Dual Driver MAME?

[the King]

I've looked through the FAQ and didn't see anything on this, but maybe I missed it.  Is there a way to do a dual driver MAME?  Like, so you could race against each other and have the same game on each screen?  Thanks in advance for any help.


This is what I'm working with,

[Turnarcades]

I'd also like to know this as I would like to build a twin racer from scratch and integrate MAME for dual-player Outrunners etc.

[Jdurg]

Technically, I don't think this is possible in MAME because MAME is not set up for networking.  You could have one screen image displayed on both screens, but it's kind of pointless to have only P1's screen showing for both P1 and P2.  (Makes it pretty pointless for P2).

This is actually something that I've brought up to MAMEdev and they are looking into it.  What they will NEVER do is allow over the internet play to take place.  That would introduce so many issues that it's not worth attempting.  What will occur whenever they code it is intranet playing.  E.G. they'll emulate the network used by the machines so that you could play them properly.  This would be needed for any driving game, or Super Street Fight 2 Tournament Battle.

What you would end up doing is having multiple instances of MAME running and one instance would be for P1, another for P2, and another for whatever other number of players there is.  This would probably require a bit of processing power since it would be like playing multiple instances of MAME at the same time. 

[Turnarcades]

Surely it would make beter sense if they were to allow 1 PC to just send a portion of the display to seperate monitors. For example, right now, you can view both screens in games like outrunners on one screen together (side-by-side), or pick which screen is shown in the options. If they could make it so that you also have the option to send the two output displays to two different monitors, you could have two monitors running off one instance of MAME, one PC, but on seperate monitors.

There is of course a current solution in building a wide-screen projector based machine so the two screens display big enough to be playable by both players, though mounting points would have to be carefully thought out. You could use a massive widescreen LCD, but the cost would be stupid.

[SavannahLion]

What will occur whenever they code it is intranet playing.  E.G. they'll emulate the network used by the machines so that you could play them properly.  This would be needed for any driving game, or Super Street Fight 2 Tournament Battle.

What you would end up doing is having multiple instances of MAME running and one instance would be for P1, another for P2, and another for whatever other number of players there is.  This would probably require a bit of processing power since it would be like playing multiple instances of MAME at the same time. 

I'm sure, given MAMEDev's policies is that this would consume ridiculous amounts of CPU power. ie, given that some of the more modern games run bog slow as it is, emulating the networking layer is going to add even more work to an already busy CPU. It would take less time restoring said cabinet than it would waiting for MAME to catch up.

Not trying to start an argument here, it just doesn't strike me as prudent having such a massive cabinet sitting around doing nothing.

[BASS!]

I know it completely goes against what mamedev wants and all, but there are several builds of mame that support a project known as  Kaillera.  Kaillera is a setup that allows for internet play. Now what I could see you doing is to set up two separate machines each with mame and the same romset. I don't know what exactly you would be expecting to play considering that most of the racing games either are really old and don't have a 2 player component or are not very well emulated. So on with the technical, what you will need would be something like:

2 monitors

2 Computers / consoles - you might wanna think about something like 2 360s or 2 ps3s

Network - set up a private network and maybe use a separate machine to be your game host.

encoding boards for your steering wheels

+ tons of other unseen expenses.

I hope I didn't give bad information, but this project is very possible and would be an awesome first!

[BASS!]

Anyone here used kailera and know exactly how well it functions. Also been doing some more digging and this has given me so many new ideas for ways to use this. The most current version of mame that supports it is Mame Plus! Plus! or MamePPK Mame xt may also have the functionality, but someone will have to look into that. Heres some info I found over on their forums:

Mame Plus! 0.119 Base
Kaillera Correspondence [EmeraldMame]
PSX Plugin correspondence [EK-MAME, Mame32 Pro Special]
AVI Video recording functional correspondence [EmeraldMame]


Renewal contents

0.119(2007.09.17)
　Mame Plus! 0.119 renews to the base
　Trouble correction around option
　Correcting the fact that AVI video recording has become impossible from [ripurei]
　last public release

Source codes are available, so I guess it may still be possible to update it to support a newer revision of mame.

[TheShanMan]

Surely it would make beter sense if they were to allow 1 PC to just send a portion of the display to seperate monitors. For example, right now, you can view both screens in games like outrunners on one screen together (side-by-side), or pick which screen is shown in the options. If they could make it so that you also have the option to send the two output displays to two different monitors, you could have two monitors running off one instance of MAME, one PC, but on seperate monitors.

There is of course a current solution in building a wide-screen projector based machine so the two screens display big enough to be playable by both players, though mounting points would have to be carefully thought out. You could use a massive widescreen LCD, but the cost would be stupid.

I believe cyberball is (can be) a multimonitor game, where each player gets his own view of the game.

[Xiaou2]

What are you guys talking about?

  I just fired up mame32, and was able to play 2players at one time
On TWO Different monitors.  Each player having its own display, just like the arcade machine.

 It DOES work.

  You just set the number of screens to 2 in the settings.   Im sure official
mame works the same way.

[Bluedeath]

Right, just assign the correct display to the correct player cockpit, you must have a dual output card but almost all the VGA cards have 2 connection nowadays, the only thing i do not know if both the outputs can work At 15Khz (with proper software  and / or bios hacking) but i have no reason to believe not.

[CheffoJeffo]

Not trying to start an argument here, it just doesn't strike me as prudent having such a massive cabinet sitting around doing nothing.

Looks to me as if it is running Final Lap 3 just fine... so I would tend to agree with you. 

[the King]

Thanks for a all the comments/suggestions. 

I have mame32 and wasn't able to find the setting for number of screens, hence why I asked the question. Still don't see it actually. 

Right now this is just in the idea stage and I haven't even tried out any driving roms to see what they would be like, but from the responses here it doesn't seem to be worth it. 

Pretty much right now the game works, so it isn't a question of restoring it or mame, but it is a massive cabinet and does take up a lot of room, more than I would like for one game that isn't that great.  I have been considering selling the game, but the 25" monitors are awesome and have been thinking about other things I could do with the entire thing or just the parts. Sorry if that offends anyone. 

My other thought is possibly putting into 2 xbox's and networking those.  That would be really easy to do, I'm not sure about the controls yet, but then would I need two copies of every game I wanted?   Sort of defeats the purpose.

Just throwing some things out there and trying to get ideas from people who have more experience at this stuff than I do.

[CheffoJeffo]

I've never been a big fan of MAME for drivers. At the same time, I see too many of these big dual racer cabs gathering dust at auctions, so I don't feel bad if they are converted (just bad if they are converted for no purpose).

If you are interesting in going the XBox route, you may want to look at the Super to interface between the XBox and your cabinet (i.e. use your arcade controls with your XBox):

http://www.excellentcom.net/super.html

As for the needing two copies of every game, I leave the concerns about pirating arcade ROMS vs pirating XBox games to you. 

[Turnarcades]

I'm already planning a console-based racing cabinet, but I'd like to consider a Dual racer for things like MAME.

Somewhere here has mentioned there is an option toggle for sending each player's screen to a seperate monitor - where is this in regular MAME, as I haven't seen it. Is it only included in certain builds? I'm running an older version of MAME as it is more efficient on older PC's - version 0.78. If it was implemented before version 0.106 I'll get that version and run that to try it.

[Bluedeath]

multi monitor should be present fron .111 on (.122 has it for sure)

[TheShanMan]

Not sure if there's a way to set that thru the gui. You can set it within the game by hitting TAB, then going to Video Options.

[Xiaou2]

Right Click on a game,  choose Properties,  then click on  "Screen"
There should be a slider at the top.  Drag it.

Btw- besides Dual 2player racers... 
One could probably run 2 instances of mame if one has a Core DUO?  Ive not
tried it yet.   If thats true,  one person could probably play two different games,
one for each monitor.

 Also, if there is no screen option,  it may be because you do not have a video card
that has dual outputs - or that the outputs need to be enabled for the options
to be presented.