Confused about the Atomiswave button layout

[Hmkay]

Hey guys.

The official site of KoF Neowave and NBC state the AW button layout goes like this:

(A) (C) (E)
(B) (D)

However, I have seen some people and other sources claim it's actually like this:

(A) (B) (C)
(D) --- (E)

Why do we see 2 different button layouts ? o_o
I'm going to get an AW and wondered how to set the buttons of my joystick... Hence my question.

 

[Amano Jacu]

Well, the cabs can just be made with different buttons lay-outs (this is common even in MVS, although the official ones had an official lay-out) and then each game can also have a different default configuration (which can be changed in the game options most of the time). So my suggestion is that you just forget about the official one (which in the AW case sucks most of the time, believe me on that) and just use the one you like the most, taking care that it is possible to change the button configuration in most games. You can also have a controller with swappable via hardware configuration, like norton explains here:

http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119271

 

[Hmkay]

Hey, thanks for your answer.

Then I guess I'll wait and see what the "official" layout for SS AW is like, since I'm buying the AW mainly for this game...
I know about hardware that lets you change the button layout and stuff, someone proposed me to sell me something like that, but it's not cheap and I was wondering whether it was really necessary... especially if you can change the way buttons are set in all (or most) AW games.

 

[Amano Jacu]

Well, as I said it is up to you to choose the lay-out you want; if it's the official one then go for it, but in my case I prefer a more MVS-like one. Anyway take care that in KoF Neowave with the official lay-out you posted, the buttons labels ARE NOT the same as MVS. By default in Neowave (if I remember well):

A: LP
B: HP
C: LK
D: HK
E: Heat

Notice that in a regular MVS KoF B and C are reversed. Of course as I said you can change this configurations via options.

About the hardware change in a stick, if it has more than 5 buttons, it could allow you to change which 5 are the used ones, something not possible via just software.

I couldn't manage to load the page you posted with the different lay-out, but if it was the one associated with the Samurai loke test, then being a very different game from Neowave and NGBC it is not strange it was different (and it may not be the definitive official one for this game yet).

 

[SuperPang]

Basically for a 6 button stick you'll want to wire it

1 2 3
4 5

1234 being Neo ABCD and 5 on pin 26

This'll give you the correct set up for the default controls on Neowave, NGBC and RF and of course 3 in a row for 3 button games. If you mess with the formula you'll confuse yourself on the character order screen etc as I discovered with this setup:

1 2 3 4
5

Ie because it's not A B C D any more

 

[Hmkay]

Basically for a 6 button stick you'll want to wire it

1 2 3
4 5

Okay, but that's still confusing to me.

Amano said about Neowave:

"A: LP
B: HP
C: LK
D: HK
E: Heat"

With buttons set as you said, in Neowave boutons would be like:

(LP) (HP) (LK)
(HK) (Heat)

Which is quite weird to me.

@_@

 

[SuperPang]

Put simply, Neowave is:

Wiring:

1 2 3
4 5

Button labeling:

A C E
B D

Action:

LP HP H
LK HK

 

[Hmkay]

Still confusing !

But okay, at least I understood 2 doesn't equal B, etc... Thanks.

"A: LP
B: HP
C: LK
D: HK
E: Heat"

With setup like:

A C E
B D

Things would be like:

(LP) (LK) (Heat)
(HP) (HK)

And not what you said:

"LP HP H
LK HK"

 

[SuperPang]

The JAMMA wiring to get the default button settings on all games is

1 2 3
4 5

or

A B C
D Select

if you're talking about neo button wiring

That gives you

LP HP H
LK HK

in Neowave, and the game labels the buttons as

A C E
B D

because it's always been that layout when the buttons are

X X
X X

rather than

X X X X

Therefore, when I wired

1 2 3 4
5

on my cab and set it up as

LP LK HP HK
E

the button labelling would be

A C E B
D

 

[Amano Jacu]

Take care that I said "if I remember well", it is very possible that Pang is right, I'll see if I can find out myself.

EDIT: OK, I see the problem, it's just a notation one, I kept for convenience the MVS-like set-up in my notation were:

A=1
B=2
C=3
D=4
E=5

but according to Pang Neowave labels the buttons differently. Highly confusing

 

[Hmkay]

To sum things up, the way buttons are labeled is nothing important, all that matters is the # wiring, right ?

Thanks to you 2 guys.

 

[Robert]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see the problem with the AW button layout since you can wire your buttons like you want on you cab (at least I did this with mine and my MVS)

Now does anyone know why Sammy made its system with 5 buttons?? Pretty strange for me.

 

[Amano Jacu]

It all makes sense now, actually now I understand why, after losing a match, in the continue service screen (and in the order select) where you are prompted to select the service by pressing A, B, C or D, they were messed up (in my case I would press the B button and it would trigger the C situation, and D would be B)...

My 8 button MAS stick is wired like this when used in the consolized AW:

5 X 4 X
1 2 3 4

Which reproduces the MVS lay-out as much as possible. I agree button 5 is not in the best place, I could change it in the stick but if I did I would mess the 6 button capcom lay-out when playing CPS2. I don't like the idea of a lay-out like this one:

1 2 3
4 5

because I would have to use only the top row for 3 buttons games, I prefer to use only the bottom one, but that's me.

 

[Hmkay]

I don't have a cab, and I don't know shit about wiring buttons, I'm getting someone to do it for me on Dreamcast sticks. I thought I'd make him wire the 6th button (lower right one) as a coin one, sounds good ?

 

[SuperPang]

I was referring to the buttons as 1 2 3 4 5 to avoid complicating things.
If you call it

A B C
D E

for wiring purposes, the games labelling of the buttons confuses things because the left foour are attacks and the right one something else, just like

A C E
B D

You get me?
Anyway, to cut a long story short, if you wire differently to

1 2 3
4 5

the letters no longer match up when you alter the control settings

 

[Amano Jacu]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see the problem with the AW button layout since you can wire your buttons like you want on you cab (at least I did this with mine and my MVS)

Now does anyone know why Sammy made its system with 5 buttons?? Pretty strange for me.

Of course you can wire the buttons anyway you like, but you have to keep compatibility with more than one arcade board (unless you are only going to play one of course) and even with more than one game from the same board.

I don't see the problem in using 5 buttons, I think it gives more possibilities. 4 buttons for modern, usually more complex games looks too few for me, I noticed that in many MVS games, as I totally HATE having to press 2 buttons at the same time for some effects, specially the ones you have to use a lot, like plane shifting in FF3 or hard slashes in SS, I prefer a dedicated button for that type of things. However 6 buttons for Capcom fighters, each one being a different attack, looks too much for me.

 

[Amano Jacu]

I don't have a cab, and I don't know shit about wiring buttons, I'm getting someone to do it for me on Dreamcast sticks. I thought I'd make him wire the 6th button (lower right one) as a coin one, sounds good ?

There's one problem: if you keep the coin button pressed for longer than a while (like around 1 second) in the AW, a "coin error" message will appear on screen and the game will reset, which kinda sucks if you do it accidentally while playing, which looks possible if you have it so near of the action buttons.

 

[Robert]

I don't see the problem in using 5 buttons, I think it gives more possibilities. 4 buttons for modern, usually more complex games looks too few for me, I noticed that in many MVS games, as I totally HATE having to press 2 buttons at the same time for some effects, specially the ones you have to use a lot, like plane shifting in FF3 or hard slashes in SS, I prefer a dedicated button for that type of things. However 6 buttons for Capcom fighters, each one being a different attack, looks too much for me.

I agree on the fact that 4 buttons can be too few some times and I also wanted to take the example of SS, which is very annoying IMO (even if I find it strange that you're not in favor of a 6 buttons layout, since it would be the perfect layout for SS after my idea).
The problem of the 5 buttons is that it create strange layout. with 4, everybody agrees on the line layout; with 6, the two rows of 3 seems perfect. Now with 5, you can have different solutions, depending on the player taste and this makes things more complicated.

 

[lithy]

This is really odd because as far as I know stuff like Dolphin Blue is 3? button and uses the top 3 in the row, meaning the buttons would have to be rewired, this really causes a problem for home users meaning we either have to play with funky controls or create a new joystick as far as I remember the AW controls were

ABC
DE

with them being slightly curved up actually a pretty nice neo layout is there using D as A then ABC as BCD. So I guess if they wanted NeoWave to control like

ACE
BD

they couldn't just done it using the other layout though it makes less sense alphabetically.

Oh well

 

[HellioN]

Why not just set it up

A B C D
......E





?????

 

[Amano Jacu]

I agree on the fact that 4 buttons can be too few some times and I also wanted to take the example of SS, which is very annoying IMO (even if I find it strange that you're not in favor of a 6 buttons layout, since it would be the perfect layout for SS after my idea).
The problem of the 5 buttons is that it create strange layout. with 4, everybody agrees on the line layout; with 6, the two rows of 3 seems perfect. Now with 5, you can have different solutions, depending on the player taste and this makes things more complicated.

What I meant is that 6 buttons, each one for a different attack, is too much for me, as I finish not using most of them, that's why I prefer having 2 punches and 2 kicks like most Neo games (KoF for example). On SS there should be just 2 slashes and 2 kicks (or what they did in SS3 and 4).

I agree that placing 5 buttons is complicated, but well, it can be done. The problem is that the AW default lay-outs are, to me, silly. Thankfully I can set it up as I like.

 

[Hmkay]

Amano: How about I wire buttons another way: Coin would be where the "start" button is on the DC stick, so I can't press it accenditally... and the Start button would be in the bottom right place, among the 6 buttons.
Sounds good this time ?

 

[Amano Jacu]

Amano: How about I wire buttons another way: Coin would be where the "start" button is on the DC stick, so I can't press it accenditally... and the Start button would be in the bottom right place, among the 6 buttons.
Sounds good this time ?

Well, that would be a valid possibility, although then start is in a weird place. You could also have an extra button for coin in your supergun or in the stick itself. Or do as you said in the beginning and just be careful no to press that button accidentally. It's up to you to choose whatever you prefer, maybe it would be possible to change the lay-out you take at the beginning if you finish not liking it.

 

[Hmkay]

There's already a coin button on my supergun, but I'm lazy.

What bad thing might happen if I hit the Start button by mistake ? I can't see.

 

[Amano Jacu]

Well, hitting the start button accidentally should make no harm at all, I just said it was weird to have it placed there, isn't it?
And by the way, the AW can be set in freeplay in the options mode, so there's not really a need for a coin button, specially if you already have one in the supergun