Default lr-mame2003 Controls

dankcushions

neogeo in mame2003 is:

B Y X A
=
A B C D

generally, i would recommend using this layout with mame2003

Y X L1 L2
B A R1 R2

as you can see, that's not very good for neogeo. it should probably be adjusted, but to be honest, mame2003 isn't the best or the default emulator for neogeo - i recommend lr-fbalpha (the default). for that core, you'll want:

Y X R1 L1
B A R2 L2

i believe there's core options to change the layout, and even pick what neogeo layout you want (pad style, stick style, etc).

FYI, with your layout above, it looks like you're binding it to

L1 Y X R1
L2 B A R2

in that case, you'll get good results with lr-fbalpha by default (i doubt many/any arcade games care about L1 or L2 in fbalpha by default), and possibly mame2003-plus set to the 'modern' layout via core options.

jakejm79

Thank you, now I know what the default layout is that helps.

What I actually have is:

L2 Y X R2
L1 B A R1

What I was hoping to achieve is so my colored buttons match that of the Neo-Geo, basically so when a game says press the red (A) button you press the red in real life.
I actually may have had it set up right, for some reason, I thought NBA Jam was a Neo-Geo game since it references colored buttons but it isn't. I'll double check on a different game.

I have remapped things so they are like the following:

3 4 6
2 1 5

With L1/L2 not being used.

And I am an idiot. Just tested Metal Slug and red is indeed now fire, yellow being jump and green being grenade with blue not used.

I'll remap the midway games in the tab menu since there are only a few of them and they each have differing colored buttons. I have already mapped Smash TV (and will do so for any others with 4 way fire) so that

  X
A B RS

Work like WASD for up left down right (or rather fire up, fire left, etc).

jakejm79

So I think what I am trying to achieve is going to be pretty difficult. I'm going to revert back to defaults and then edit things just using the Mame internal menu.
I do have a couple of questions:

The mame internal menu seems to cover assignments for just about every possibly control scheme out there (references to paddles, pedals, a plethora of buttons, etc).
In reality when it comes to buttons are there really any games out there that require more than 6 (not counting insert coin or start)?
I plan to set the default up has follows:

4 5 6
1 2 3

This would match up in real life to:

Y X R2
B A R1

Now that seems to be close to the suggestion for Mame2003, I assume its not bad for 1-3 button games, but for like a 6 button game would I be better off setting it like this:

2 4 6
1 3 5

Maybe I'm not asking this well, but generally did arcade cabinets group the rows together or the columns?

Clyde

AFAIK, there is no real standard how arcades map their buttons. If you have games from many different companies or genres, you will have to remap some of them eventually.

For example, the standard X Y B A setup will place the first button of many two-button arcade games on B and the second button on X, above the first one. I find that inconvenient, so I tend to change the second button of such a game to A. Likewise, you may have to remap many 6-button fighting games like Street Fighter, depending where you mapped your L1+L2 buttons to.

Besides, you could put your Neo Geo roms into RetroPie/roms/neogeo instead of arcade or mame2003. That way, you can easily configure them separately from your other arcade games. You'll have another system "Neo Geo" in the Emulation Station systems carousel, and Retropie will assign fbalpha instead of mame2003 to them initially.

You may even configure your Neo Geo roms in arcade to the arcade mode (MVS), and those in neogeo to the console mode (AES), since most Neo Geo roms support both modes. See this comprehensive guide from @thelostsoul about it.

But I digress … :)

dankcushions

@jakejm79 said in Default lr-mame2003 Controls:

So I think what I am trying to achieve is going to be pretty difficult. I'm going to revert back to defaults and then edit things just using the Mame internal menu.
I do have a couple of questions:

The mame internal menu seems to cover assignments for just about every possibly control scheme out there (references to paddles, pedals, a plethora of buttons, etc).
In reality when it comes to buttons are there really any games out there that require more than 6 (not counting insert coin or start)?

there are, but they are very rare, and probably not games you will care about. 8 button setups are useful for PS1, though.

i wouldn't recommend going into the mame internal menu and re-assigning things. the point of retropie and retroarch is to handle these things sensibly through defaults, but they do rely on you using a sensible layout as a basis.

I plan to set the default up has follows:
4 5 6
1 2 3
This would match up in real life to:
Y X R2
B A R1
Now that seems to be close to the suggestion for Mame2003, I assume its not bad for 1-3 button games, but for like a 6 button game would I be better off setting it like this:
2 4 6
1 3 5

no, not quite. again, the retropad layout for fbalpha is:

Y X R1
B A R2

the retropad layout for mame2003 (or fbalpha via the 'SNES/classic' core option):

Y X L1
B A R1

both of these translate to MAME's internal buttons like:

4 5 6
1 2 3

but, i wouldn't pay too much attention to the internal MAME button numbers - they're internally re-assigned for different games. fbalpha does unique things with neogeo, for example. just trust the default retropad layouts :) they should give you correct button layouts for neogeo, 6 button fighting games, and so on. also, fbalpha isn't MAME so who knows what it numbers buttons like internally, anyway!

i would also trust fbalpha's input handling over mame2003, as fbalpha has had a lot of thought put into the layouts whereas with mame2003 we mostly trusted what MAME had already assigned, using 6-button fighters as a base, which has quirks...

grant2258

not quiet true mame defaults are good just mame2003 was built around sf2 and hacks to that driver but if you look at the code you can work out the

123
456

and just edit every sf2 varient to whats been changed in the driver again sticks and stones mame2003 wont change input wise i doubt it anyway you need need to work round it or use fba or mame2003+ for more flexibility in controls

jakejm79

@Clyde
That is what I am finding, the problem is the games where the buttons aren't all in a nice row of 3. For example '88 games uses just three buttons in a slight triangle layout but is it:

   2
1     3

or

   1
2     3

Who knows? Where as MK is

3     4
   5 
2     1

Or something like that so that is hard to make work with a 3x2 setup.
Yes I was finding that with the 2 button games (and 3 button games).
That was my reasoning behind the

4 5 6
1 2 3

setup, for games with 3 buttons or less you just concentrate on the bottom row, now whether they are in order all depends on that game and with there being no set standard I am down to taking it on a game by game basis.

@dankcushions
I get what you are saying, but the problem is with the button numbering/assignments being no set standard between arcade games, trying to have a one size fits all default isn't working.
I could use RA to set per default games but to me its easier to setup via the internal menu, I pick the button I want to change and press the physical button I want to use, also in RA it will then mess with controls in the service menu or internal menu, for example my A (red) button was always confirm in service menus, but when I remapped things in RA, while the buttons were the way I wanted in games suddenly X (blue) became confirm. Also if I mess up with the internal button I just delete the romname.cfg file and start over, no harm done.

@grant2258
Thank you, I thought I had kind of noticed that, while I had considered setting it up to match, the problem then is for 1, 2 or 3 button games I am reaching over the bottom row of buttons, made more sense to invert that and then edit SF, etc to match.

dankcushions

@jakejm79 said in Default lr-mame2003 Controls:

@dankcushions
I get what you are saying, but the problem is with the button numbering/assignments being no set standard between arcade games, trying to have a one size fits all default isn't working.

well, it's up to the emulator to set the standard and make it so that one size fits all default works :) like i say, fbalpha has gone to extreme lengths in that area. you're always going to get outlier games that don't suit a 3x2 layout of buttons (eg, mortal kombat), and have personal preference about which button should be the fire button in a shooter, etc, but for the most part you should expect the default to have some kind of sense.

i will say the mame2003 defaults are all over the place, but yeah, fbalpha is great! i challenge you to find a game that doesn't work well with my bindings above. mame2003-plus should work well, also.

I could use RA to set per default games but to me its easier to setup via the internal menu, I pick the button I want to change and press the physical button I want to use, also in RA it will then mess with controls in the service menu or internal menu, for example my A (red) button was always confirm in service menus, but when I remapped things in RA, while the buttons were the way I wanted in games suddenly X (blue) became confirm.

FYI you should have remapped via https://retropie.org.uk/docs/RetroArch-Configuration/#core-input-remapping - this would not have changed UI controls

Also if I mess up with the internal button I just delete the romname.cfg file and start over, no harm done.

if you do it via core input remapping and overrides, it's the same situation - one cfg per game, but sure, if you prefer the mame menu you can do that.

jakejm79

@dankcushions
That was how I remapped it, I saved it has a core override and it did mess with the internal Mame controls. That was how I also did it for the MD/32X remap and that took it with no problem, I assume its due to the extra layer between RA and the end result with MAME which doesn't exist in consoles due to all console games (on the same system) adhering to the same layout.
i.e. ES>RA>MAME>Game vs. ES>RA>Game

Anyway the problem with either layout is that I don't think it would achieve what I wanted, which is to have the Neo-Geo games match up by color (so my Red is A, Yellow is B, Blue is C, etc) which I means A=1, B=2, Y=3, X=4 in Mame, but then I also want it so B=1 , A=2, RS=3 for 1, 2 or 3 button games so people only have to concentrate on the bottom row of buttons for the simpler games.

Now I could move my buttons so my 4 in the bottom row were Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and then also that 1-4, that would then mean my bottom row worked for Neo-Geo and 1-3 button games, but IMO it would work out really badly for SNES/PSX. So I either have to compromise somewhere or custom map a bunch.

Clyde

Another option could be a set of illuminated buttons, an Ultimarc Pac-Drive and this guide from @savetheclocktowr to light up only the buttons that a particular game uses.

Here's a short video that shows the effect: https://gfycat.com/RingedImpressionableButterfly

But although I do own a Pac-Drive myself, I never got around using this guide to set it up differently than permanent illumination. It's on my long-term to-do list. So, I can't say if this guide from September 2016 still works in the current Retropie 4.4. At least the files which the guide instructs to download are still available. I checked that right before I wrote this post.

Just a thought in case you're interested in slightly more unorthodox solutions to your problem.

jakejm79

That is actually a really cool solution, I think I will put it on my long term plan too.
In the meantime I'll remap Neo-Geo games to use the colored buttons to match up with what they would be (A Red, B Yellow, C, Green, D Blue), everything else will get 1-3 for bottom row and 4-6 for top row, also the fighting games will also get a custom remap along with games with 4 way fire too.
I've done up the following cheat sheets so hopefully everyone will be able to understand things.

alt text

Clyde

@jakejm79 said in Default lr-mame2003 Controls:

That is actually a really cool solution, I think I will put it on my long term plan too.

Then you may want to consider downloading the two files mentioned in it now, lest they may be gone sometime in the future. I did so yesterday. :)

I've done up the following cheat sheets so hopefully everyone will be able to understand things.

Nice!

jakejm79

@Clyde Good point I will do that.
So I got everything all finished and am pretty happy with the results.
Things are mapped in Mame in this order

  4 5 6
8 1 2 3
7

With games using buttons in numerical preference, so 3 button games use 1-3, 4 buttons 1-4, etc.
The only two exceptions are:
Neo-Geo that uses 1, 2, 4, 5 since the colors match that of the real Neo-Geo machines and I think 4 in a 2x2 cluster works better ergonomically that a 1x4 row and games like Smash TV that have a 4 way directional fire, which is mapped to 1, 2, 3, 5 in a ASDW setup.
MK games got a

HP HK
LP LK BL

Layout, so basically the block button gets moved out of the middle and to the side of the square (this keeps things in line with the use first 5 buttons for 5 button games).

SF games use all 6 with a layout identical to the originals (punch in the top row of 3 - buttons 4-6, kick in the bottom row of 3 - buttons 1-3).

Also all the consoles with the exception of SNES follow the same use only the buttons necessary in numerical order philosophy, the SNES being the outlier due to LS being on the left side of the colored buttons.

Pretty happy with how things came out, anyone familiar with the games in the arcade should find them pretty familiar and for Neo-Geo games that often reference the controls on the screen things should match up, red is fire in metal slug for example.

Thanks for the help everyone. Just in time for my holiday party. And I think I will ask Santa for some light up buttons and that LED controller.

Clyde

@jakejm79 said in Default lr-mame2003 Controls:

Neo-Geo that uses 1, 2, 4, 5 since the colors match that of the real Neo-Geo machines and I think 4 in a 2x2 cluster works better ergonomically that a 1x4 row

The only (small) issue with this is that many Neo Geo games display a quick tutorial that shows the buttons in one row. That said, even the official controller of the Neo Geo CD had a 2x2 button layout: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo_Geo#/media/File:Neo-Geo-CD-TopLoader-wController-FL.jpg

MK games got a
HP HK
LP LK BL

Another common MK setup is

HP BL HK
LP BL LK

so that there are two block buttons in the middle instead of one. It resembles the original layout more closely. But of course, this is a matter of preference.

Thanks for the help everyone. Just in time for my holiday party. And I think I will ask Santa for some light up buttons and that LED controller.

If you ask for a Pac-Drive, remember to include 5v LED buttons, because those can be used without an external power source, contrary to 12v buttons. See the official site for more information about that.

Have fun at your holiday party!

jakejm79

@Clyde
Good call on the MK setup, I might do that, I think 2 and 3 actually featured a run button that was completely in its on separate area.

HP BL HK
LP RN LK

Since you run with your legs that are at the bottom of your body and block with your arms at the top.
I think I will go with that since that way all 6 buttons get used and it is very similar to the original arcade setup. Thanks for the heads up on the 5v buttons.

Clyde

I just tested the pacdrive utility to control my led buttons. It still works fine, but it needs a small fix for Retropie 4.4.

Thanks for finally getting me to engage in this. 😊 Although setting up the buttons for all of my games may be a life task.

grant2258

use fba or mame2003 plus youll sav yourself big headaches

jakejm79

Everyone keeps saying that, but it wont address my problem. If you read what I was originally trying to achieve, it was only possibly with custom remapping, the default setups for FBA, Lr-Mame or Mame plus wouldn't work the way I want.

dankcushions

@jakejm79 i believe your neogeo colour coordination thing would at least work in fbalpha and my suggested layout thanks to the ‘game pad’ neogeo control layout core option.