How many buttons do I really need?

mediamogul

Ahh, very interesting. I've never heard of the PSX recorder before. These companies and their naming conventions are a minefield sometimes. Five years in and I still see game journalists tripped up when referencing the original XBox vs. the 'XBox One'.

barbudreadmon

@twobone For mame/fba (arcade emulators), you need up to 6 buttons for each player, up to 1 start button for each player, up to 1 coin button for each player.
If you don't want to spend your life remapping games in fba/mame, your buttons should be mapped like this :
Y X L1
B A R1
If you intend to play additional systems designed to be played with a gamepad (basically, systems with trigger/shoulder buttons like the snes or the psx), i recommend plugging additional gamepads.

mediamogul

@barbudreadmon said in How many buttons do I really need?:

If you intend to play additional systems designed to be played with a gamepad (basically, systems with trigger/shoulder buttons like the snes or the psx), i recommend plugging additional gamepads.

I have to echo this. Personally, my arcade cabinet is dedicated to nothing but arcade games and I use my RetroPie setup more like a console. However, a friend of mine has a variety of consoles emulated on his cabinet and many of them, especially the later systems, play terribly with arcade controls.

barbudreadmon

@mediamogul said in How many buttons do I really need?:

I have to echo this. Personally, my arcade cabinet is dedicated to nothing but arcade games and I use my RetroPie setup more like a console. However, a friend of mine has a variety of consoles emulated on his cabinet and many of them, especially the later systems, play terribly with arcade controls.

While i'll never recommend using arcade sticks for those systems, there is some kind of workaround involving 8 buttons panel for this, map it like this :
L1 Y X R1
L2 B A R2
Then select "modern" device type in fba (i think there is an equivalent in mame2003-plus, i don't know for the other mame flavors), you'll just have to ignore the first column when playing fba, which is not a big deal. For systems with shoulders/triggers you'll have L1/L2 to the left, which is somehow better (this is still crappy imho).

grant2258

Mame2003 plus supports
Y X L1 R1
B A L2 R2

AND the original fba modern mapping atm

The 6 button mapping in fba and mame2003 plus are the same though. It can all be remapped in ra anyway so no biggie at the end of the day

BobHarris

@zerojay The codename during development of the ps1 was Playstation X so imo it's okay to call it psx.

But I agree with barbudreadmon that a stick does not work well with anything beyond 16 bit consoles..so I'd say at most 8 buttons (like snes has).

grant2258

@bobharris said in How many buttons do I really need?:

@zerojay The codename during development of the ps1 was Playstation X so imo it's okay to call it psx.

But I agree with barbudreadmon that a stick does not work well with anything beyond 16 bit consoles..so I'd say at most 8 buttons (like snes has).

I have no problems using my arcade panel for snes games and psx games it takes a bit of getting use too but like anything else your muscle memory adapts. Its not unusable at all for me anyway and I use the 8 button setup + start and coin.

Again i dont use RA /retropie for my barcade setup anymore it doesn't have enough customization for it to work as i want it too for mame so i use stand alone emulators and launchbox for the barcade.

I use RA/retropie at the tv sometimes with a controller my preference is the barcade though.

pjft

I have 8 + select and start + a single dedicated hotkey button for player 1. I had thought about this layout because of the PlayStation.

Now, in reality, most games I play there from the PlayStation era are arcade ports which don't need as many buttons so, in reality, in yet to use the full 8 buttons on a game.

The only advantage I get is that, for 4 button arcade games I can have the 4 buttons in a row as intended in some Neo Geo layouts, whereas when playing 6 button games I can use two rows of 3 buttons as in those original cabinets as well.

So, probably 6 is fine.

akafox

I have to agree six action buttons per player and then a pair of start buttons for and arcade cab it really the way to go..

You can play SOME Playstation games on an arcade cab just fine..arcade games the were ported to the playstation will work just fine Tekken, Battle Arena Toshiden, ect.. you can even do some console games Like Clay Fighter, Weapon Lord, Tetris Ninja Giden, Bomberman..

But some games just will not work..Difficult to play Crash Team Racing, F-Zero on an arcade cabinet...

It comes down to the button usage. Some games that are console only will work just fine on a cabinet..some will not..trial and error there.

Also if you want to go with a button layout that has eight buttons on it for each player..go for it! But remember the more buttons the larger the control panel..thus the larger your cabinet..

This is why people make six button layouts mostly..it handles nightly-five percent of games and it it not too big.

Clyde

My DIY upright cabinet also has six action buttons, one start and one credit/select button for each player. Although that's enough for any arcade game with stick + buttons controls, I sometimes miss one or two extra buttons for setup functions like MAME's tab menu.

edit: That said, even if my control panel were big enough for eight action buttons per player, I think I'd rather add a trackball or paddles to it. :)

akafox

nods to the trackball joystick doesn't cut it