Mame Buttons How Many Needed?

[davidc21a]

Hi guys, new to forum but i've researching this whole weekend.  I have a dedicated Mortal Kombat Aracade Machine that i would like to turn into a MAME.  I decided that i will be using the ArcadeVGA for my video and the J-Pac.  My question is when looking at people's overlay's they have TONS of buttons.  My cabinet has the usual 2 joysticks and 5 buttons with 1 & 2 player start.  Will this be sufficient or do i have to add more buttons?  Does anybody disagree with my setup or recommend anything different?  Any tips would be greatly apprecaited.
Thanks!

[ahofle]

Really depends what games in MAME you want to play.  If you don't mind missing all trackball/spinner/6 button/etc games, then you could just use the existing control panel.  You will probably be able to play a vast majority of MAME games with 2 sticks and 5 buttons per player though.  I personally think it would be pretty neat to have a stock cabinet including control panel running MAME under the scenes (rather than building and attaching a new frankenpanel on that cabinet).

EDIT: You may also have difficulty/frustration playing normal 2-3 button games with that funky Mortal Kombat 5 button layout now that I think of it.

[steveh]

It really depends on what your goals are.   If you want to keep the machine as stock as possible i would not add any more buttons.   But you would have to figure out something to do for administrative buttons, as well as coin buttons.  unless you plan on putting money in it all the time (which is not necessarily a bad idea)

If you do not want to keep it stock.  then i would add at least one button per player (making it 6 so you can play street fighter and the like)   and also i would dropping a few admin buttons in there.  I think there are a few people here that can give you more detail on that.

[shardian]

You could always make a new cp top and switch them out everyonce in a while. That control panel has plenty of room for a 2p setup with trackball.

[davidc21a]

One question, regarding the adminstrative buttons is there some kind of program that i purchase in order to make them be used as buttons?  I thought with the J-Pac it would make all the arcade buttons work, now with the adminstrative buttons what would i need to convert them into buttons also? If i do this do i still need the keyboard and mouse? Thanks for all the help guys, i greatly appreciate it!

[Bobbler]

One question, regarding the adminstrative buttons is there some kind of program that i purchase in order to make them be used as buttons?  I thought with the J-Pac it would make all the arcade buttons work, now with the adminstrative buttons what would i need to convert them into buttons also? If i do this do i still need the keyboard and mouse? Thanks for all the help guys, i greatly appreciate it!

The JPAC lets you set one of the existing buttons as a "shift" key via its programming utility same as the other ipacs.
Default is you hold in 1UP button - http://www.ultimarc.com/jpac2.html
While holding that you would then press 2UP and it would do an escape (or exit mame), 1UP + Right = TAB menu, 1UP+Down = Pause etc.

[davidc21a]

allright got you..thanks.  Now in order to bypass this and have the adminstrative buttons seperately like most people on here what do i need to do this?  I pac?