Multi-Game Nintendo Playchoice 10 and MAME

[crashwg]

A recent thread got me thinking that it might be pretty cool to have a Nintendo Playchoice 10 cab (or repro) running MAME which in turn got me thinking...

Is it posible to load up the Nintendo Playchoice 10 Bios (does that exist?) with 10 games in the menu like a Playchoice cab is supposed to be?  If so, how do I set that up?  If not, why the heck not?


[edit]Replaced all instances of VS with Playchoice 10!  [/edit]

[pocketpal]

You're thinking of the Playchoice-10, not Vs.

The Vs. machines only had one game per cabinet (or in some cases, per side of a double cabinet).

[crashwg]

You're thinking of the Playchoice-10, not Vs.

The Vs. machines only had one game per cabinet (or in some cases, per side of a double cabinet).

My bad, I changed it! 

[versapak]

I know it is possible, or at least it used to be possible, as I had some Playchoice-10 roms that had multiple games, but I have long since updated, split, or whatever, and have been wondering how to get back to the multiple again.

So I guess what I am really saying is...

I want to know also.

[daywane]

you can not have the 2 screens like the PC10 had. menu on top and game on bttm.

been coverd in software forum. big bummer to a few of us

[crashwg]

you can not have the 2 screens like the PC10 had. menu on top and game on bttm.

been coverd in software forum. big bummer to a few of us

Elvis here describes a way that sounds good on paper (or should I say monitor?) but unfortunatly I can't test it (ATI...) and I don't think anyone else has as of yet either.

The way MAME in particular spits out dual-monitor images makes it very easy to set up with Nvidia's "Span" mode under Nview.

Set up your system as Nview Span (don't use Windows' native multi-screen management).  Tell MAME to ignore aspect ratio (or force your aspect ratio to 8:3 or 4:6 rather than 4:3), and always stretch to the full extents of the screen.  Then fire up any dual-screen game, and watch it stretch neatly across two monitors.

"Span" mode treats your two displays as one giant display, removing the need to tell MAME you have two monitors at all!

Nview will let you set left/right monitors.  I can't remember if it will set top/bottom monitors.  If not, Ultramon certainly will.

http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

In X-Windows (Linux/UNIX/BSD) you can use th Xinerama extension which uses plain english config files to set that up (eg: "Monitor0 leftof Monitor1" etc).

[iwillfearnoevil]

i really thought the monitor thing was figured out a while back

[RayB]

Nview from Nvidia (for Geforce and other cards of theirs) will allow a variety of spanning options. Question remains if it supports it for other cards.

[IG-88]

Resurrection time!! 

Has anyone got this to work successfully? I want to build a cabaret or larger bartop with these dual 15" 4:3 lcd's that I have and do a PC-10 setup with mame.

Is it just a matter of using a video card that will support dual monitors? Do you use a splitter or do you need a card that has 2 vga outs or....what?

[Malenko]

I dont know about the 10 game thing, but I know the 2 screens fit nicely on a vert monitor

[Afterburner]

Resurrection time!! 

Has anyone got this to work successfully? I want to build a cabaret or larger bartop with these dual 15" 4:3 lcd's that I have and do a PC-10 setup with mame.

Is it just a matter of using a video card that will support dual monitors? Do you use a splitter or do you need a card that has 2 vga outs or....what?

I haven't actually tried this, but it appears that you can now tell MAME how many displays you have/want it to use.

I assume that means if you have a dual monitor setup set up in windows as two independent displays that MAME will attempt to use bot for games that had two.

[IG-88]

I dont know about the 10 game thing, but I know the 2 screens fit nicely on a vert monitor

That looks pretty good. Is that a 24" wide screen? I'd prolly go that route if I didn't have these 15" lying around.

@ Afterburner: Do you happen to know what version of mame started implementing that? There is this in the tab menu.......


 Is this what you are talking about?

[Nephasth]

I assume that means if you have a dual monitor setup set up in windows as two independent displays that MAME will attempt to use bot for games that had two.

If that's true, looks like the Beast will be getting LCD monitors before too long...

[Malenko]

I dont know about the 10 game thing, but I know the 2 screens fit nicely on a vert monitor

That looks pretty good. Is that a 24" wide screen? I'd prolly go that route if I didn't have these 15" lying around.

SUPER late reply.  its a 32" 3:4 CRT and weighs more than your mother.

[smalltownguy]

I dont know about the 10 game thing, but I know the 2 screens fit nicely on a vert monitor

That looks pretty good. Is that a 24" wide screen? I'd prolly go that route if I didn't have these 15" lying around.

@ Afterburner: Do you happen to know what version of mame started implementing that? There is this in the tab menu.......


 Is this what you are talking about?

Found this thread while searching. I'm very intrigued by this. I might need to try it in my Dual PC-10 cab, to see if I could some sort of combo PC-10/Punchout thing going.

Oooh...the possibilities.....

[CpCaveman]

couldnt work out (didnt bother) how to get them all in one list, not sure if i still have it but i got bored and made a temp mala layout that looked like it, worked well (better than the actual playchoice roms as the games played full screen, as opposed to half a screen) and didnt need the extra selection/channel buttons and could play more games, was ideal for top 10 game lists too

[sandheaver]

couldnt work out (didnt bother) how to get them all in one list, not sure if i still have it but i got bored and made a temp mala layout that looked like it, worked well (better than the actual playchoice roms as the games played full screen, as opposed to half a screen) and didnt need the extra selection/channel buttons and could play more games, was ideal for top 10 game lists too

You'd need to create a <mamedir>/artwork/gamename/default.lay file which contained all the configurations you need, if I'm understanding what you mean correctly.  You can fine tune many things about monitor positioning in this way.

Multiple monitor support, I believe, is Windows only at this point.  Maybe Mac, but I'm reasonably sure that multiple monitor support with MAME does not exist on Linux in any way other than telling the video card to inform the OS that both physical monitors comprise a single logical monitor.

[CpCaveman]

think you quoted the wrong guy , there`s not enough playchoice only games that i dont have the game only roms for/want to play to warrant using a second screen (personal opinion) , i meant i got around the whole playchoice thing by ignoring it , then making my own mala layout using the mala layout editor which i drew to look exactly like playchoice (as i said i was bored and it passed 10 mins I was trying to waste and was still figuring out the layout I wanted ) was just saying unless he wanted a definitive playchoice only machine there`s another option.

[Haze]

the PC10 stuff is basically pointless in this day and age anyway.

Grab MESS or UME (MAME+MESS) and just run them in the NES driver the way they were meant to run.

Sure they're not 'arcade games' then, but does bolting a timer + selection menu on the top really make them arcade games in the first place?  The actual game code on the PC10 games is *completely* unmodified from the NES originals.

PC10 was just a marketing tool for Nintendo, so unless you like feeding in credits just to keep a timer high, it's kinda pointless, you're running the exact same code but having to hit the credit button periodically.

As for multi-game support, MAME still doesn't have it for PC10, although it's not really far off (I'd expect to see it this year) but even then
a) nobody would use it (because you'd have to use the MESS-style syntax anyway to select all the carts you wanted)
b) it would still be kinda pointless

It amazes me that some people hack up roms just to run them in the PC10 driver in MAME, when you can grab MESS or UME and have the proper experience with less hassle :-p

Personally I'd throw the whole thing in MESS anyway, the VS. System is a real NES arcade, as are the Chinese multi-games where the actual NES code is different and the games have been specifically modified to work as arcades..  This is just a NES with a timer/menu bolted on.

[mrchrister]

Sorry to resurrect this thread once again. Just wondering if there is a way to populate the Playchoice list. I have some titles setup individually in Hyperspin but I'd much rather have them all in 1 pc10 screen.
Is there a multi rom set?

[bigster]

IF we bringing back this thread, can we get answers as to why the ki2 had a vertical monitor???

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[keilmillerjr]

Sorry to resurrect this thread once again. Just wondering if there is a way to populate the Playchoice list. I have some titles setup individually in Hyperspin but I'd much rather have them all in 1 pc10 screen.
Is there a multi rom set?

$ ./mame64 pc_tenis pc_mario pc_bball pc_fght pc_ebike pc_golf pc_kngfu pc_smb pc_vball pc_1942

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers/playch10.cpp

[matsadona]

IF we bringing back this thread, can we get answers as to why the ki2 had a vertical monitor???

 

[Howard_Casto]

A 16:9 tv will not give you the same screen size as a 24" 4:3 if mounted horizontally.  A larger 16:9 mounted vertically and centered vertically will though.  Why is that so hard to understand?

[mrchrister]

Sorry to resurrect this thread once again. Just wondering if there is a way to populate the Playchoice list. I have some titles setup individually in Hyperspin but I'd much rather have them all in 1 pc10 screen.
Is there a multi rom set?

$ ./mame64 pc_tenis pc_mario pc_bball pc_fght pc_ebike pc_golf pc_kngfu pc_smb pc_vball pc_1942

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers/playch10.cpp

Unfortunately that doesn't work.. unknown option

[PL1]

Sorry to resurrect this thread once again. Just wondering if there is a way to populate the Playchoice list. I have some titles setup individually in Hyperspin but I'd much rather have them all in 1 pc10 screen.
Is there a multi rom set?

$ ./mame64 pc_tenis pc_mario pc_bball pc_fght pc_ebike pc_golf pc_kngfu pc_smb pc_vball pc_1942

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers/playch10.cpp

Unfortunately that doesn't work.. unknown option

Shouldn't that be "pc_bfght" for Balloon Fight?


Scott

[keilmillerjr]

I posted a link to the driver. Im typing on an old @ss iphone. I can’t do everything for others.

[mrchrister]

Code: [Select]

c:\Games\Mame>mame64 pc_tenis pc_mario pc_bball pc_fght pc_ebike pc_golf pc_kngfu pc_smb pc_vball pc_1942
Error: unknown option: pc_mario

c:\Games\Mame>mame64 pc_tenis pc_mario pc_bball pc_bfght pc_ebike pc_golf pc_kngfu pc_smb pc_vball pc_1942
Error: unknown option: pc_mario

c:\Games\Mame>
all roms are present and game launches in single mode.
Not sure where you got the command line from, it's not mentioned anywhere in the driver that you can launch it that way as far as i can tell...

[Howard_Casto]

I was thinking there was a media flag like they use on the MESS end of things....
like:
rom0 pc_smb rom1 pc_dhunt

That's not it, but it's something like that. 

[keilmillerjr]

Try something like this: ./mame neogeo -cart1 mslug -cart2 kof97 -cart3 zupapa -cart4 roboarmy -cart5 gururin -cart6 s1945p

Then try the same with pc10.

[mrchrister]

appreciate the help, but unfortunately it's an unknown option. I know neogeo supports media flags but I guess I'm out of luck with pc10

[dissonant]

okay, so to resurrect the whole splitting onto 2 separate displays portion of the thread, could you explain the whole mala layout thing you created to just display the lower game portion only? 

i'm actually not very experienced in MAME so ideally if you can share what you've already created that would be most helpful (I basically downloaded a MAME Torrent that packaged like 666 arcade games titled "Original Arcade Games" which has version 0.96 of MAME and the games all pre-configured)

currently the best I can do (since I can't try what someone else already mentioned with Spanning since its only for NVidia Cards) is to have the game display in a window and then I manually stretch the window to span the two displays, which is not ideal.

i meant i got around the whole playchoice thing by ignoring it , then making my own mala layout using the mala layout editor which i drew to look exactly like playchoice (as i said i was bored and it passed 10 mins I was trying to waste and was still figuring out the layout I wanted )

[Malenko]

IF we bringing back this thread, can we get answers as to why the ki2 had a vertical monitor???

 

Because its a MAME cab, it was the only CRT I had at the time, and it wouldn't fit horizontal.