MAME Two Player Question

[y2k600f4]

Wondering if anybody knows why some of the 2 player games in MAME (ones that only 1 person plays at a time) buttons and Joystick are mapped to the 1P controls even if both the global and game config is set to use 2P controls ??

[Angry_Radish]

That seems right if the original game would only see the 1 set of controls and has no provisions for a second set in the dip switch settings..
Not sure, but I think if you go into that games settings, you may be able to map both sets to the same controls manually.
Only problem with that would be the player sitting at the 2nd set of controls could screw with you when you are playing your turn

[Green Giant]

Most likely the original game rom has no software in itself to switch to use a second set of controls.  Mame just emulates the rom, the only way to setup the second player would be to recode the rom.  This could probably be attributed to a bug in mame, but I doubt anyone cares enough to mess with it.

[y2k600f4]

That seems right if the original game would only see the 1 set of controls and has no provisions for a second set in the dip switch settings..

That makes sense. For example a Game like 1942 that can be played 2 player has both 2P contols set up globally for MAME and game specific but I am guessing there is no dip switch provision as you mentioned for 2P controls due to the original game only having one set of controls. I wonder why the game specific contols for player 2 in MAME do not correctly show 1P controls ?? Would it be better if the game specific controls correctly showed 1P controls for both 1P and 2P ? Any thoughts ?

Most likely the original game rom has no software in itself to switch to use a second set of controls.  Mame just emulates the rom, the only way to setup the second player would be to recode the rom.  This could probably be attributed to a bug in mame, but I doubt anyone cares enough to mess with it.

Looks like my question has been answered as I typed.

Thanks !!

[u_rebelscum]

It's called cocktail/upright modes.

This could probably be attributed to a bug in mame, but I doubt anyone cares enough to mess with it.

Is this an answer for the OP Q?  If so, it's not a real bug.  The original game could have one or two sets of inputs, depending on a dipswitch set to upright or cocktail, respectively (or whatever names the original game used).  And since the game used player 2 inputs sometimes, the driver has to include them.  Mame does not have a way to disable player 2's inputs if there is a cocktail dipswitch that's set to upright, and it doesn't need to for the game to run correctly.  In fact, the current way mame more correctly emulates the original hardware (IOW, the original game had places to wire up player 2 controls, but if the dipswitch was set to upright, it would act just like mame does).

Now, there are a few games that do not correctly emulate screen flipping for cocktail mode, but otherwise like above.  These games will switch player controls but not flip the screen like you want.  You could edit the source and "break" the screen flip in the games you want, but it's not an easy hack AFAIK.


The dipswitches could be "hardware" or "software" dipswitches.  If it was hardware dipswitch, the original board had a physical dipswitch, and you can get to them in mame by pressing tab and selecting "Dip Switches".  If the original game had dipswitches you could change from the screen, aka software dipswitches, you usually can get to it by pressing F2 (some games are different), and not all games have software dips.  1942 has a hardware dipswitch for cocktail/upright, that defaults to upright.

[Green Giant]

Thats a good point.  Figure that is why I have multiple version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: (2 players, 4 players, Europe, USA, etc.)