Button Masher Tool Kit

How fast are you really? Can you actually make and register 16 presses on your arcade stick within a second? Now you can find out with the Button Masher tool developed by a good friend and collaborator Mike W. 

Download: JoyMinBuild20250105

This tool was designed to aid in testing the Panzer Fight Stick Hall Effect System and quantifying results. Specifically, it helped quantify if adjusting actuation set points for buttons made meaningful speed gains in how fast the button signals could be triggered. Data is always better than perception and this tool allowed us to collect it and prove that actuation points do matter. In one case, Mike was able to improve average button presses per second from 12 to 14 by simply adjusting his actuation points in the GUI. I was able to improve from 6 to 8 (admittedly, I have bad finger joints courtesy of my 20 year Naval career).

This tool is an internal tool that we decided to release in its current, unpolished/raw form. It should work with any fight stick you plug in (make sure its plugged in before starting the program) and let you test your mashing ability. There are no plans to make this open source or make any meaningful improvements. It served its purpose and we thought it would be fun to let the community give it a go.

Directions:

  1. Download the program and unzip to your desktop.
  2. Plug in your Arcade/Fight Stick
  3. Open the file JoyMonWin.exe and let windows run it (you may get a warning since its an unsigned application).
  4. Click the start button in the application.
  5. Mash away for 5 seconds.

The app will start collecting data as soon as it registers your first actual button press and continues to log it for 5 seconds. Once done, at the bottom of the screen it will tell you your average button presses per second! Your results are saved in a file called "top_scores.bin" - unfortunately, its not human readable.

When done, consider filling out the following Google Form to help us collect data on buttons and the gaming community's ability to mash fast here; any insights gained will be shared with the community. 

Data Collection Form