More newbie questions

[fantoboy]

Is there an alternative kit similair to Ultimate arcade 2 by mameworld?

I noticed some people mentioned cheaper and better control panel builders on this forum, can you point me out to some?


Is it common to include left and right mouse buttons for the trackball, or can I map those out to some player buttons?

Do people include a select button commonly, for gba, nes, snes, ps2, or back for xbox?
What about l2 and l3, right analog and left analog click, or black and white buttons for xbox/ps2?  Are those ever seen on CPs?  Technically xbox and ps2 controllers have 12 buttons!  Does anyone ever go to that length?
 I wanna try placing a pc, xbox, and ps2 in my cab- but sounds like I'd just have a huge clutter of buttons on my CP.  Do most people who do this just leave out l2, r2, and both analog click buttons? Can a joystick be used to control analog AND digital for a ps2 or xbox?

[mhermann]

Well I will give you my input on adding psx, ps2 and xbox controls to the CP. I thought about it as well and I came to the conclusion that if a console game actually used all those buttons that it would be somewhat difficult to play on an arcade CP even if you had all 12 buttons mapped. There are some good console games that make the jump to a cabinet well but alot of them were design with the controlers in mind.

And if you are going to play console games on your cab and you want to interface the controls to the PC and any number of consoles I would do a search as it is somewhat more complicated then just interfacing the controls with the PC. People have done it, but it was something I decided to stay away from on my first project. I may tackle that next year.

But if you are just using console emulators, it is easy since it is just mapping buttons.

[Kremmit]

You can't use a digital joystick to control analog functions, so console games that you need the analog sticks for won't work with regular joysticks.  You could add analog arcade joys, but they really aren't the same.  Add in all the buttons you need, and it gets tough to play console games.  Or, at least, the ones that use all the fancy controller features- fighters, puzzles, and shoot-em-ups will probably be fine. 

Really, a lot of those games just aren't designed to be played on a stand-up control panel.  You might consider just adding controller ports under your control panel, and plugging in some real gamepads for those games. 

[fantoboy]

Ok, I'm all for keeping the amount of buttons to a minimum.  I'd go with a basic 6 button layout.  Is the common 7th button used to mimic SNK layouts?  Here's an idea I had that will allow 8 buttons for xbox and ps2, as well as mimic SNK. 

Here's a pic of a PS2 stick:


Here's a pic of what I suggest to allow 8 buttons, and mimic SNK:


opinions?

Also, I was looking at these:

http://www.ultimarc.com/console.html

can those be piggy-backed? all hooked up at once?  Or would I have to make a switchbox?

I was reading about the shifting on ipacs.  p1 and p2 for esc.  Is that annoying?
Aren't alot of emulators set up for mamecabs using escape to exit back to the front end?  Wouldn't it be easier to just have an esc on the control panel?

Can I set up a mame coin button to also be select for ps2/gba/snes/nes and back for xb? 

Anything else I need on my control panel?  Do you guys normally have a pause or mouse buttons for the trackball?  Are mousebuttons necessary for anything?

[Kremmit]

Anything in MAME, you can map to a gamepad button or keyboard key just as easy as to a mouse button.

The only reason I know of to have mouse buttons is for non-MAME games that only take mouse inputs for controls.