Button Layout Advice

[WindyM]

I am in the final stages of planning my control panel. The cabinet will be for MAME, but also likely to have SNES and Sega emulators, with MAMEWah front end. 

I plan to have two joysticks each with 6 or 7 buttons each. What is the best layout and why.

Should I have 6 or 7 buttons?, Should I use the layout in excellent Project Arcade book (3 above 3, with additional button below and left), should I use 4 above 3 right justified, or maybe 4 above 3 centrally justified. I have seen similar with references to Neo Geo for the top 4 and Capcom for the bottom 3

Also which button should be assigned to which key should it be Sw 1 to 4 at the top, 5 to 7 at the botton in numerical order, or in the PA book layout, should the botton left be button 1 or 7 (assuming use of IPac where Sw 1 would be LCtrl, Sw 2-LAlt, Sw3-space, Sw4 Lshift,  Sw 5- Z, Sw 6-X, Sw 7-C.)

Obviously the equivalent should be applied to the player 2 buttons.

I also plan to put a button on the left hand and right hand vertical for pinball games. Which keypad should I use, should it duplicate one of the above, or should it be IPac sw 8 (V for player 1)

I would very much appreciate anyones thoughts

[shadowdrak]

If you plan on playing SNES, you need 8 buttons.  You could use start and coin buttons as start and select though, so 6 buttons right of the joystick will work.  The only reason you might want 7 buttons for mame, is if you like to play the NeoGeo titles that use 4 buttons.  People put the 7th button on there so they can use their pinky instead of their thumb.  It is a personal preference thing, and unless you have played on the real cabs extensively, you probably don't care.  My favorite layout is 4 buttons on top, three on the bottom like this:
1234
OOOO
OOO
456

That way you can play capcom fighters with the six grouping and neogeo with the top four without wasting inputs on your i-pac.

Having the 7th button on the bottom left like the slikstick cps is visually appealing as well.  I think that it requires remapping some games to work right though.

For the pinball controls, I would suggest re-using player1's buttons since you won't be using both sets at the same time anyway.

[Tiger-Heli]

The choice of buttons and layouts is basically personal opinion and comes down to what games you play and how you want to set them up.

I plan to use the layout below (I stole the design, BTW, but I like it).  The  buttons are layed out as

 4 5 6
 1 2 3
7

The pinball buttons are 8 and 9 (on a KeyWiz, but that's not why I'm using it).

I can play directional diamond game (C-pad in N64, Vanguard, SNES controller) using the
 5
4 2
  1
buttons on the layout, and the blue and green 3 and 6 buttons will be the blue and green button in N64.

But I chose this layout because I play mainly classic games, no fighters, and rarely 4-button Neo-Geo games.  If I played otherwise, I would probably pick something different.

Should I have 6 or 7 buttons?, Should I use the layout in excellent Project Arcade book (3 above 3, with additional button below and left), should I use 4 above 3 right justified, or maybe 4 above 3 centrally justified. I have seen similar with references to Neo Geo for the top 4 and Capcom for the bottom 3

Again, depending on what games you like.  I have read many posts about the different advantages, and all of them can work depending on what YOU want it for.

Also which button should be assigned to which key should it be Sw 1 to 4 at the top, 5 to 7 at the botton in numerical order, or in the PA book layout, should the botton left be button 1 or 7 (assuming use of IPac where Sw 1 would be LCtrl, Sw 2-LAlt, Sw3-space, Sw4 Lshift,  Sw 5- Z, Sw 6-X, Sw 7-C.)

Keep in mind that this can be changed -
For example, I use
4 5 6
1 2 3
but for Street Figher, I obviously would re-map MAME so button 1 was L-Shift so I could play the game normally.  I alternately could use
1 2 3
4 5 6
and re-map the classic games to use the lower buttons, if that was easier.

Also, the I-PAC key assignments work well for MAME but they could be re-assigned.

I also plan to put a button on the left hand and right hand vertical for pinball games. Which keypad should I use, should it duplicate one of the above, or should it be IPac sw 8 (V for player 1)

Well, as I said I have these as buttons 8 and 9, but that is b/c I had that many inputs available.  (And so I can use them with PC games that require all the buttons)  Rule of thumb is to consider two things:

1)  Will you be using Pinball emulators that don't allow re-assignment of buttons.  If so, you might want to double them up with the corresponding MAME buttons, or having special inputs for them.  Otherwise, you would have to re-program the I-PAC before playing any of these (which is an option).

2)  Generally, I don't recommend doubling up inputs until the encoder runs out of them.  On my panel, I needed six buttons per player, two coin, two start, Pause, and Escape - so 26 inputs.  I had six inputs remaining, so the Pinball flippers and the Neo-Geo Button got independent inputs.  If I add rotary joysticks to the panels, the rotation switches will probably share inputs with the pinball flippers.

[paulcola]

It took a looooong time for me to figure this out on my control panel. The most important thing to me was to lay out the buttons so they were ergonomic and comfortable for many hours of play. I also wanted to add Left/Right buttons (to the left of the joystick) for older games like Asteroids and Space Invaders.

To get the layout, I placed my hand on cardboard as if I were resting, then I traced around my fingers. I then placed the buttons where the tips of my fingers touched, ending up with a very Neo Geo style layout. And, I highly recommend the thumb button. You'll find it's very useful for things like thrust (Defender), Sheilds (Phoenix), or any game that requires you to hold a button for something.

As far as mapping, play a few games, see which buttons you use most, then order by preference. I chose the following:


                    2   3
                1     6   7
                    5
               4                    (hope that makes sense)

Since mapping is easy on the Ipac (if you're using one), you can make any button...any key on your keyboard. If you don't have an Ipac, trial and error perhaps.

My layout:
http://www.integratedrecreation.com/Images/Full%20pictures/controlpaneltopdownfull.jpg

[coachcarstens]

I also just built a 2 player 7 botton layout CP.  I was also considering hwo to map out the buttons.  my layout looks like this:

   ooo
   ooo
 o

Just like the slik stick CP's.  I was wondering what the "default" layout is for the Slik Sticks?  like is it: 123
                                                 456
                                                7
Or something else?  I was thinking I would start with what the defaults are.  I have played on a slik stik, and i liked the layout.  Thanks for any help you can give me.

Chris

[Tiger-Heli]

Just like the slik stick CP's.  I was wondering what the "default" layout is for the Slik Sticks? 

I can't say for sure, but looking at EmuLoader, it appears SlikStik uses the same options as the Hot Rod SE, so the layout would be:

   1  2  3
   4  5  6
7