So how do split-screen games in Mame work?

[Xynie]

I am still trying to decide if I want to build or buy dual driving cabinets.  I know I can do the dual PC thing and play games like NFS against eachother on two machine, but what about Mame?

Games like Outrunners, that were my favorites when I was a kid, allowed two players on two different screens, same as Rush, and a bunch of other good games.

Does Mame have the capability to use dual video cards or sned out dual signals to two monitors?

Anthony

[Minwah]

Does Mame have the capability to use dual video cards or sned out dual signals to two monitors?

I don't think so.  But anyway, two screens would mean twice the processing power would be required.  Since most of these games don't run fullspeed on any available PC CPU, it would be a pointless exercise.

Edit: I think the only feasible way of doing it would be to link up 2 PC's, but I don't think MAME supports this at this time.

[Xynie]

Does Mame have the capability to use dual video cards or sned out dual signals to two monitors?

I don't think so.  But anyway, two screens would mean twice the processing power would be required.  Since most of these games don't run fullspeed on any available PC CPU, it would be a pointless exercise.

Edit: I think the only feasible way of doing it would be to link up 2 PC's, but I don't think MAME supports this at this time.

Depressing.  One day hopefully.

In the meantime, I guess I could do dual PS2 or Xbox's.  I already have one of each, and I could pickup a used one, and network them that way.  GT3 and eventually GT4 would be cool.  Hmm... Possibly just use two PC's and play networked driving games like NFS series or the new Rally games.

Decisions, Decisions.

[Chris]

Does Mame have the capability to use dual video cards or sned out dual signals to two monitors?

I don't think so.  But anyway, two screens would mean twice the processing power would be required.  Since most of these games don't run fullspeed on any available PC CPU, it would be a pointless exercise.

Edit: I think the only feasible way of doing it would be to link up 2 PC's, but I don't think MAME supports this at this time.

Outrunners works fine.  If you go to the DIP switch settings, you can enable the second virtual monitor, but both displays are shown side-by-side on the same screen.  You could theoretically run it in a window and stretch the window across two monitors, but performance would probably go through the floor.

If you wanted to build a two-player driving cabinet, I would just use two PC's and PC racing software.  Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit is very arcadey and runs on fairly low hardware, relatively speaking.... and isn't there a PC version of California Speed?

--Chris