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Author Topic: Player 3 or 4 button layout  (Read 1125 times)

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mixlplex

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Player 3 or 4 button layout
« on: May 29, 2023, 04:30:56 pm »
Hi, so I'm at the cardboard stage and I'm curious as to recommended button layout for players 3 and 4. The diamond seems popular but what about a natural spread for index through pinky? (And if you're looking at the picture and are going to comment that my spacing is off, it's not for me - my pinky finger kicks out a bit from the rest of the fingers.) I've currently got a layout that incorporates both, but for the final version is there any reason to choose one over the other? (There's only one game I found that uses more than 4 buttons for those players and it's a console game I don't plan on playing.)

BadMouth

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Re: Player 3 or 4 button layout
« Reply #1 on: May 30, 2023, 10:39:43 am »
I did a Neo Geo themed cab so wanted the Neo Geo four in a row on top.  It is somewhat similar to what you have there.
After actually using it for a while, I much prefer to use my thumb to hit the first button in the second row instead of using my pinky to hit the one on the end of the top row.
Enough so that I set up all games to allow either, but I personally never use my pinky anymore.

As you say, except for console games there are very few that use more than 4 buttons.  IIRC, in MAME only the Dungeon's and Dragon's games and a couple others use four.  The rest only use 3.
Outside of MAME Guilty Gear Isuka uses five, but it's probably the weakest in the series.

So as far as layout with only four buttons, I'd ditch the pinky button and second one in the bottom row.
(hitting the leftmost/lowest buttons with my thumb and rightmost button with my third finger)
I like this better than the simple diamond or square.  IIRC on Tekken this makes your middle first two fingers the left and right arms and outer fingers thumb and other finger your left and right legs.

I've come to dislike the curved ergonomic layout with modern convex buttons for P1 & P2.  On games that use more than 3 buttons I find myself losing track of where the buttons are and looking down to reset my hands more often.  It may be less of a problem with concave buttons.  If I had it to do over again I'd do the standard boring "straight six" streetfighter layout with concave buttons.
For P3 & P4 on a four player cab I'd do the same "straight six", but with the last two buttons on the bottom row omitted.

Also (for P1&2)keep in mind that the default MAME layout is the street fighter straight six.
123
456

If you wire the buttons as:
1234
567

You will end up having to remap a lot more of the games than if you had wired them as:
1237
456

« Last Edit: May 30, 2023, 04:44:16 pm by BadMouth »

Fursphere

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Re: Player 3 or 4 button layout
« Reply #2 on: May 30, 2023, 10:59:35 am »
I solved this problem by building two two-player cabinets, then linking them together for four player games. 

Four adults on a single cabinet is cramped (unless you build the Castle Crashers Behemoth Cabinet https://www.ign.com/articles/2011/03/12/pax-castle-crashers-battleblock-theater-arcade-cabinets-rock) and the button layouts are always some kind of comprise.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2023, 11:19:32 am by Fursphere »

Xiaou2

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Re: Player 3 or 4 button layout
« Reply #3 on: May 30, 2023, 01:11:03 pm »
Advice:  Never Curve a Button Layout

1)  Most everyones keyboard keys are in a straight line, and your fingers remain bent, to get better leverage to press them

2)  Everyones finger lengths are different,  so even if you had the finger strength to press a button from a completely flat-hand finger spread...
each person that tried to fit your layout with their handshape... might have alignment issues... where their fingers dont fit your layout.

3)  I can only assume that the Japanese cabinets can partially get away with this,  because they use Flat or convex buttons, with low-activation force switches.
I personally still cant fathom how anyone can use a flat hand to press these buttons for any extended period of time.  You have far less leverage force, and it
would be incredibly fatiguing, even with low activation force switches.

 I also prefer the US standard Concave buttons.  The shape funnels your fingers into the center of the button, and helps prevent your fingers
from easily sliding out of them.   Its also much more Comfy.

4) As Badmouth said..  Its too easy to Lose track of which buttons that your fingers are on / over.  You might accidentally also press the side edges of a button,
due to misalignment.  With a Straight Layout, your fingers are always in-line with all of the buttons, no matter what size/shape your hand/fingers are.

While there are some Ergonomic Keyboards with a curve... they tend to be a very shallow curve, and your fingers remain bent while operating them.
With these large sized arcade buttons, the spacing is too large... so the curve becomes much too steep.

The amount of space you might save from curved layouts, is very Minimal at best,  and really isnt worth the control issues.


 The only exception, is a lower-thumb button...  like the Run button in MK3.   Since its only a single button that isnt pressed often, it works fine as
something you can quickly reach for, with an extended thumb.


 The only other thing Id personally do, with a button layout.. is to have at least One, Classic Leafswitch button.
These are excellent for Rapidfire shooters, as they are much less fatiguing for high-speed repeat-firing games  (like Halley's Comet).


 If you only have 4 buttons,  a diamond shape isnt that bad... but honestly, Id still always stick to a  2x2  straight line.
Diagonal button layouts are only really good for Gamepads, because you can roll your thumb on them like a d-pad.
Even then... I still preferred the Genesis straight line button layout.

 Large arcade buttons are different, because you cant easily switch from horizontal resting, to the top and bottom buttons.
When the buttons are in two straight line rows,  its easily to slide both fingers from one set of buttons, to the other set.

mixlplex

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Re: Player 3 or 4 button layout
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2023, 10:38:51 am »
Wow! Thanks for all the feedback. Will definitely try out the straight layout instead of curved. (My buttons are concave so I was thinking that the fingers would 'find home' easily enough; regardless I'm open to switching things around.) I've got access to an x-arcade tankstick so I'll try that before I go through the hassle of finding another 2x4 sheet of cardboard cutting holes and redoing all the wiring... again (the whole project started off as a 4 player cocktail cabinet - I *really* like Warlords, until I realized it would look horrible due to the size of the monitor I was using, at the time, vs the size of the control panels (the entire table ended up being almost 5 feet long).

I have a 40" display I was going to put this on, and was debating between doing a pedestal (using plans from https://www.instructables.com/4-Player-Pedestal-Arcade-Cabinet-for-MAME/ ) and a cab; however, after seeing the BattleBlock I'm leaning more in that direction (just need to find some plans...)

I've also already got all the games for the cabinet planned out and verified (I made a batch file and java program that runs between the front end and mame and throws up the control panel layout and what each button does, see attachment, along with telling me if I need to rotate the MagStick between 8 way and 4 way, it also handles switching servo sticks and loading the mappings for ultrastick for the various games including qbert, and when the game is done it tells me if I need to rotate mag stick back to 8 way) and none of them use over 6 buttons so I don't have to worry about the layouts vs mapping gymnastics for the 7th button (but it's good to know if I decide to do another cab, or for others who stumble across this post).

Fursphere, regarding having two different cabinets and linking them together; I was thinking about that, but how are you doing that while also allowing each cabinet to be independently played for different games? (Or is it just a cabinet dedicated for players 3 and 4, which seems pretty easy with a mirrored dual monitor set up?)

Fursphere

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Re: Player 3 or 4 button layout
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2023, 11:31:24 am »
Fursphere, regarding having two different cabinets and linking them together; I was thinking about that, but how are you doing that while also allowing each cabinet to be independently played for different games? (Or is it just a cabinet dedicated for players 3 and 4, which seems pretty easy with a mirrored dual monitor set up?)

Its a little complicated, but not really once you break it down.

-Both cabinets running Windows 10, and using LaunchBox/BigBox for the front end (front end can be anything, but LB/BB has built in support)

-MAME is imported into the front end and setup to prefer 2 player versions of games.   This platform is used for isolated cabinet play.

-RetroArch with FBNEO Core (final burn neo) is setup as a separate platform with an FBNEO romset.  (very similar to mame, but some differences)
-RetroArch supports Netplay, along with the FBNEO Core supporting Netplay (to my knowledge, the MAME cores in RetroArch do not currently support netplay)
-FBNEO is imported into the frontend as a MAME set to prefer 4 player games / roms. 
-retroarch takes care of the player mapping - no need to change ANY key bindings

-Cab-A retroarch advanced network config is setup to start with "Player 1" and "Player 2" when joining Netplay games
-Cab-B retroarch advanced network config is setup to start with "Player 3" and "Player 4" when joined Netplay games
(you can get more advanced with custom config loading to do like 1/3 and 2/4)

Cab-A starts as "HOST" and Cab-B starts as "Join Cab-A".

Launchbox has a Retroarch netplay browser built into the frontend - so you just say "start netplay game" on Cab-A as host, and "join netplay game" on Cab-B and then select Cab-A to join.   

And then you have four player gaming across two local cabinets.   For a short time I had a 3rd cabinet and actually got 6-player X-Men going for a minute.   But three cabinets just took up too much room in the space I have, so I let one go.   You can easily have player 5 and player 6 use gamepads or something if you really want to go there. 

Now, If you want to go more crazy, I have figured out how to automatically launch the game on Cab-B from Cab-A using autohotkey scripting and some networking.   That's more for fun than anything and really not needed. 

You can do some crazy stuff with Steam "Play with friends" games too.