Getting 4 Player Games To Work With Single Coin Mech??

[lettuce]

I shall use TMNT as my example as its the only game ive tried. Basically i have a 4 player CP, and 1 coin mech in my cab, im using the 4 player TMNT and TMNT In Time roms, when i add a credit only player 1 (Leonard) is available to select.

How do you set us these and other 4 players roms, so that when u add a credit you can press any player start button 1,2,3, or 4 and then that character is selected?? Ive looked in the dip switch settings and cant see anything that relates to a 'single coin' mech. Now i know the UK version of TMHT only had one coin mech and after a credit was added players 1 2 3 and 4 start buttons would flash and then you would press the relevent start button depending on what turtle you wanted, so how do i emulate this within mame??

[ARTIFACT]

you can always connect your p1 coin switch to p3 and p4 connections. when you add a coin to p1, p3 and p4 would also get a credit. not sure if this is what you are looking for

[Crowquill]

Knowing your setup would definitely help. You can set it up so the one credit switch (button or door) trips a credit for all 4 players. Do you not have buttons or coin slots for players 2-4? Default keyboard mapping in MAME is 6-8 respectively.

TMNT was set up to have individual coin slots for each player (a very good thing in an arcade). The two-player version lets you pick your characters, but the 4-player is dependent on which coin slot you use. Even 4-player Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles is this way. It was a dedicated game so they didn't need to program in that flexibility.

[Green Giant]

Why not just set player 3 and 4 coin buttons in mame to player 1 and 2.  When you drop a coin, it will supply them for 1&3 and 2&4 at the same time.

[lettuce]

The two-player version lets you pick your characters, but the 4-player is dependent on which coin slot you use. Even 4-player Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles is this way. It was a dedicated game so they didn't need to program in that flexibility.

Nah the UK version (Teenage Muntant Hero Turtles) defently only had one coin slot. I think the best way is to connect my coin mech/credit board up to the other player start/credit buttons on my I-PAC as you guys suggested. Would it be possible to dasiy chain from P1 Start On the I-PAC to the other player start buttons, or would i have to run individual wires from each Player start input to my coin mech/credit board?

[leapinlew]

The two-player version lets you pick your characters, but the 4-player is dependent on which coin slot you use. Even 4-player Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles is this way. It was a dedicated game so they didn't need to program in that flexibility.

Nah the UK version (Teenage Muntant Hero Turtles) defently only had one coin slot. I think the best way is to connect my coin mech/credit board up to the other player start/credit buttons on my I-PAC as you guys suggested. Would it be possible to dasiy chain from P1 Start On the I-PAC to the other player start buttons, or would i have to run individual wires from each Player start input to my coin mech/credit board?

Seems to me this might cause a problem. Some games may report a credit jam? I've had a problem with Cheyenne when I dropped quarters too fast. Other games may constantly flash "JOIN! PRESS START" for the other players. I don't know, doesn't seem that clean of a solution to me. perhaps a dedicated shift button and people can drop their own credits by holding the shift and selecting one of their buttons?

[Malenko]

what if you set the start button to be the coin button and the start button, worst case scenario, you gotta hit start twice.

[SavannahLion]

what if you set the start button to be the coin button and the start button, worst case scenario, you gotta hit start twice.

Then the game would register a credit and you would never be able to use the last credit.

[lettuce]

Ok think ive worked it out, how about if in the 4 player games i want to work correctly, in this case TMNT, i go into the menu setting (tab) and change the player 2,3 and 4 start buttons to button '5' which is the credit input for player 1. This way when i insert a coin all player shall get a credit, will that work? I still cant work out why the UK version didnt work with just one coin mech, as the actual arcade game had only one coin slot

[ahofle]

You mean just like Green Giant already suggested above? 

[SavannahLion]

Someone here on the forums mentioned that they have their cabinet wired/configured to register a token when the player pulls down on the joystick and hits the appropriate start button.

I can't recall who though.

[Malenko]

what if you set the start button to be the coin button and the start button, worst case scenario, you gotta hit start twice.

Then the game would register a credit and you would never be able to use the last credit.

wouldn't cost ya anything though :p

[lettuce]

Well as said above the majority of game you can hit F2 and change to single coin shutie, but the 2 games i noticed you couldnt are TMNT (doesnt even seem to have a F2 config menu), and Captain Commando which is the worst of all, as even if you change players 2-4 credit buttons the same as player 1 (like in tmnt) you can select what character you want to be as they all have recieved one credit, but the remaining characters auto start after 5 seconds, as they have a count down on pressing the start button for every character