Standard or smaller buttons for coin, start and service functions?

[Stormrider]

Space is not a problem for me, so my 1-player CP will be big enough. So, I don't know if I should use miniature buttons for this, or install normal concave pushbuttons in a different colour. Miniature buttons feel a little poor and unconfortable, but look nice. What do you normally do? It seems that coin and start are usually standard pushbuttons, but I always install another 2, just to complete the 10 buttons (PSX pad hack), which I normally use for pause and fps.

[paigeoliver]

Why would you need a fps button? If you are needing to actually check the frames per second then that means that you have something wrong with your combination of hardware and software.

Start buttons were USUALLY normal buttons, although Atari and Sega were both good/bad about using non-standard start buttons.

If using pause and coin buttons then make sure they are way out of the way of the main button bank. I always just use a shift function for coins rather than using dedicated coin buttons.

[Stormrider]

In my current panel I have this setup:

6 action pushbuttons:
1 coin button
1 start button
1 pause button
1 fps button (I like checking out that the game I'm running has no frame loss)

For the rest of fuctions, which I do not want to activate accidentally, I use combinations of each action button and the start button:

menu, on screen display, reset, exit, etc.

It's perfect for me.

[Ginsu Victim]

To each his own, but an FPS button? Really?
Why not make that shifted?

[Stormrider]

Yeah, why not? Maybe you tend to map buttons according to what is usual or what users should expect to find, but I do considering the functions I use most, because I am the only one who uses the control panel.

[CrazyKongFan]

Here's what I have, which works pretty good for me so far. On the CP, I have 2 joysticks, 3 buttons per player, 2 start buttons (all 8 are regular concave buttons), and I have 3 small push buttons I got from Radio Shack: ESC, TAB and Pause. I also have 2 buttons on the front of the cabinet for coin 1 and 2 (I also have the switches inside wired up, but I only have 1 mech installed in the door, until I can get another one). Also have a momentary 1P2T switch inside the door for test and reset. I'm just using a regular keyboard hack I did myself, rather than something like an IPAC, but it works good, so I see no need to change. Having the ESC and TAB lets me do some changes on the fly, if I decide I want a different dip switch setting, or I'm not happy with some other setting.

edit: Here's the small buttons I used:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062539

[Ginsu Victim]

I'm putting TAB inside the coin door. I don't want people messing with my settings.

As of now, my CP has 2 Happ Universal sticks, 7 buttons per player (wired as six), 1 & 2 player starts, Pause, Exit (out of the way on the upper left so it doesn't get hit by mistake), a spinner (usb optical mouse hack), and I'm considering adding pinball buttons. Shifted ~ for MAME and coin mechs wired up. All through a Mini-Pac.