Guide: Button & Joy requirements/game specific layouts - formally "MAWS stinks"

[Crazy Cooter]

I'm planning some modular stuff and was trying to get a starting point by looking through MAWS for "maximum quantities".

[Minwah]

MAWS is so wrong it isn't funny.

I dunno what you mean...it is fine.  It can only rely on the info available from mame and other support files.

I use MAWS for this very use, for example when checking the max no. of buttons used by trackball, spinner and analog stick games.  I found it very useful.

[SirPoonga]

I know someone is going to say this needs to be added to contorls.dat

I think you are making it a bigger problem than it is.
First, most games if they have buttons on both sides of the tball, joystick, whatever, were designed to be played both left handed and right handed.  For example, if a game had a joystick, 4 buttons, 2 on each side it probably is a game that only uses 2 buttons, the buttons are wired together.
You will find there is a game that is an exception to everything you come up with.  In this case golden tee golf would be the exception.

Second, the layout isn't really an issue.  If you aren't looking at other control panels when you design yours you are going at it wrong.  Plus if a game had a specific layout and the person is a fan of the game that person will know the layout and design for it.  Someone who hasn't played a game before with a different layout will probably not design something for that particulat game.  For example if someone hasn't played asteroids on a real asteroids cabinet that person will probably not layout buttons that way.

Plus, how can you document specific layouts?  The only good way is with pictures.  So then do a quick search on google and you will end up
http://www.mameworld.net/mrdo/mamepanel.html

MAWS is only as good as the information it gets from mame.  If they sould include info from controls.dat the accuracy would improve.  The big reason controls.dat exists, see dotron at maws...

[Crazy Cooter]

Plus, how can you document specific layouts?

[Minwah]

Really?  I kept getting incorrect information.  I'd take the game list from there and look on KLOV and it would be different.  Controls.dat is accurate, but is missing games still (partially my fault since I haven't contributed to it... yet  ).  If you look at Super Punchout for example, MAWS says it has 4 buttons, KLOV says 3, Controls.dat says 3 (all say 4-way stick).  Searching the boards here, it's commonly said that a 4-way joystick panel needs either 4 buttons or 2 buttons... never 3.  I think a thread like this would help clear the air for designing panels.

Thing is, both MAME and KLOV are *very* inaccurate in these areas.  That's what I meant by 'It can only rely on the info available from mame and other support files'.  So, MAWS will report how many buttons MAME uses, but some of these buttons could be useless/hacks.  At least in theory it should report too many rather than too little...

I expect MAWS will support controls.dat at some point, which will be much better.

[SirPoonga]

Controls.dat is accurate, but is missing games still (partially my fault since I haven't contributed to it... yet  ).

Actually, controls.dat is almost as far as it can get.  What's left is anything new added to mame, games that need some major fixes to their controls, clones with different controls, or games that have flyers that aren't in Mr. Do! control panel pack.  Otherwise we have exhausted Mr. Do! pack which is the largest resource of control panel images.  I'm not seeing controls.dat going past 1000 entries anytime soon.  But then remember those entries are just parent games.

You also have to remember about 1/5th to 1/4th of mame is not working at all since they took out the testdriver status, so you can never document mame's controls to real life 100% now.

I expect MAWS will support controls.dat at some point, which will be much better.

I doubt it.  For many many months I have been contacting mameworld to change the version on their main page from 0.88.1 and to have it link to the right location.  However, I see recently it changed to not include version and is still linked to nplayers

[Crazy Cooter]

Found a real gem:
Dual Trackball Setup
dual 8-way topfire joysticks (SDI - Strategic Defense Initiative)

--- edit ---
Also found an odd ball, but the picture of the cp is very small so I can't see what exactly the deal is.  It's for "Major League" and has the panel split for offense & defense.  It appears to have 4 or more buttons... I'm not sure.

[Minwah]

I doubt it.  For many many months I have been contacting mameworld to change the version on their main page from 0.88.1 and to have it link to the right location.  However, I see recently it changed to not include version and is still linked to nplayers

Heh, the AoS/Mamewah board is still just 'ArcadeOS' from the front page so don't worry!  I'm not sure who is in charge of the front page there anymore, I think the guys don't have as much time as a few years ago.

I'll get in touch with CuteButWrong from MAWS if you like and see if he's be interesting in adding support.

[Minwah]

(SDI - Strategic Defense Initiative)

Just don't play that on September 11th! 

[Avery]

If you are going to go modular, I'd think twice before putting buttons with trackballs, etc.  The only exception I can think of is putting a button and a Defender up/down 2-way together on a single panel.

I did some thinking about this and realized that the number of button panels required to do EVERYTHING faithfully to the original got silly large in a hurry.  Here's a VERY short list.

Player Buttons:
p1/p2 vertically - 2" panel
p1/p2 horizontally, spaced wide, high on a 4" panel
p1/p2 horizontally, spaced close, high on a 3" panel
p1/p2 horizontally, high on a 4" panel +1 (the center of Defender and Asteroids)

Play Buttons:
1 button - 2" panel
2 buttons side by side
2 buttons on 45