Arcade buttons GPIO vs USB

[joeyperoni]

Hi Guys,

Am thinking of attempting my first Pi arcade cabinet. I have been looking at arcade buttons on EBay, I see a lot come with a USB interface. Do any of them work ok?

Or am I best to install my buttons onto the GPIO ?

Which would give the better performance?

Cheers
Joe

[thedeathstar]

@joeyperoni For an arcade build I think everyone would suggest using USB control boards for a couple reasons. 1 - You can use the retropie controller configuration menu and simplify getting the buttons assigned. 2 - There's a limited number of available gpio pins, and it would be tough to add a second player.

[ortsac]

I do not think Retropie readily recognizes the GPIO pins as natural game controller inputs. You will need another application or driver to interface the GPIO to Retropie correctly. ControlBlock and other Raspberry add-on boards uses microcontrollers and device drivers to communicate with Retropie. These boards together with the discrete buttons and joysticks becomes the "game controller". I do not know whether they will give better performance than a USB connected controller.

[joeyperoni]

This was the video that first got me thinking about this

I would be more than happy with this as a two player set up. I would agree it's a big job but if it would be worth it, I'd definitely invest my time into it

[TheStrayMongrel]

@joeyperoni I use the GPIO method to control my build. Uses the Adafruit utility to mimic keyboard strokes, works well though did take a bit of setting up. Price is right of course. This is what i used as a guide. https://learn.adafruit.com/retro-gaming-with-raspberry-pi/overview
Im system is 2 player (6 buttons each), 2 start buttons, 2 coin buttons and an exit button.