Having to build CP with 3rows of 2buttons not 2rows of 3: config advice please!

[Diewrecked]

Hi guys

Due to the solid steel construction of the control panel on the cab I'm MAMEing and the current position of buttons and joysticks (plus adding a trackball to the centre) I'm having to build it with three rows of two buttons, rather than two rows of three which I would prefer.

I know some of you have already configured your panels this way. What I wanted to know is, how have you configured the buttons for MAME? ie, which buttons do what? Given that I would have preferred to have:
456
123
... as my setup, what have you found to be the most comfortable way of using:
xx
xx
xx
...? Also how do you play Track and Field/Hypersports etc with this configuration please?

Thanks again everyone 
Jon

[Ginsu Victim]

How about trackball for Track and Field?

[Diewrecked]

How about trackball for Track and Field?

How would that work, I just remember hammering the hell out of the left and right buttons and using the middle button for jump. Trackball....?? 

[Ginsu Victim]

There were also trackball versions of Track and Field.

[javeryh]

Post some pics of your CP!  I would not want to settle for 3 rows of two buttons for both aesthetic and functionality reasons.  There's got to be some way to get everything how you want it!   

[Ginsu Victim]

he has a 3" trackball, so he probably doesn't have much of room. It sounds like he's staying confined to the original CP size, so I don't see much choice from what I know so far.

[Jack Burton]

I simply would not do that. 

The only games that use six buttons are fighting games, and it is just futile to try to play fighting games in that layout.  Nobody who plays fighting games will be able to use it, and if you ever adapted to it yourself you would be handicapped in all other situations.

No sir, I don't like it one bit.

The only games that use more than four buttons are usually fighting games, so in this case I would say to you to just forget them and limit yourself down to four buttons.

BUT

If we could see a picture of the control panel, maybe something else could be worked out.

[Ginsu Victim]

Tell that to Craig at Turnarcades. He's quite happy with their control panels and they use that layout.

[Jack Burton]

I would if I knew him.  I have never known a single Street Fighter player who uses that layout. 

[Ginsu Victim]

He's a regular member here.
http://www.turnarcades.co.uk/

[shmokes]

I agree with Mega.  That is a horrible layout.  If you can't fit six buttons, do without fighting games, just as you will do without light gun games if you don't have a light gun.  If you simply must have fighting games, make a bigger control panel . . . or . . . post some pics of your control panel or at least post the dimensions so you can get help from the people who are offering to help you.

I think you'll be happier with your project if you simply make some sacrifices and come to terms with them.  When I first started planning mine I was going to do a 4-player Ultimate Arcade cab with everything under the sun on the control panel.  Luckily I spent A LOT of time reading visiting the forums before I actually began ordering parts and building.  After a while, as I saw more and more projects, I found that the ones I most admired were not the jack-of-all-trades monsters, but the cabs with a more thoughtful design that maybe couldn't do everything, but everything they could do, they did well.  And they weren't awkward or ugly or ridiculous.

IMO, rotating the fighter buttons into columns instead of rows is a very inelegant solution.   Frankly, I suspect that it's possible to squeeze the traditional layout onto the control panel and still have it usable enough, as I've seen 2-player fighting setups on some pretty narrow panels.  But if it's not possible, just come to terms with it and go with a 4-button layout.  Leave it for a second fighting-cab project.  Or build multiple, modular control panels (or rotating control panels!).  Or build a wider control panel.

It just seems like an unnecessary compromise that you won't ultimately be very happy with.  Anybody even considering this solution must really love fighters, and anybody who really loves fighters can't possibly be happy with that control setup.  And any other fighter fans who come over to your house will have a big "WTF" over their heads when they see and try to play on your panel.

[Ginsu Victim]

It's not a layout I'd ever use myself. I just pointed out that Turnarcades uses it.

Hey Craig, I assume you'll be around soon enough. What's the response of your customers to your layout? You wouldn't do it if they all hated it, so what's the vibe?

[Diewrecked]

Hi guys

Many thanks for your responses. Seems the consensus is that I should lower the number of buttons. Incidentally I'm adding two spinners too (GGG TT2's so they're button size). Total frankenpanel I know (especially when you consider that one of them will have no top on it and will have a 7" steering wheel which will sit over the top of the trackball for when I want to play Pole Position!) but that's cool with me.

At this stage I've just got the holes from the original CP from when I bought the cab. I'll post some pics up on Thursday evening (UK time). I've got the trackball hard on the right hand joystick so it's just left of dead centre. The pics will show (a) the holes as they are with no kit and (b) the underside so you can see the footprints of the joystick and trackball.

I've not drilled the 82mm hole yet. Basically there's a guy I've been chatting to who did *exactly* what I'm doing - MAMEing an Electrocoin Goliath mk 3 cab, although with far less controls - who's original CP was in a much, much worse state than mine but who filled the holes with car body filler, sanded it and put an aluminium overlay over it then sprayed it with Hammerite. You can see the before and after pics below (lifted from his site http://www.insertcoin.org.uk/-  thanks Mike). Depending on what you guys think I may just take this approach and start over, with the trackball dead centre and move the left joystick out a couple of inches from the centre to make way for two rows of three plus (headless for the wheel) spinner.

Also these photos will give you an idea of dimensions whilst I'm waiting for a chance to take some of my own. The dims are 600mmx200mm; the left and right joysticks are 100mm and 210mm from their respective sides.

I opened a separate thread about building the CP a little while ago, although that was more about the spinner positions rather than buttons (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=81999). The spinners are now going on the top (the other, "main" spinner will be to the right of the right joystick).

I'll repost once I've got more detail. Many many thanks for all your help so far you guys.

BTW Ginsuvictim - sorry fella I had no idea you could get trackball Track and Field's - I've never seen one. How do they work?

Jon

[javeryh]

lokesen built a really nice 2P 6-button CP in what looks like a similar space.  http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/index.htm

He doesn't have a trackball though.  At some point you are just going to have to sacrifice something - save it for the second cabinet!

[Turnarcades]

The layout will always have it's critics, and I agree it's unconventional for most. However as I pointed out before, many arcades in the UK never came in their original cabinets and we had to make do with whatever we were given as a control panel. This means many UK players are unfussy about non-original layouts and have learned to play on anything but originals. It's also the reason we don't do the 7-button thing for Neo-Geo Games; When I was younger I only ever saw 1 original Neo-Geo machine and the first time I played SF2 it was on a 3-button Jamma conversion so many UK gamers made do until we got home versions. Plus, playing Street Fighter with shoulder buttons on the SNES was unusual but we all got used to that didn't we?

We do the 3x2 layout only on the Bar-Top as it saves space. This layout enables a narrower machine to be built, which again is more important for our size-conscious customers and better in British homes. It seems unusual to a lot of people but most of our builds were born from customer feedback and the Bar-Top is a popular seller as many people told us they like the compromise of space while retaining full functionality. Some people still want the 2x3 layout and a wider panel but that's why we are custom builders; you gotta offer some set designs but it's rare we build them as we know people have very specific ideas of what they want.

I'd say to Diewrecked, don't sell yourself short on buttons when there is a solution that is still uniform and that you would get used to very quickly. You can do it like we do, with start buttons on the sides or front of the CP, and with this layout:

14
25
36

 

[Ginsu Victim]

Thanks for the reply. I was aware of it being only the bartop that used that layout, so I'm sorry if I mislead anyone by not pointing it out.

[shmokes]

Well, it's possible to do everything you want.  I threw this together in Visio based on the dimensions you gave.  It should be to size; if you want you could print this out and use its as a template.  I didn't make sure everything was perfectly centered and uniform, though.  I just eyeballed it.

BTW, it sounds like you already have a trackball, but if not, you could always use a 2 1/4" trackball instead of a 3" one.  More games used those anyway, I think.  That would give you a little more wiggle room.


edit: added a border to the drawing.

[javeryh]

BTW, it sounds like you already have a trackball, but if not, you could always use a 2 1/4" trackball instead of a 3" one.  More games used those anyway, I think.  That would give you a little more wiggle room.

Also, you don't have room to take the big swing that is required for Golden Tee or Capcom Bowling (unless you don't mind broken fingers or broken glass  ) so a 2.25" would be a real space saver.

[Diewrecked]

Hi guys,

Firstly many many thanks for all your help thus far.

Right, I've got some photos. The first shows the top of the panel with no controls, just the holes as they were when I bought the cab (I've added a couple of buttons here). The initial problem we have here is that the three buttons per player are bunched up in a triangle shape rather than a row of three.

The second shows the top of the panel with the footprint for the trackball, and the extra three buttons per player. As you can see there is enough room here for a row of three, so my original fear of it being too small a space is moot.

The third is the same as the second but with two extra button holes, for the two spinners. The left side one, near the trackball, will not have a spinner top on it for general use, but when I want to play Pole Position I'll put a 7" MiniRacer on it. The wheel sits nicely over the trackball, which of course won't be being used at that point. The right side button hole, under the right joystick, would be for the *actual* spinner.

The fourth shows the underside with the joysticks installed, and the footprint for the trackball. It's hard up against the right hand joystick, I bent the joystick connector pins up to the vertical so they're out of the way. By doing so, as you can see from the first picture, the trackball now sits dead centre. This picture also shows the footprints for the buttons and spinners.

I guess my real questions now, given that I have proven I *can* have a row of three after all, are:
1. Is it worth filling in those original button holes (ie in the triangle formation) so that I have two rows of three rather than one plus a little triangle, or keep it as is, with a triangle and a row of three? How workable/usable would the triangle/row formation be with the multitude of games MAME offers?
2. Similar question, is it worth filling in the original joystick holes so that I can move them out a bit (say an inch or so either side), to give more room by the trackball?

Shmokes I *really* like what you've done with that CP. That looks absolutely spot on (except I'll need to add the spinners but that's absolutely no drama) - trouble is it would mean filling the holes I have. I've just mailed Mike (who filled his CP when he had a similar problem, see my post earlier about that) to see how he did what he did. Many thanks for your efforts in putting that together, sir.

I really appreciate your help with this, guys. This is the biggest decision I think I'll have to make with this cab because it's a one-shot deal due to the steel construction. Cheers!   

[Ginsu Victim]

Here's your answer:

DON'T USE THAT PANEL.

Just make a whole new one. Those holes were put there by a complete idiot. It's useless now.

Also, there's no room for the buttons or trackball.

[Turnarcades]

I've seen panels like that a million times before in the UK. Many were drilled by arcade owners and some generic cabs came out of the factory this way. Extends to what I said previously about us Brit gamers just making do with the crap we were given!

Due to that really random drilling, you are either going to have to get a new panel fabricated and drilled, or go through the painstaking process of patching that one up, possibly welding a flat plate underneath, filling the holes with chemical metal and filing it all smooth. I'd say to ensure there is no fouling of space connectors etc. underneath you will also need to move the joysticks a tad towards the edges to create space for the trackball. We've done the regular 2x3 button layout with 3" trackball on a 25"x8" wooden panel so it is do-able, but you ideally need a blank canvas to start with.

[CheffoJeffo]

I was about to post, but Turnarcades posted first with essentially the same advice (although folks here in North America had to deal with similar situations ... I have 3 projects with panels like that).

If it were me, I would try to patch the existing panel using metal plates epoxied (or welded) below the holes and then filling in the top with Bondo. But not everybody is up for that flavour of suffering. If you are interested, there are some links in the Restoration section of the wiki:

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Restoration

[Diewrecked]

Here's your answer:

DON'T USE THAT PANEL.

Just make a whole new one.

you ideally need a blank canvas to start with.

I absolutely agree. I've found a car body shop up the road from where I live. They are going to try to source a thick steel plate then cut a big rectangle out of the top of the panel and weld the new one in it's place, then smooth the finish so I can give it a vinyl cover. They're also going to drill my holes for me if I give them a template

Many thanks for all your help you guys. I would have tried to bastardise the panel I had and make the best of it but you're right, I would have ended up resenting it. And given the $$$ I've ploughed into this project it seems silly to cut corners at this stage!

I'll launch another thread once I've got a CP template I'm happy with to get your views (based on the Shmokes one above).

Cheers all 

[Sardu]

oops

[PsychoAU]

my cab had a panel like that when I first got it.  I just threw it away and built a new box out of MDF.  Problem solved.

[Blanka]

Just draw a good dezign in one of them cadz, en lazor it all in a fresh sheet o 3mm aluminimum.

And check those Sanwa 24mm buttonz. They is much smaller!

(Oops, rapz on the radio, sorry for that).