Dual Monitors w/Mame

[Scotty]

I have a PLaychoice 10 cab that is getting turned in to a Mame cab.  Does the official Mame, or any of the offshots support Dual monitors for games like Punchout, and of course the Playchoice 10 games?  Even to have the front end on the top screen, and the games play on the bottom monitor would be nice.

Scotty

[SirPoonga]

Nope.

[Scotty]

Bummer...

Oh well..  It looks like the top monitor will the Satelite box and DVD connected to it as originally planned.

Thanks,
Scotty

[eightbit]

You could do a jukebox or mp3 player on the secound monitor off the same pc.

[Howard_Casto]

If you get a dual display card I can wrtie you some crap to handle dual monitors.....(not for mame but other stuff)  the code is actually in lazarus right now but it's disabled due to lack of testing.  

[bhille]

I think it would be cool to support dual monitors for game instructions.  I was thinking about adding a LCD for the instructions and the standard CRT for the actual game.  Not sure that anything really supports it though...

[tom61]

Anybody tried Mame on a dual-mon setup? Alot of Full-screen apps kill the second display, or refuse to load. I haven't tried Mame on my new system, otherwise I'd probably know.

[Billy_Goatfeet]

  I have used MacMame on a dual monitor setup, but as you would figure, it only uses one monitor, but you can use it on whichever one you want.   You can also load any other application and use it simultaneously in any monitor conifg you want.

Billy Goatfeet

[madk]

I remember while doing my research I found someone who had dual monitors using s-vid out.  All he did was slip the line and run one end to each tv.  It sounds like you have a monitor tho so this won't work.  Just a thought.

madk

[SNAAAKE]

you can easyly run dual if one of them is a tv.I remember playing games on tv and my computer monitor at the same time.Me and by brother played all the time like that.2 displays.I use ati rage fury pro 32mb agp version.

[hyiu]

so.... even if I have a dual monitor video card... I still will not be able to play cyberball head to head against another player ?!?!....
 

[eightbit]

Madk  it sounds like your talking about 2 monitors with the same display. Thats pretty easy to do. What we are talking about here is doing 2 monitors with different  displays.

A dual monitor setup for cyber ball would be cool.  Or for the playchoice games that had 2 monitors in one cabinet  in the arcade. Super punch out was another one with 2 monitors.

Didn't MS flight sim support multiple monitors for the different views out of the airplane? I thought you could have  a bunch of monitors each with a different view.

 I really like Bhill's idead for the secound monitor to show instructions. Maybe a control panel layout also with the buttons labeled.

[Frostillicus]

you could always get one of these :
http://www.matrox.com/mga/3d_gaming/home.cfm

[SNAAAKE]

it would be even cooler if someone actually added LCD screen in the marque place and whenever you play any game then the marque from that game would be on display.any possiblities anyone ?

[eightbit]

Snake I like how you think, let me know when you get that working.

Oh yeah its got to cost under $100 also.  

[SNAAAKE]

heehehhe..funny...

LCDs cost atleast $200 dude assuming its used.but hey...I am always looking for newer ideas .

[hyiu]

hey snaaake... for now... I'm not too into changing marquee... but if you can get me to play head to head cyberball at home..... that would be REALLY COOL !!!....
 

[SNAAAKE]

what kind of game is cyber ball .

We used to play games like(cadillacs and  dinosaurs is we play and love it ) on a tv and pc monitor.i have 2 little joystick we use.

Is that how YOU wanna play?

Then just get an ati rage fury from from www.pricewatch.com and a tv with s-video.now you can use 2 monitors perfectly.another thing,you can only run 640x480.for some weird reason,it wouldn't do more then that when 2 displays are used .

[hyiu]

nah... cyberball is like a football game....

but then in real arcade, they have 2 monitor facing different directions... and you can play against the other side (whoever is there...) instead of computer....
(think of it as daytona racing with 2 cabs linked...)

so.... the 2 monitors.... on my monitor.. I see him as enemy and on his monitor, its the other way around....

if you play cyberball, and if you press I think F9 or F10 or F11 or F12 (I forgot....) you can switch the display.....
(which means... Mame can show 1 monitor at a time...)

but I don't know if you can show 2 monitors at once... (even if I get a special video card that can support 2 monitors....)

well... playing with computer is ok... cos after a while, I tend to get cheesy.... heee hee.... but playing against a friend.... its GOOD !!!!.......

looooong time ago, Penn station used to have an arcade and they have 1 there... my friend and I were quite good at it and we were playing against those guys who work there.... it was one of the best games I have in the arcade... VERY EXCITING.....sudden dead overtime....
 

[SNAAAKE]

oh..like that..i thought i saw this game somewhere.well...then i have no idea..i dont think its even possible yet(point is that i have no idea).

[hyiu]

snaaake... this is the cab for cyberball....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1940368046

sorry.... kinda off topic....  

[The Man]

Has anyone tried the Kaillera client on a local network for this?'

Just a thought.
TM

[hyiu]

I have thought about it... but have not tried it....
(I thought Kaillera needs to work with the rom itself
for it to work....)

I have a router at home... which means I can easily setup a small network.... connecting like... 2-3 machines.... then I can setup server and clients and kaillera can run within my local network ?!?!?.... then it should have no lag at all....

pblm is.... how to get Kaillera to run with cyberball ??...

I'll check the kaillera again tonight and see....

[The Man]

You can run any rom under Kaillera, so that won't be a problem.  You might not be able to play cyberball head to head, but you can still play cyberball.  This will be interesting.  I have a network at home also, its just finding the time to try it out.  Let me know what you find.

TM

[SNAAAKE]

i dont think its possible..because i have router and you cant connect 2 users with same ip address(unless you pay your isp extra money for a second IP).just guessing ..did not try...i can just go try to atleast connect to each other(me and my brother) but I am pretty sure its not possible.

[tom61]

I think he means a regular router, not an internet sharing router, Snaaake. Even if he does, he can just assign 192.168.0.XXX (XXX=a number) for each PC, those are 'reserved' addresses that don't get passed to the internet.

[The Man]

Well I gave it a shot

[SNAAAKE]

I think he means a regular router, not an internet sharing router, Snaaake. Even if he does, he can just assign 192.168.0.XXX (XXX=a number) for each PC, those are 'reserved' addresses that don't get passed to the internet.

I might be possible..i will try to figure things out as soon as possible.

[hyiu]

hmmm..... player 3 and 4 are disabled ?? you mean when you use kaillera ??....

let me go try it out tonight.... (with just 1 computer... and see if it takes 4 player's .... (by switching screen back and forth...) cos the real cyberball.... the 2 monitor... is actually 1 machine.... so, I think inside, it should be just 1 box... (cost less for them....)  so... if somehow, some coder can write a driver for dual screen.... and make it output both at the same time... (instead of just switching back and forth...) then it should work perfectly.....

I'm no coder.... but if there's anything I can help... I would...  just let me know.... cos this will be VERY MUCH FUN !!!.... playing against your friends !!!.... they're right next to you, but with different screen, you need to guess what they wants to do.... its sooooooo much FUNNNNN......

if anyone can make this happens, plz let me know....

[SNAAAKE]

well...You can email the mame team and suggest them to write a driver for the next release.hope things work out.I wanna try this cyberball game .

[Howard_Casto]

Unfortunately most of the mame devs are either too busy or not interested in dual monitor support.

I have suggested it a few tiems and even given possible solutions based on the way dual display games are rendered now.  So far there has been little interest.  

I would do it myself if I had the time and a more intimate knowldege of how mame draws it's display.  

[SirPoonga]

it would be even cooler if someone actually added LCD screen in the marque place and whenever you play any game then the marque from that game would be on display.any possiblities anyone ?

This is an old idea that has floated around these parts ever since I was here.  I know how to do it, it just isn't cheap to do.

[tom61]

I got bored and played with Mame, winamp, a TV, and a monitor:


"give me your heart make it- I'm bad!"

massive 1440x600 screen shot:
http://www.iland.net/~tom61/pics/mame+winamp.JPG

Details:

OS: Windows 98 se. For some reason I couldn't get Win2K to do anything but clone the main display on the TV out.

Vid card: Geforce 2 MX400 64MB w/VGA and TV-out

Left display= secondary display, TV, 640x480, with winamp 2.80 running.

Right display= primary display, PC monitor, some custom mame res., with mamew .60 running.

I've found that anything launched from the secondary display goes to the primary by default, so you could run a windowed frontend in the second display, and have Mame come up in the primary.

[hyiu]

I just tried.... using '9' and '0', I can toggle btw the 2 screens.... now.... anyone knows anything about outputing them together if the resolution is BIG enough ....

cos I know.... if I'm using like a dual monitor....
the resolution becomes.... (like instead of 640 x 480, it becomes 1280 x 480...) so.... if I can get it to output both at the same time... it should work....

come think of it... if someone understand Mame code good enough.... it might really be possible.....

like now.... can I get both screens output to my monitor at a smaller resolution ??..... if that will work... maybe we can get a dual screen card and then have HW stretch to do the rest....

do what I say make sense ??....
or am I already completely insane....

------------------

Since there would only be a SMALL number of games that can play head to head... I don't mind having a separate Mame branch-code for those few old games....
(ie... if I know what to do....)

if anyone has any pointers, plz let me know...

I think the Mame Dev team will be too busy to actually tailor to my personal preference.... don't get me wrong.... I REALLY appreciate their hard work.... and I love them all.... just cannot justify asking them to tailor to my personal need....

plz if anyone would like to help... or have any pointers for me.... that would be great....

ok... I'm repeating myself too much... going nuts.... need a break.... (but can't get this off my head !!!... AHhhhh....)
 

[SNAAAKE]

it would be even cooler if someone actually added LCD screen in the marque place and whenever you play any game then the marque from that game would be on display.any possiblities anyone ?

This is an old idea that has floated around these parts ever since I was here.  I know how to do it, it just isn't cheap to do.

Well...
how expensive are we talkin here.Just the cost of LCD right?what else do i need here.I might try something even though it really doesnt matter what marque.anyways..you can always think about doin something weird like this(free country ).

[SirPoonga]

it would be even cooler if someone actually added LCD screen in the marque place and whenever you play any game then the marque from that game would be on display.any possiblities anyone ?

This is an old idea that has floated around these parts ever since I was here.  I know how to do it, it just isn't cheap to do.

Well...
how expensive are we talkin here.Just the cost of LCD right?what else do i need here.I might try something even though it really doesnt matter what marque.anyways..you can always think about doin something weird like this(free country ).

well, to find a decent enough marquee sized LCD will take money.  then a FE that when you select a game it outputs the image to the lcd would have to be made.

[Howard_Casto]

The fe part is easy... the easiest way to do dual displays is knowing the resolution that both monitors will be running at....  If your primary is running at 1024*768 and the secondary is at 800*600 to the left of the primary then all you do is make a 800*600 form manually positioned at 1025 left and 0 top.    Or altenatively you make a windowed app at any size... position it at 1025 and startup and then turn to full screen mode..... it will automatically go to full screen on the monitor it's in so it will fill automatically.  Once the extra form is "locked" on to the secondary display, the primary monitor can be changed to any resolution and it will still stay put.  At least that's what I found from my testing.  As a matter of fact lazarus already does this, it's just turned off to save resources.  When you select a game from the list it fills the secondary monitor with the marquee image.

I'm much more interested in getting it to work with mame.  A marquee shaped lcd might be expenisve, but a smaller, normal proportioned one might not be.  This would be great for playchoice games, punchout, arm wrestling visual pinball, ect....   I think the digital marquee idea is impractical, but a secondary information display might not be.  As a matter of fact, I will do it once I find a cheap lcd display I llike, thus the test coding already.

[tom61]

cos I know.... if I'm using like a dual monitor....
the resolution becomes.... (like instead of 640 x 480, it becomes 1280 x 480...) so.... if I can get it to output both at the same time... it should work....

You were thinking the same thing I was! You need to have a dual output card that supports 'spanning' the display, then just coax mame into using a double aspect ratio.

I know some games like punchout used to display both screens at once, you might try 'arranging' the monitors vertically in the Windows dialog and enabling 'spanning'. Problem is that the black bars might be hard coded into it, which means you might only get a really long vertical bar. That should be a good test, before anyone gets to playing around with getting cyberball to display both at once.

[hyiu]

Hi tom61....

ok... good to hear that at least I'm not insane....

now.... games like Darius.... its like a continuous 2 screens... and when we now play it in Mame... it'll only use like half of the vertical height cos it's trying to sequeeze 2 monitor's worth of width into 1 monitor... (so... everything is scaled down....)

now.... for games like punchout.... (I just checked...) it is already displaying 2 screens already..... so.. if you get a good display card... (like those stock traders ones... maybe..) I'm sure they can let you arrange left/right or top/down....

but for cyberball is kinda different.... cos its only showing 1 screen at a time !!!... which means I'll need to modify code (of some sort) to get it to show like Darius or punchout...

then I'll buy the video card and try..... (cos I don't think the video card will be cheap at all.....)

[Howard_Casto]

now.... for games like punchout.... (I just checked...) it is already displaying 2 screens already..... so.. if you get a good display card... (like those stock traders ones... maybe..) I'm sure they can let you arrange left/right or top/down....

Actually this is completely untrue....  mame renders the two monitors, but merges the signal onto a single draw surface.  In other words 1 draw surface = can only span primary display due to the way mame blanks the screens in full screen mode.  

With that being said, it could be done in windowed mode with tweaked displays, but as a little test I ran proved it wouldn't be playable..... To test I hooked up two monitors and played xmen in windowed mode.  When I kept the window positioned on one monitor or the other I got a rock solid 60fps.... however when I put the window in the middle of the desktop, thus making part of the image display on each monitor, it dropped all the way down to about 15 fps at certain points.  

In case you are wondering I have a 900mhz athlon with 512 megs of ram and a radeon 7500 dual display video card with hyrda vision managing the monitors.  That's the best mid-range dual display rig you can buy right now and it didn't seem to like it.  

My point is, it certainly can be done, but not how you guys are thinking.  In order for it to work with reasonable performance, the way mame handles dual displays, or any displays for that matter would have to be re-written.  Mame would have to be aware of all the monitors windows can see, not just the primary one and would have to be capable of displaying two seperate signals in fullscreen mode on each.  This isn't difficult, but would require intimate knowledge of how mame renders the display as well some time and cooperation with the primary mame devs.

I know the areas of the source to modd but I'm not sure how to modd them.  If anyone with better C skills or knowledge or the mame source were willing to help I might be able to help out.