MAME: using P2 controls for older 80s games -- possible yet?

[bmuse]

Hi all,

I have an old build of MAME (running .149, but have a .179 set as well).  My panel has two sets of controls.  I've never been able to get the older classic/80s games to use the P2 controls, which I understand the limitations behind. So, players have to alternate using the P1 controls.

It's always been a bummer because each set is lighted with different hues, but when playing the classic games, the P2 set is dark and only P1 colors used.

I've tried configuring some of the games as cocktail, and a few other things, but no luck so far.

My question is -- have any subsequent/recent versions of MAME had a solution or workaround to make this possible?  Or, if not, what workarounds have others used successfully?

Thanks everyone,
B

[Mr. Peabody]

Set P1 in MAME for all the controls you want. For example, I play Bubbles with either hand, and have both sticks as P1.

[nexusmtz]

The problem with that, of course, is that player 2 can easily jiggle the stick or press buttons and mess up player 1.

[keilmillerjr]

I think mame creates a config file for each game, and you could probably change your key mapping’s there. This would require you making such file for each game by hand.

Another option would be to create two different installs of mame and have a front end filter by botton count and launch the correct mame.

[paigeoliver]

Those games were designed for players to alternate a single set of controls. While what you are looking to do is possible, it is stupidly complex and not worth doing.

Basically you would need to write software to monitor the two player game, recognize when it switched players, and then change the lights and controls over to the other station. What makes it stupidly complicated is that the monitoring software would need to know and understand every game, when doing that for even one game wouldn't exactly be trivial.

[bmuse]

Yep, as I alluded to, I do understand the reason for the restriction. I had read through all the release notes since .149, but wanted to verify whether a software solution had been implemented that I'd missed.

I've had P1 set to use P1+P2, and vice versa. That works for the most part, I just need to do some more work on the lighting side. But, sounds like that's the best workaround.

I'll just require decorum and have people fold their hands in their laps when it's not their turn. 

Thanks for the responses!

[paigeoliver]

I actually just thought of a way to do it that would work for most of the games in question.

You just need to patch Mame or setup Mame to not flip the screen in cocktail mode, and then set those games to cocktail mode. Bam, suddenly they are polling the player 2 controls instead of the player 1 controls.

[bmuse]

I played with setting games to cocktail mode, but could not find any settings either per-game or in MAME to disable the screen flip. Is there a patch..?

[dmckean]

Screen flipping is part of the machine emulation. Preventing it would need to be done per game.

[paigeoliver]

I played with setting games to cocktail mode, but could not find any settings either per-game or in MAME to disable the screen flip. Is there a patch..?

You would have to make the patch. It is definitely something that could be done though. Screen not flipping in cocktail mode was one of the most common bugs/unfinished emulation things back in the old days.