First CP Design

[wintermute]

I drew up my first CP in Autocad last night.

[tommy]

Most people only use 4 buttons for the 3rd and 4th controles, that way you could spread things out a bit more, i personaly like the look of all 4 players with  6 but there are no games that use them all, it's up to you.

[jcroach]

I've heard people say they like 6 buttons for players 3 and 4 if they plan on running console emulation.

[xonix_digital]

yeah I would recommend straightening out the axes on your joysticks 

-=XD=-

[wintermute]

So should player 3 and 4 be adjusted to be at the same angles as players 1 and 2?  or should all the sticks be rotated to be perfectly horizontal? (paralell to the back edge of the CP).  My original thought was that if you were standing flat adainst the angles at the front of the CP, "down" on the joystick would be right toward you, that's why I aligned the sticks and buttons with the angles on the front of the CP.  However I'm new at this so maybe in practice you wouldn't really stand like that when you were playing.

As a side note, I'm planning on doing something a little different for the display.  Rather than build in a monitor, I was going to build half a cabinet, and in the back of the cabinet put a shelf for a DLP projector that I already have.  I guess this would mean you'd be looking 5-10 feet away instead of right in front of you, so maybe this is even more of a reason to change the angle of the joysticks?

wm

[nickbuol]

I went through a lot of the same questions you are asking now, so I can relate.

After much debate (between forum members) I ended up going with joysticks that are directly parallel (or perpendicular depending on your view point) with the display.  Basically, no angles for the joysticks even though the buttons are at an angle. 
You may want to straighten out the PL1 and PL2 controls if possible.  These will be the ones you use the most, and it would seem a little odd to be at a slight angle all of the time.

Unless you are doing console (PStation, Nintendo, etc) emulation, you may want to drop the 5th and 6th buttons for player 3 and player 4.  I was going to have 7 (yes 7) buttons for all 4 players, but dropped them all back to 6 (I liked the uniform look of things) and then got practical and dropped PL3 and PL4 to 4 buttons.  It gave me more room on the CP too, and I really like the end result.  I also realized that I would not be doing console emulation, so that helped with my decision.  I learned from my first cabinet that you can spend a LOT of time or a little time on tinkering and tweaking.  Myself, when I get MAME, Daphne, and Pinmame running, I am stopping and enjoying it.  I have an overkill PC for most arcade games (AMD Athlon XP 2900+ with 512MB PC3200 RAM), but should I ever want to do something different down the road, I will have a little more horsepower than my old setup with a Pentium III - 500Mhz.

As for your design.  I almost built a similar unit at one time with a pedistal and then a projector.  The problems were as follows:
1)  Getting the room dark enough to really enjoy the large projected display without making the room unusable.
2)  Getting the room dark enough, and still being able to see the control panel (backlit buttons and so forth would help with this, but wasn't an option back in 1999)
3)  Most important problem, my projector died about 2 months before I was going to start building, and I didn't want to spend the money on a new one for another arcade cabinet since my first cabinet was still 100% functional.

Now that I am finally back to building my second cabinet, I went with a 27" TV like the first time, but upgraded the quality of parts and construction to make a professional looking cabinet.  For me, that is more important because I need to consider the WAF (Wife Approval Factor).

Update your design a little, repost it, and let us take a look.

[pointdablame]

I'd straighten all the joysticks and straighten the P1 and P2 button layout.  I also wonder how useful a button directly above the spinner would be during gameplay.  If you have a specific idea on what it'll be for, fine... but it certainly seems to be an uncomfortable place for a button.  I'd stick with one on each side

[88mph]

With respect to the spinner buttons, I'd second the notion to get rid of the button directly above the spinner, unless you have a specific idea in mind for it.  I think you would also benefit from 2 buttons on one side of the spinner.. in case you want to play one of the best spinner games of all time, Tempest.  For Tempest you need 2 buttons, one to fire, and one to use the super zapper.  Tac Scan (an underrated but awesome vector spinner game) also requires 2 buttons--one to fire, and one to add a ship.  Arkanoid uses one button.. Star Trek uses four buttons!

I also think you would benefit from aligning the joystick axes with the screen.  I'm in the process of restoring a Gauntlet machine, and even the red warrior and green elf positions (way out on the sides) have joysticks that are oriented with the screen. 

Looks like you'll have fun playing some 4 player X-men on that setup!  I look forward to seeing your finished result.

Good luck!

88mph

 

[wintermute]

Ok I made some changes based on your suggestions, how does it look now?  Can I go fill my basement with MDF sawdust? Thanks very much to everyone btw, I'm amazed at how helpful everyone is on my first post to the forum.  Will having the Player 1,2,3,4 start all in the upper left be a hassle?  I thought about spacing them out over each player's controls but I thought the group was a little cleaner looking.  I guess the worst thing would be someone having to reach over someone else if they wanted to jump in while a game was being played?

wm

[xonix_digital]

But that just adds to the FUN! 

Good luck man, and welcome to the forum!

-=XD=-

[nickbuol]

Looks much nicer.