MiSTer FPGA Forum

Knowing all we know now with available Mister cores in Summer 2024, if you were to design (or retrofit) an arcade cabinet for a MiSTer setup... I'll presume ONE given of it being a 2 player arcade cabinet:

Would you do a 6-button or 8-button layout?

If there are no 8-button arcade games, what are the pros and cons of having the two extra buttons or not?

PROS of 8:

• 6 button SFII layout, yet ALSO the 4 button Neo Geo layout- both are covered (with the option of but not requiring a NeoGeo CD pad layout)
• an extra button or two for menu options, shoulder buttons for cores like Saturn and Playstation. N64? What cores benefit from these extra buttons? Future cores?

CONS of 8:
-... hmmm, less 'air' space for hands? [This can actually be important.]

With the advent of the groovymame core, I'm trying to plan ahead. I think a 2 player arcade cabinet setup is a given, with the rare chance of players 3 or 4 using snac adapters, wireless controllers or USB. Not needing a pc nor laptop in the cabinet (due to groovymame antiquating any need for extra hardware), I'd consider options of other more recent consoles.

What systems do you have or want to put in a Mister cabinet and would you need a six or eight button layout?

You could do 7 (3 over 4 or 4 over 3) and have both?

8 would cover 4 face buttons, 2 shoulders and 2 triggers.

6 buttons would technically still cover Neo Geo but games like SVC could possibly be weird due to use both punches and the default layout.

Regardless, you could also put a USB port (or 4) to plug external controllers into.

I ultimately chose the 8 button layout- 7 looks odd to me + asymmetrical and I think if you are going that far with it, 8 would be better. I think the main deciding factor was needing the Neo Geo 4 buttons in a row as opposed to the Neo Geo CD pad layout. Shoulder/trigger mappings for Saturn, etc make sense.

I have one broken cabinet lock so I may just do a no-cut mod (using the existing hole) by putting in a ROUND double usb extension... as long as the placement location isn't likely to get banged up from an excited player.