pair of GP-Wiz40-Eco USB to support 2 OMNI2™ 4/8-way joysticks and 2 Roundhouse Arcade and Flight Sticks.  I plan on 8 buttons for the OMNI2's and 4 buttons for the Roundhouse's.  I planned on building a Control Panel similar to this one.    http://www.ogredog.com/mame_cp_construction.htm


Any comments or suggestions people can make?

http://www.mameroom.com/Products_kits.asp

Check these guys out> You can design your panel with their software and they can do it for you. You can also buy kits made from them. I only say this because for a FIRST BUILD this seems quite ambitious.

[shponglefan]

I thought some of the fighting games took 8 buttons?  Think I got 8 stuck in my head on some tutorial I read, probably about  console emulation.  How many buttons should I go with then to meet the majority of the fighting games? 7?

IMHO, a general rule of thumb is:

8 buttons - console emulation
7 buttons - hybrid Neo-Geo/Capcom layout
6 buttons - Capcom fighting games (plus a few others)
5 buttons - Mortal Kombat games
4 buttons - Neo Geo games

Basically if you're not interested in fighting games, I would go with 4 buttons.  If you are, I would go either a 6 or 7 button layout.  Personally, I use a 7 button layout and find it extremely useful as I play a lot of Capcom and Neo-Geo games.

[shponglefan]

What people tend to do is, keep all the buttons the same colour. Which is madness. The original games used colours to differentiate what each button did. Sadly this has fallen by the wayside somewhat and people have become drones/sheep and copy each other.

It's about aesthetics.  When I built my very first panel, I was going to go multi-coloured.  Then I realized how fugly it was, so I switched to uni-colour.

[BadMouth]

I'm going to use a Raspberry PI running pimame.

(Thinking Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Combat)

Not sane.  Prepare to be disappointed if you expect those to run full speed on a Pi.
Hell, most of the people on here running Pentium 4s can't run Tekken in MAME and have to use zinc emulator.


The control panel you linked to is actually a decent example.
Notice how the joysticks are all parallel to the screen regardless of how the buttons are angled.


On the number of buttons: 

The most buttons used by a 4 player game in MAME is four and it's only few Dungeons and Dragons games.  The rest use 3.
Guilty Gear Isuka uses 5 buttons, but it is only playable on Demul emulator and requires much more horsepower than you're talking about using.
So for arcade games anyway, you're safe with 4 buttons for players 3 and 4.

Ignoring games that only had buttons and no joystick, the maximum number of buttons in a two player game is 6.
As was said earlier, a lot of people add a 7th so they can keep the Neo-Geo four-in-a-row and have the run button in Mortal Kombat 3 closer to it's original position.  I like having the Neo Geo button colors because during the attract mode, NeoGeo games give instructions about which button does what.

The 8 button panels that turn up are usually built by younger people who are modeling them after fight sticks currently on the market.
The two extra buttons on the SFIV sticks just post combinations of the other buttons.  The real arcade version only has 6.

As far as console emulation goes, if you're emulating something that requires more than 6 buttons, it also requires analog sticks IMO.

[chopperthedog]

Control panels like the one linked in op make me want to murder kittens.



good day.

[BadMouth]

Control panels like the one linked in op make me want to murder kittens.



good day.

I cut them some slack because it's an early build.  They're using hagstrom encoders for christ's sake.
The mere fact that they didn't angle the joysticks brings me joy.

[mgb]

Control panels like the one linked in op make me want to murder kittens.



good day.

Well good thing it won't be on your machine then.

Like others have said, it's best to first sit back and really think about what you hope to play on this.
8 buttons is a waist.
Tight budgets and endless game lists do not go well together. It's best to maybe scale back on some ideas to meet a budget.
 I think you'll find the Rp won't get you your desired results.

[PL1]

@Praxi -- You may want to consider a build planning approach like the one I describe here.

By starting with a game and emulator list, you'll find it easier to determine exactly what you really want and need.


Scott

[Chris John Hunter]

What people tend to do is, keep all the buttons the same colour. Which is madness. The original games used colours to differentiate what each button did. Sadly this has fallen by the wayside somewhat and people have become drones/sheep and copy each other.

It's about aesthetics.  When I built my very first panel, I was going to go multi-coloured.  Then I realized how fugly it was, so I switched to uni-colour.

Fair point but a lot of people are genuinely swayed into thinking they should do the same as other people. Mine is multicolour. I might find when my CPO is put on that its too much at which point I will just used Orange, Red and Black but still use them so they differentiate my control variations.


 

[Chris John Hunter]

MGB is talking common sense.

[Chris John Hunter]

I know this is a facebook thing, but I really wish we were in a position to LIKE a post. What BadMouth has just written is spot on. Quite a lot of people are talking sense here. I would remove any desire to play MK3 and stick to the original MK, besides should your kids be playing a game where you rip someones spine out and see the blood etc... Street Fighter 2 (original) and SUPER is still a super sweet fighting game.  Which only takes the CP1 system but runs sweet as a nut on a budget PC with Mame. It all depends.

If you want it all, you gotta pay and if you want to compromise you can get what you want

[PL1]

I know this is a facebook thing, but I really wish we were in a position to LIKE a post.

Throw your tuppence in the conversation here.   


Scott

[Praxi]

Wow goto bed, wake up to lots of responses and good advice.  Choppers post wasn't really helpful, he/she/it doesn't tell me why it makes him want to murder kittens.  I gather from the conversation many people don't like it though.  My goal is mainly 4 player arcade games, that will probably be 50% of the gaming on it (3 players really wife all ways doing other stuff).  Thinking Gauntlet, Xmen, and any others of that ilk.  25% Fighters, 25% old games that I know the kids will like; (metal slug, donkey kong, super mario, etc).  I don't want the trackball setup that that cabinet is boasting.  And I don't think I'm going to build a full cabinet, just a pedestal? cabinet.  Haven't decided on that last part yet.

[PL1]

Choppers post wasn't really helpful, he/she/it doesn't tell me why it makes him want to murder kittens.

I suspect the answer can be found in the age-old arguments over "Franken-panels".   


Scott

[paigeoliver]

No way should you be using a raspberry pi. That is putting a $30 brain into a $1000 project. It won't even run many of the games mentioned. Using one seriously hobbles any project. The only reason to use a pi is if you absolutely need the circuit board to be that small or because you want to prove an idea or concept. They aren't even capable of producing video modes that are truly suitable for mame use. The raspberry pi came out and a bunch of people said "that would be great for mame". It isn't, it never was but they won't let the idea go.

SF was not the first game to use a bunch of buttons. Stargate has a joystick and 6 buttons and it came out in 1981. Defender had 5 buttons in 1980. There are quite a few classic era games with 4 buttons as well (Mouse Trap, Vanguard, etc).

[Haze]

yeah
MAME/UME 0.148u3 (released April 13th this year) included improvements to the emulation of the speech chip used on Gauntlet... you might not notice much, but they are there.

you're not going to be running anything even close to that new on a Pi.

classics do still see improvements as long as there are still things to be improved!

[Praxi]

At this point, the PI is a proof of concept   I have plenty of old computers lying around I can toss in later.  Mainly my oldest girl wanted to figure out something fun we could do with the PI.  So it will start a nice conversation about performance and right tool for the job, with evidence she can see!

So I read a whole bunch about FrankenPanels (Thanks P1), is it a FP just because it has 4 joysticks on it?

After more reading and the comments here, I'm thinking players 1 and 2 will have 6 buttons, players 3 and 4 will have 4.  Does that seem reasonable?  Most of the plans I look at include a bunch of other junk (trackballs, spinners, things I don't think I want).  Any recommendations for plans that don't contain all that other stuff?  Or a tool I should draw them in?

[drventure]

So I read a whole bunch about FrankenPanels (Thanks P1), is it a FP just because it has 4 joysticks on it?

Not at all, and don't take too much of the Frankenpanel discussion to heart. The main thing is to build what you want. Good panels can be built that support a large number of games and don't look like they should be on crapmame. If you only have space for one cab, that might be the best choice.

If you've got a whole basement, build dedicated cabs (one for vertical shooters, one for horiz fighters, a pin cab, etc etc).

All just depends on what you want and where you want to go with it.

After more reading and the comments here, I'm thinking players 1 and 2 will have 6 buttons, players 3 and 4 will have 4.  Does that seem reasonable?  Most of the plans I look at include a bunch of other junk (trackballs, spinners, things I don't think I want).  Any recommendations for plans that don't contain all that other stuff?  Or a tool I should draw them in?

Sketchup is a great tool for laying out CPs. If you don't plan on playing games that require a trackball or spinner, leave em out! You'll save money, and have a cleaner panel.

One thing to do is put together a list of games you want to be able to play, maybe a "must" list, a "like to play" list and a "I'll never play that" list. I used Romlister to filter games by controllers required. Really good tool for that.

For instance, i +really+ wanted to play two man marble madness. Well, that requires 2 trackballs. I also wanted to be able to play tempest and that requires a spinner. and Gauntlet. and I really wanted to be able to play 4 man warlords, but that just was taking it over the edge 

[paigeoliver]

I have had a few different frankenpanels on different machines and I have found that once you get used to the machine you will generally avoid the games that require you to reach in past the first row of controls.

[Chris John Hunter]

Praxi, you could actually just build a control panel. And what you do is, plug the panel straight into a pc and away you go. If you had a big enough panel and an xp pc you could take it apart, put the whole thing in the panel. Thats what some US companies are selling now. Then you just plug it in and use a cable to connect it to your tv even. Would be a lot cheaper.

And I have to agree with Paige on that, if your building a 4 player system its £££ or $$$ there really is no quick and cheap solution certainly although PI can run Classics. Even the 60-1 lot. I wouldn't put one in anything expecting to play decent fight games .

[tivogre]

Wow... it's been a long time since I dropped by here!

It's interesting to see that folks are still occasionally discussing my cab (the one in the OP link);  many of the comments are the same as the ones I was getting in 2005 / 2006 when it was built!

The cab is still going strong;  the web page on the build has gotten over 65k hits!

Cheers all!

[Cynicaster]

  My goal is mainly 4 player arcade games, that will probably be 50% of the gaming on it (3 players really wife all ways doing other stuff).  Thinking Gauntlet, Xmen, and any others of that ilk. 

I bet that after the first 2-4 weeks, 90% of the gaming on it will be single player (i.e., you).  I don't know your family obviously, but I'd be careful not to overestimate the lasting allure of something like a MAME cabinet to most normal people. 

 

[Praxi]

Its going in the kids room, so almost a guarantee there will be 3 on it when its being used