How often service buttons are used?

grafalex

Hello,

I've got a full size cabinet from a slots game and going to turn it to an arcade macnine. It has a monitor, and power supply already. I just need to install raspberry pi there. Currently I am thinking about buttons layout.

The main button area is about 500x150mm, I could fit there 2 joysticks and 8 play buttons for each player. Buttons I bought appear pretty big, and I am afraid that select/start/coin/whatever service buttons do not fit this area. At the same time I have another area above the screen. Original machine had a few service/operator key switches there, and this place could be probably reused with service buttons. The only concern is that when someone uses those buttons he/she will impede watching the screen.

I am not too much familiar with retro gaming consoles (just NES one). Can someone more experienced shed some light on questions below:

How often those service buttons are used? Just for selecting/starting a game, or they also participate the game?
How many buttons do I really need? The set has 4
What is their purpose (mine came just white)?
Do I really need 8 play buttons for each player? Or I can reduce this to 6 and save some space?

dankcushions

@grafalex said in How often service buttons are used?:

Hello,

I've got a full size cabinet from a slots game and going to turn it to an arcade macnine. It has a monitor, and power supply already. I just need to install raspberry pi there. Currently I am thinking about buttons layout.

The main button area is about 500x150mm, I could fit there 2 joysticks and 8 play buttons for each player. Buttons I bought appear pretty big, and I am afraid that select/start/coin/whatever service buttons do not fit this area. At the same time I have another area above the screen. Original machine had a few service/operator key switches there, and this place could be probably reused with service buttons. The only concern is that when someone uses those buttons he/she will impede watching the screen.

I am not too much familiar with retro gaming consoles (just NES one). Can someone more experienced shed some light on questions below:

How often those service buttons are used? Just for selecting/starting a game, or they also participate the game?

to start a game you'd use an action button. however you'll also need a player 1 and player 2 start button for use in games.

a hotkey button for player 1 is also strongly recommended if you want to use hotkey functions. a button in your service area would probably work fine here.

if you're making an arcade machine, you need to work out what you're using as an insert coin button (you'll probably want one for each player). some people use the existing coin mech. if you use buttons, then you could use that one as the hotkey/select button also.

the most common basic setup for cabs is each player with 6-8 action buttons, plus start and an insert coin/select button. the latter 2 are generally situated above or below the main action area. eg:

alt text

Do I really need 8 play buttons for each player? Or I can reduce this to 6 and save some space?

depends on what games you want to play. 6 buttons per player is plenty for almost every arcade game, however it wouldn't be enough for, say, some playstation games.

grafalex

Thank you for the reply.

This machine is for my family only, so I do not need a coin slot. I would replace this with buttons.

As for pictures you posted. I see there are 6 service buttons - 4 below main area, and 2 at side planes. What these buttons are? Are you comfortable with buttons below? Do not you hit them accidentally when playing?

m2306

The buttons on the sides are for pinball games, if you like those. The two extra buttons are necessary. You really need START & SELECT/COIN to make the cabinet work with Retropie. I have a separate hotkey as well but using the default SELECT-button as a hotkey works just fine mostly, so no real need for the dedicated hotkey imo. I have six action buttons, just like in the pictures above. It is enough for anything below Playstation but for example NeoGeo used four action buttons in a straight line. So I kind of wish I would have put in eight buttons to make the layout more natural for NeoGeo and to make it possible to play some playstation games that use both triggers.

dankcushions

@grafalex said in How often service buttons are used?:

Thank you for the reply.

This machine is for my family only, so I do not need a coin slot. I would replace this with buttons.

As for pictures you posted. I see there are 6 service buttons - 4 below main area, and 2 at side planes. What these buttons are? Are you comfortable with buttons below? Do not you hit them accidentally when playing?

it's not my cabinet, just a random one i found on google.

the 4 buttons below typically would be

p1 start    p1 insert coin/hotkey         p2 start     p2 insert coin

grafalex

Thank you all for the information. I ordered laser cut for several button panels: 6- and 8- playbutton versions, as well as a panel with start/select buttons. Will see how it works.

barbudreadmon

@grafalex said in How often service buttons are used?:

Do I really need 8 play buttons for each player? Or I can reduce this to 6 and save some space?

With 6 buttons, you'll be able to play 99.99% of pre-PSX games.