control panel critique

[jordanshadow]

Goal is to create a control panel with a neo geo layout for 2 people that is spacious and minimalist. After trying a 4 way joystick my wife would like me to try and include it on the panel. Two rough panels below. Pardon the simple Photoshop.

Panel 2 revisions:
oriented the joysticks further to the right for symmetry
added 4 way joystick and two buttons
increased radius of the bottom curve

Info: top 4 buttons are player 1, admin, exit, player 2
CP is 29" wide, 14" deep and center, 12" deep at edges.
Will have 3 j-sticks, sanwa/seimitsu buttons.

Comments or suggestions? Is the 4 way stick to visually unappealing.

[jdbailey1206]

Depending on your Player 1 joystick I don't think you will need to have the 4 way stuck in the top middle.  It will become too awkward to reach up to it to control any games.  Most games will recognize any joystick to be used as a 4 way even the U360 which is a 49 way joystick.  There are multiple ways to tell the game to recognize it as a 4 way be it hardware or software alleviating the need for another random 4 way joystick.

I also feel that if you leave the 4,2 setup on the top of control panel your right arm will continuously hit the player 2 joystick when you are using the two top buttons.

Also if you remove the 4 way joystick move your admin buttons together in the middle.  On my weecade I put the player 1 and player 2 buttons above the first button on my button layouts respectively.   

 

[Louis Tully]

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[jordanshadow]

Ya I too kinda think the 4 way joystick looks out of place aesthetically. Its actually placed just right that you don't bang the other joystick though.

This panel will be going on my new arcade I am building with a 27" monitor, 26.5" wide so the panel size should line up nicely. I could drop the width just a little to have a 1/4" overhand instead of 1/2". If i dropped the 4 way stick I could probably shave another inch off the depth and move the buttons just a little higher. As you may notice in the first panel I originally had the admin buttons all in a line together.

Currently i have it planned so that you have to hit admin+escape to exit a game. Admin will also allow me to program fast forward, pause, and volume control. I think i will keep it.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Have you considered eliminating the extra 4-way joystick altogether and getting and 8-way/4-way Servo Stick from Ultimarc?

http://ultimarc.com/servostik.html

Also, I'd suggest at least getting 2 rows of 4 buttons.  You can always just use one row for Neo Geo, but other games that require 6 can use more.

Something like this:


or this:


or this:


DeLuSioNaL29

[jordanshadow]

The servo stick would work perfect if i didn't hate square gates. I am an octagon gate all the way. The 4 buttons were not by accident but deliberate choice. The only real games I am missing out on are the street fighters/marvel fighting games/defender. I like the simplicity of the 4 buttons and when people are over there is no question which button is 1,2,3,4. A servostick on player II would work nicely except for having to tell my guests they have to use player 2 controls for every 4 way game (whats a 4 way game they ask?!, hey your joystick is broken again?!) Maybe I could program player 1 and player 2 to both work for any 4 way game that is 1 player at a time. Would have to keep peoples grubby hands of the other joystick but maybe.

[DeLuSioNal29]

My vertical arcade uses a dedicated 8-way on the left and I have the right side set for 4-way as the default  (It can also change to 8-way underneath with a twist).  I then programmed the 4-way games in MAME to default to the joystick on the right side only.  For any 4-way games, most people first grab the joystick on the left, see that it doesn't work for that game and then try the right one which works.  :-).

In your case, you can have the 8-way with the octagonal restrictor on the left and the servo stick on the right side with the square gate, which will auto-switch to 4-way when that type of game is selected.

Check out my video with this setup where I explain it further:


DeLuSioNaL29

[jordanshadow]

Bah darn you delusional for challenging my 4 buttons. I was finally at peace with that decision and now you got me  thinking again. Good news is that  I really like the last layout you posted. I drilled out a template for it and made some adjustments and it felt surprisingly good. Bad news is now I need to rework my games list and CP 

[mgb]

I agree with Delusional on the joystick thing and the button layout. But truthfully if the 4 button works for you and your happy with neo geos for fighters (I know I am), then go for it.
I also like the 6 button stagger layout, it gives you a simple 6 button layout but the stagger allows for  aneo geo like layout using the bottom left button with the top 3 buttons.