New Build Questions

[Faerl]

Ok, so lots of questions. This will be my first cabinet build (I do alot of wood working though) so my apologies if these are newbie questions. We're looking at building a MAME cabinet for the office. We're still trying to narrow down exactly which games we'll be putting on it but at this point but for sure it'll be 4 players (gauntlet etc) along with a central location for a spinner/trackball. Beyond that we might add a dual joystick setup or light guns. So, my questions for those that know. Note, this is a company project so we're not likely to skimp on any equipment costs, it's really a question of the most universal without getting cluttered on the controls.

1. Joysticks - Along with all the other games I'd like to be able to play Akari warriors so I was thinking of using the HAPP rotary joysticks for players 1 & 2. Has anyone had an experience with these? Seems like only a few people use the rotary ones but figured I'd check.

2. Then the question becomes what to do for the other two players. I don't know of any 4 player rotary joystick games so I was thinking the HAP 360 joystick for the other 2 in case anyone wants to play fighter type games. Do those have any problems with 'dead' areas or bad detections when you're playing a 4/8 way joystick game? I saw a few posts where it was mentioned but with how old the posts were I wasn't sure if that was the current state of the joysticks or not. If so I might move to one of the 8 ways instead and just not allow quite as much movement for fighter games. Possibly the HAPP competition.

3. I'm going to be using a rather large monitor (~35inches) and as such I'm not at all interested in putting togehter any rotating monitors etc. I'm assuming that I can configure MAME or one of the front ends to modify the game resolution as needed per game? Ie, make it not stretch TRON for example to the full width of the screen?

4. Buttons. Are NEO GEO games the only ones that require 7 buttons per person or are there any MAME games that do? Don't need a list, just debating between 6 & 7 per player. Related to this, are there are any 4 player mame games that require more than 3 buttons (or for that matter any others that do?). I'm trying to stay as flexible as possible but I just can't think of any that would need more than 3 with a 4 player game. Again, I don't want to waste anyone's time creating a list, just curious if anyone knows of any off hand.

I'm sure more questions will come up but I'd appreciate any opinions on the above while I plan out this build. Thanks.

[Crax]

4. Buttons. Are NEO GEO games the only ones that require 7 buttons per person or are there any MAME games that do?

You do realize that neo geo games only take 4 buttons right?  People just add a seventh button to a six button layout so they can use the bottom row of 4 buttons for neo geo.  It's more for convenience.  I can't think of any 4 player games that take more than  3(might be 4 but no  higher) buttons.

[Faerl]

You do realize that neo geo games only take 4 buttons right?  People just add a seventh button to a six button layout so they can use the bottom row of 4 buttons for neo geo.  It's more for convenience.  I can't think of any 4 player games that take more than  3(might be 4 but no  higher) buttons.

Nope. Never played neo geo actually, one of the guys at work wanted to possibly support it though which is why I was curious. That would explain why I'm seeing the 7 button configurations though which was what I was trying to figure out. Still can't think of any games with 4 players that need the full 6 buttons... but I'm guessing there are some since I seem to see this is every dual configuration example I've managed to find.

[Chris G]

#3 - it's not a problem running vertical games on a horizontal monitor.  Once you get going on the software end of the project, it will be apparent.

[Spaz Monkey]

4. Buttons. Are NEO GEO games the only ones that require 7 buttons per person or are there any MAME games that do? Don't need a list, just debating between 6 & 7 per player.

Combo layout for SF games and Neo Geo is

        ABC
        123 
      4

SF uses ABC and 123.  Top is punch, bottom is kick.  Neo Geo has a spread-out pattern and uses 4123 in that order.  Some people will use 1ABC (in that order) instead of installing that extra button.

[jdjuggler]

4. Buttons. Are NEO GEO games the only ones that require 7 buttons per person or are there any MAME games that do? Don't need a list, just debating between 6 & 7 per player.

Combo layout for SF games and Neo Geo is

        ABC
        123 
      4

SF uses ABC and 123.  Top is punch, bottom is kick.  Neo Geo has a spread-out pattern and uses 4123 in that order.  Some people will use 1ABC (in that order) instead of installing that extra button.

I'm curious about your comments here.  In NeoGeo games the buttons are labeled A,B,C,D.  Are you saying that button 4 in your layout would be the D button or the A button?
Thanks.

[johnperkins21]

The extra buttons for players 3 and 4 are usually for console emulation. If you don't plan to emulate anything higher than an NES, then 4 buttons is sufficient for 3&4. If you want some 4-player PSOne action or something, you'll need some extra buttons. You should be very safe with 4 for those, and in fact could even go the controller route for those depending on how often you plan to play with 3 other people simultaneously.

And as the others have stated, the 7th button is for emulating a Neo Geo layout, and that button is usually shared with the top left button, so it would look kind of like this:

 123  or    456
 456        123
1           4

[fjl]

Do a showcase cabinet. It will be better for the 36" inch screen.

[Faerl]

Do a showcase cabinet. It will be better for the 36" inch screen.

That's part of the thing I'm try ing to work out. We've got two large monitors lying around that we believe would work well but at the same time I'm trying to avoid doing a setup that's quite that deep. One of the monitors is 30" wide, the other 37". I haven't measured their actual size yet, these numbers are just their widths. Assuming the tests work we're going to use the smaller of the two for the cabinet and use the other one for another project going on. I've been told that the larger monitor has been tested with a variety of games under MAME and it worked pretty nicely. I just need to make sure the smaller one does the same and then see just how far we need to be away from it to be comfortable to make final decisions on cabinet size.  I'm hoping to keep to a guantlet style upright setup for space though. We'll see how successful I am at that next week.

[Spaz Monkey]

Combo layout for SF games and Neo Geo is

        ABC
        123 
      4

SF uses ABC and 123.  Top is punch, bottom is kick.  Neo Geo has a spread-out pattern and uses 4123 in that order.  Some people will use 1ABC (in that order) instead of installing that extra button.

I'm curious about your comments here.  In NeoGeo games the buttons are labeled A,B,C,D.  Are you saying that button 4 in your layout would be the D button or the A button?
Thanks.

 123                             BCD
 BCD            - OR-        A23
A

Those are the two layouts I've seen for NeoGeo when using a non-NeoGeo cab.

[ark_ader]

Just buy a old Jamma cab and put Mame  or a board in it.  Should take you the whole day to get the whole thing up, and remember to use only legal roms, as the location for the cab is different than at home.

If the boss gets tired of the thing you can bin it or sell it without parting with too much cas$h.

Otherwise locate you nearest Vending Operator and see whats in his clearance section.

It would be cheaper than building it.

[Faerl]

Just buy a old Jamma cab and put Mame  or a board in it.  Should take you the whole day to get the whole thing up, and remember to use only legal roms, as the location for the cab is different than at home.

If the boss gets tired of the thing you can bin it or sell it without parting with too much cas$h.

Otherwise locate you nearest Vending Operator and see whats in his clearance section.

It would be cheaper than building it.

Yeah, the reason for building is the monitor size. I think we're going to end up too large to use a standard cabinet (could be wrong). Besides, that would kill half the fun. As for the boss, he's the one that wants to do it. The company is paying for all the equipment, a few of us in the office are just putting it together. We already have a couple of arcade machines around, they're just ones that don't get much play time so the hope is this is a better solution.

[jdjuggler]

Combo layout for SF games and Neo Geo is

        ABC
        123 
      4

SF uses ABC and 123.  Top is punch, bottom is kick.  Neo Geo has a spread-out pattern and uses 4123 in that order.  Some people will use 1ABC (in that order) instead of installing that extra button.

I'm curious about your comments here.  In NeoGeo games the buttons are labeled A,B,C,D.  Are you saying that button 4 in your layout would be the D button or the A button?
Thanks.

 123                             BCD
 BCD            - OR-        A23
A

Those are the two layouts I've seen for NeoGeo when using a non-NeoGeo cab.

My only difficulty with either of those layouts is that the original Neo-Geo button layout was is a straight line (i think)   A  B  C  D
AND, "D" was not used on all games, as well as being rarely used in games that included the D button.
My point (or question) is wouldn't you want the "main" buttons to be as close their original layout?

   123           or      123
   ABC                    ABC
 D                        3

Certainly, this is all subjective, but my reasoning is mostly for ABC to be in a straight fashon and the "rarely" used "D" button elsewhere.

JD

[Spaz Monkey]

Been in a fowl mood lately.  Please don't think that I'm attacking your idea on your button layout.


From www.klov.com, Metal Slug entry.  Shows a non-striaghtline set up.


From www.klov.com, Samurai Showdown entry.  Shows non-strightline set up.  Click on the instruction card link and it has A&B as hit and C&D as kick.  Using your first setup, your hit buttons are spread too far apart so it'll be hard to to the "fierce" hit, and with the second, you have no way to "light" hit or "fierce" hit.

I'm thinking of doing this layout for me on my SF cab
AB3
CD6

This way I can play all the fighting games in a tekken style layout, and yet still play Metal Slug type games.  With MS, you don't have to hit two buttons at once.

[fjl]

What about jump and shoot?

[Spaz Monkey]

What about them? Shoot is A, jump is B.

[fjl]

Hmm, you're right cause I never once jumped and shot at the same time in a Metal Slug game.

Or am I misunderstanding something?

[FrizzleFried]

Hmm, you're right cause I never once jumped and shot at the same time in a Metal Slug game.

Or am I misunderstanding something?

 

Huh?

[Spaz Monkey]

Hmm, you're right cause I never once jumped and shot at the same time in a Metal Slug game.

Or am I misunderstanding something?

I think you are.  In your ABC layout, in order to do the hard hit/kick, you have to hit both buttons (a/b or c/d) at the same time to do the move.  If you don't hit the buttons together, you can't do the move. Use the ABCD setup here (in whatever layout).

Last I checked, newer Metal Slug games use three buttons.  Your ABC setup will work here. 

Basically, if you limit yourself to 3 neo-geo buttons, you limit the games you can play.