Main > Main Forum

Maximun amount of controls needed

Pages: << < (7/8) > >>

Vigo:

There are so many things to factor in, it is still not a very fair question.


It is unfair to answer about buttons. There is a differnce between maximum wanted for a reasonable playing experiance and maximum that you can shove on a panel so all your possible button needs would be covered.

It is unfair to answer anything about joysticks, that is a matter of preference. What some people love, other people hate. Even Joysticks that are commonly accepted as being junk, you will find that some people would not use anything else.

It is unfair getting into trackballs and spinners, there are a few games that take like 3 trackballs, we could tell you that you would need 3 trackballs, but then others would say not to because thats overkill. Many of us cannot honestly answer your question of what is the maximum, because we would never dare put all that on our machines.

It is unfair getting into other specialty controls, you can spend you life savings on specialty conrtols to play about anything under the sun, but we cant just tell you to get 8 steering wheels, a perscope, two lightguns, yolks, handlebars, a dancepad, a majjongg panel...etc. etc. However, there is some things that most of us highly reccomend that you get if you are all about trying to play as much as possible.

I have to shake my head at myself, because my previous posted advice has been as confusing as everybody elses.  ::) It's not our fault, we are just trying to help in our own way.

You should probably start with a search, I am almost definite what you really want to know has been answered a half dozen times previously on the board. Also, if you want to ask a question, try to stay away from maximum/minimum. We are a lot better at answering questions if you fit it to your needs, rather than the largest possible amount.
Believe it or not, we are usually quite helpful, you questions just need to be phrased a little easier for us to understand, we are all trying to read between the lines of what you really want.

Hope this helps clear up why your answers are not so black and white.

 :cheers:
Vigo

jelwell:

It's interesting with all this flamage that there isn't an answer. If MAME is about documenting, you'd think we'd have a better answer. Maybe we do and us arcade builders don't realize it because it seems ridiculous to try to build a single cabinet to support every game. (Although some, including myself have come close in our futile attempts)

Probably the best place to start is Controls.dat

Joseph Elwell.

ryantheleach:

Thanks, ive also noticed that some people have 7 buttons for players 1 and 2 in this configuration

(rough ascii approximation)

ooo
ooo
      o

whats up with this?

also im sorry i now realise that in hindsight that the question was indeed worded quite stupidly.

pointdablame:

They 7 button layout is meant to emulate 2 of the most popular button layouts... the 6 button fighter layout, and the 4 button NeoGeo layout.   It is NOT actually 7 buttons, as most people wire the set up as only 6 buttons, with 2 buttons using the same input.

So, for fighters it might be (the numbering can vary, but this is the gist of it)

   1  2  3
o  4  5  6     

Where the "o" is unused, and for the NeoGeo games, it would be:

   o  o  o
1  2  3  4


NickG:

Sorry if the funnies weren't enjoyed.   jelwell's has the idea.  An easy way to list mame games by the controls-which I  think utilizes controls.dat- is via a frontend such as mameplus or mame32.  With these, You can filter a game list by number of buttons, control-types and by number of players.  Also, if you download art packs and install them you can also view most of the panels and snapshots to weigh decisions on which games you actually want and can play on a single panel. 

BTW, there are a few 4-player 6-button games.  A prime example is Powerstone 2.  But maybe this is a mame only project?  Also, there are probably games that require even more buttons but are you really going to play them?  First, you may want to know what they are, and whether you ever really will have a group of three or four people around that are willing to play them or not. 

Pages: << < (7/8) > >>

Go to full version