6/8 button Arcade Cabinet/Fight Stick RetroPad layout

General Development
#1

Hi All,

Following this fbalpha issue, I thought it would be a good idea to get some ideas/feedback for a generic 6/8 button Fight Stick layout. Currently the various arcade cores have different default setups, and I don’t think there’s an obvious or documented RetroPad layout for these kind of controllers like there is for most joypads.

It seems that modern fight sticks have this kind of layout:

   ^           Y   X   R   L
<     >        B   A   R2  L2
   v

Even 6 button controllers would still use R2. For example:

27908188-82535c0e-6242-11e7-8dab-38206c584329.png1500×1500

If this layout is agreed, we could add an ‘Arcade’ controller layout core option that swaps the internal binding from a traditional SNES RetroPad layout, to the one above, and then we could also adjust the RetroArch Joypad Autoconfigs to map any arcade sticks to this kind of layout, and add it to the documentation.

The alternative I see is to not have any such core option, and instead suggest that just one layout is used common to game pad or fight stick:

   ^           Y   X   L   L2
<     >        B   A   R   R2
   v

However this won’t normally make much sense compared to the button labels on a modern fight stick, so could confuse users.

2 Likes
Default Input Mapping for MAME2014 (and newer) is wrong
#2

Yeah, I think option 2 is no-go. It wouldn’t really make sense to mis-map the sticks.

IMO, the “modern arcade stick” core option is the least-invasive solution. If we went with this, would the autoconfigs need to be modified?

1 Like
#3

IMO, the “modern arcade stick” core option is the least-invasive solution. If we went with this, would the autoconfigs need to be modified?

i guess not, assuming that the sticks have that kind of layout.

1 Like
#4

I mostly use arcade emulators, and I almost exclusively play on either SNES controllers or arcade fightsticks. Things almost always feel intuitive with the SNES controller out of the box, but that’s not as true for the fightsticks. This kind of standardization would be welcome!

#5

For what I understand, this is entirely up to the core, right? Except for the autoconfigs in retroarch.

If the cores were previously using a different layout it’s possible the autoconfigs were set up to follow that layout, I guess. And in that case, both cores and autoconfigs might need to be updated for the change.

Maybe there should be a reference image of the arcade retropad, the same way as there currently is an image of the xbox-like retropad: https://wiki.libretro.com/index.php?title=File:Retropad_360pad.png (which should probably be changed to use the new retropad icon)

Then try to get all cores and autoconfigs to follow the same schema so that the buttons are located consistently as in the image and are expected to be in that layout for the cores as well.

It’s not clear to me why is it necessary for the core to have an “Arcade Control scheme” core option. Wouldn’t that be up to the controller mapping entirely? So long as the mapping in the controller is always the same as expected in the reference gamepad schemas it should be fine, isn’t it? Both xbox-like and arcade-like physical controllers would work fine using the expected bindings for each of them, wouldn’t they?

#6

yeah!!! please make it! I love to see support for Pro/Retro-Controllers like the Madcat Fighting Stick Pro, Madcatz Fightpad SD, Hori HRAP (and so on …) wich acts like real arcade sticks (for mame and fba) and real 6(+) Button-Pads (for Megadrive, Saturn, PCE Cores) - without input-remappings for theese cores.

this layout is nearly standard for years now …

#7

Well, it’s mainly an issue of 6-button pads and sticks. The current layout works well with 6 buttons whereby a single mapping works with arcade games as well as SNES games and any PS1 games that don’t use R2/L2. If we made the default layout use R1/R2 for buttons 5 and 6, it would make modern arcade sticks work better for FBA but 6-button pads and sticks would need remapping.

Having a core option to swap lets us have both without remapping.

#8

Hi Ferk,

It’s not clear to me why is it necessary for the core to have an “Arcade Control scheme” core option

it’s mostly historical. on the SNES street fighter 2, the layout was like this

   ^           Y   X   L 
<     >        B   A   R
   v

so your L/R bumpers were Heavy Punch/Heavy Kick respectively.

then, from xbox 360/PS3 onwards (not sure about PS1/PS2 era?) street fighter games were like this (if transposed to the retropad layout)

   ^           Y   X   R   L
<     >        B   A   R2  L2
   v

so Heavy Punch/Kick are on the Right Bumpers. all* fight sticks from this generation onwards have this kind of layout.

if anything, the SNES layout is the more ‘niche’, at this point, but even modern console street fighter-type games will almost always allow the user to separately configure controls in ‘Arcade stick’ mode and ‘Control pad mode’, if people prefer different layouts for either (for example, R2 will normally have some travel, so isn’t optimal to use in a fighting game):

image.jpg930×522 130 KB

Plus, if you’re use a SNES type controller, you won’t have an R2 button in the first place. These are the kind of scenarios i think need a controller core option to solve. in fact, it already exists in fbalpha, it’s just a matter of what it means, as we currently have no ‘standard’ fightstick layout.

* I think some older Hori fight sticks had a different layout:

1 Like
#9

s/games/gamepads/

I see, that makes sense. The name “control scheme”:“arcade”/“standard” is a bit confusing. Even in a standard gamepad with r1/r2 and l1/l2 buttons it would still make sense to control using r1/r2 so you have the buttons in the right hand.

But taking into account the possibility that people may use snes-like physical that do not have r2 and l2 it does make sense to have the option.

#10

i think on thoose older Horis its practically the same … aside from that you have the (allmost) useless buttons L1/L2 on the left next to the importent buttons - instead of right to it.

#11

Thanks for the extensive explanation :grin: have a like.

Maybe the r1 r2 option should be the default, honestly. Like you said, snes-like controllers are kind of niche.

#12

maybe the options should be

  • standard
  • SNES

with standard being the modern layout, and the default?

#13

It’s not just for SNES/historical reasons. The current setup lets 6-button arcade panels (like my cabinet) sensibly play arcade games and consoles. If we made the “modern” layout default, 6-button panels could still play arcade games but then would lose L1.

So, maybe call the option: Arcade Stick Mapping: Classic|Modern

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#14

This thread about default MAME input mappings might be related: Default Input Mapping for MAME2014 (and newer) is wrong

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#15

thank you for cross-linking but this threat is only related very indirectly!!! I think at Moment is not possible to play 2 and 3 Button-games correctly with any device whithout remapping.

The 6-Button thing what is here the topic is more usefull for native 6-button Controllers, Cabinents or Arcade-Sticks. My Approach was usefull to all input-devices because the default Mapping in MAME is simply wrong at moment (most Capcom Fighting Games and all Neogeo Titles excluded ) .

play some Double Dragon 2 or Deathsmiles with Mame-Core on default input-layout and you will know exactly what i meant with my issue-report.

EDIT: Double Dragon 2 is fixed now.

1 Like
#16

If someone wanna be involved, there is more discussion about this here :