"Request for programming change in MAME

[Tiger-Heli]

Since a lot of people tend to be programming their own MAME's lately, I thought of another feature which would be handy to have.

I am building controls similar to www.gamebrick.com, but this idea would be useful for any arcade control (and yes, I do know it's been asked before).

Many games such as Pac-Man used alternating controls (one set of controls and players swapped back and forth.)

[x-wing]

How does Kaillera do it?  Somehow it allows alternating play across the net, so it must be possible.

Or, does it assign simultaneous controls to both players, so you could screw each other up?  (BTW, I've never used Kaillera, just read/heard about it...)

[CD_Vision]

Am I reading this the wrong way? As far as I know you can set individual controls for player 1 and 2 with mame in the options menu.

Or are you saying that you want something like cocktail mode, except the screen doesn't flip?

[JustMichael]

I tried setting the "Inputs (this game)" to have RDFG instead of the arrow keys and Mame wouldn't respond to the arrow keys in pacman.  Did you know you can set Mame to accept one key or another key?  Go to P1 Up in the list.  Hit enter and press the Up Arrow.  Now it should just say Up.  Now hit enter again and press R.  It should now say Up Or R.

[Tiger-Heli]

Am I reading this the wrong way? As far as I know you can set individual controls for player 1 and 2 with mame in the options menu.

Or are you saying that you want something like cocktail mode, except the screen doesn't flip?

There is no options menu for Pacman (Puckman, was what I was trying with).  In the "Inputs - This game" menu, you can set Player 2 inputs, but they are never used.

Yes, that would be real similar to what I am looking for (cocktail mode with no screen flipping).

[Tiger-Heli]

I tried setting the "Inputs (this game)" to have RDFG instead of the arrow keys and Mame wouldn't respond to the arrow keys in pacman.

[Lilwolf]

This is very similar to what my frontend does (JFront).

I keep track of properties of the game, then copy/paste the default.cfg based on they type of game.

IE, you can configure all 4way games once.  Take a 4way game, go into the config, and press create 4_player  button... Run the game.  Configure as default, and exit.  From now on, any game that has a 4way controller, it will copy that default.cfg to mame before starting.

It also allows you to store different configs based on what control panel your running.  

For instance... I have a 'classic' control panel.  It has a 4way, then buttons for asteroids, then a 4way diagonal (qbert).

So for my 4player controlpanel, my 4way games are set to use player two (middle joystick) and up notleft notright setup.  Then when I change to my classic control panel, it uses the 4 way joystick.  Then for qbert, I used the config for this game (since that and congobongo are the only ones to use that joystick).

Other settings.

2player_8way_6buttons to swap all streetfighter kicks and punches (because I still say mame got it wrong... punchs on top).  So one setting and their all done.

1player, 2player, 3player - these all have player 1 as the second joystick (middle left).  ignoring my far left joystick.

plus you can configure them.  So I have a property input=MK for all the mortal kombat games just for them.  

would this solve your problems?

[Tiger-Heli]

Thanks but that's not it either!!!

I don't need to configure all alternating games to use a particular key combination.  I need to set all alternating games to use I combination for Player 1 and a different one for Player 2.

I don't think you can set this in a .cfg or .ini file!

[Lilwolf]

ahhh

you want to setup 2 joysticks for a game that is normally share 1 joystick...

then switch between player one or player two for a cocktail table.

trouble is... how are you going to know who's turn it is in mame?  I don't think you will know.  (or it will be different for each game..  

ahh... again I'm giving you a solution before I know if its the problem...hehe

but why not do it with a switch?  

have a 3 way switch.  One that is both closed, then one setting for A closed and one for B closed.  Then hook them up to the ground on each controller.

Then in mame, setup each key to both joysticks.  Then kill the ground to one controller or the other.

btw, if you can find out what players turn it is in each mame game, then you could add cocktail mode for games that don't support it.  

[Tiger-Heli]

I can't believe everyone is having such a hard time getting this.  I read a similar post on the old message board and knew exactly what the guy meant. . . (Although I don't think anyone had an answer then so maybe that should tell me something...

Here goes again...  Picture Gun.Smoke.  You have one joystick and three buttons per player and play alternates between the two players.  Now imagine I have a HotRod joystick.  There are two joysticks and each has the identical 7 button layout on each side.  I map the Left Joystick and JS1 buttons 1 thru 3 to Player 1 in MAME and start a two player game.  My opponent has the identical controls as me available in the right joystick and JS2 buttons 1 through 3.  However, when my turn is up, I have to move away and shift the controller over so he can use the same controls I use.  It would be nice if I could map the right joystick and JS 2 inputs to player 2 and he could use these inputs.  I can do this with the OR key assignments, but then if my opponent accidentally (or gets bored or spiteful) moves his joystick while I am playing, it messes up my game.

ahhh
you want to setup 2 joysticks for a game that is normally share 1 joystick...

Correct!!!

then switch between player one or player two for a cocktail table.

Incorrect, I don't have a cocktail table, and I don't want the image to turn upside down like it does in cocktail mode, but you get the idea. . .

trouble is... how are you going to know who's turn it is in mame?

[JustMichael]

I understand what you are saying now but the official Mame will never do this.  This is because Mame's purpose is to document arcade games.  Since the original game didn't function this way, Mame doesn't either.  Also since Mame just acts like the hardware, it wouldn't be able to do it either.  You would have to modify the original pacman code.    It is the pacman code that looks at the player 2's joystick.

[u_rebelscum]

I don't think you will know, but I don't think that's a problem.  Here is how I see it working (going back to Pac-Man).  The left stick is mapped to Player 1.  Player 1 starts.  When his character dies, Player 2 is able to play using the right joystick.  If player 1 moves the left stick to the right and notices that the Pac-Man is still moving left and Player 2's score is increasing, he will realize that it is not his turn.

Ahh, the players don't need to know, but mame does.  And mame usually doesn't know whose turn it is.  (I'd say never, but if I did someone would find the one instance that mame already tracks the player, if there was one. )
The game knows who turn it is, but mame doesn't.  Remember that mame is just faking the arcade hardware, and the arcade software (the ROMs) runs the game.

and I was hoping to be able to change one setting instead of some 1500 drivers  

Since mame usually doesn't know whose turn it is, you will need to add that ability to each of the drivers.  One setting in mame wouldn't do it.

And as JustMichael said, since the arcade didn't do it, mame most likely wouldn't.  I can almost see it as a cheat, except for the fact that you will need to edit 1500 drivers.  (Cheats are all about finding were in the game's memory data is stored, and since the game tracks the player playing somewhere in it's memory, you have to find where in the memory that is stored, hence my almost a cheat opinion.)

[Tiger-Heli]

I understand what you are saying now but the official Mame will never do this.

[Tiger-Heli]

Ahh, the players don't need to know, but mame does.

[Dav]

Right, I thought it unlikely that it would make it into official MAME.

One thing that puzzles me in further testing.