Street Fighter V Bartop recommendations/suggestions

[processedmeat]

Hi all, I'm in the planning stages of a Street Fighter V bartop that I'm building for my brother's upcoming birthday.  Before I completely commit to the project, I was wondering if I could get some recommendations on controls and the bartop form factor since I am totally not a fighting game guy.  I've done some research on shoryuken.com but it seems that there is a million opinions out there.

1)  From what I've read online it seems you can't go wrong with Sanwa JLF sticks and octagonal gates.  For the buttons, do the short Japanese buttons mean that they have a short throw and can register a press much faster?  I'm also trying to find one that incorporates an LED but I haven't found any that are built in like the longer buttons.  Also will the Zero Delay joystick encoders be fast enough (not laggy) to support the twitchiness of fighting games.

2) I've built a more traditional Pacman bartop but I'm looking to build an unique bartop that rifts on the Vewlix shape.  Something like this: 

My only question regarding this is if it would be stable enough and heavy enough to support the jerky movements that Street Fighter players utilize during a match.   Our should I build a 2 player bartop that is traditional and heavier like this

3) What do you think is a good width for the control panel for 2 average sized players? 

4) 6 buttons or 8 buttons?  Its gonna be a PC build so it seems like I don't need the extra buttons found on a console control.  Am I missing something here?

Many Thanks!

[Slippyblade]

Shorter buttons have nothing to do with reaction or activation times.  They are simply designed to be used in thinner, usually metal or plastic, control panels.

[paigeoliver]

The cabinet pictured is a terrible example. It uses its space poorly by extending the control panel in all directions with unusable space.

You need a 23"+ wide panel to properly play a 2 player fighting game. By the time you build your bartop that big you might as well just spend another $20 on wood and build a full sized cabinet.

Does your brother primarily play fighting games with a "fight stick" if so then you want Japanese buttons and sticks. If he mostly played his fighting games in the arcade then you will want Happ buttons and sticks.

[Jamesbeat]

As soon as I read your post, I was going to say this, but then I saw that Paigeoliver beat me to it:

I urge to to reconsider the bartop idea.
Bartops are great in single player form, but once you decide upon two players with six buttons each, a bartop makes less sense.
I know this because I made this very mistake.

You will essentially be building the top half of an upright cabinet, and it will be unwieldy and heavy.
This means that your brother will most likely need a permanent surface to put it on.

Also, most tables, work surfaces etc are a little too low to allow comfortable use of the controls when standing.

It would scarcely be any more effort or money to build an upright cabinet, and this will easily be offset by not having to buy a small enough computer and squeeze it into a bartop.

I am currently in the process of planning an upright cab to transfer the guts of my bartop into for precisely the reasons above.