Two arcade machines linked up?

[muffin man]

hey well i have this particular question

i would like to have two mini stand up or bartop arcade machine, both each with Street Fighter, both next to each other. Now my question is how  can i have both linked up for one i can challenge arcade 1 and 2 ? i hope someone knows what im talking about

well yea thanks lmk

[Lilwolf]

at this point, no good way.

you could try kaillera and start a kaillera server on one of the machines... But there is a bunch of issues doing that..  and I'm no expert.

But if you look at the changes being made in mame recently, they ARE trying to get it so you can get two versions of mame working with the same machine.  This will allow them to emulate the network over a socket between mame versions.  Best long term solution.

If you don't care about playing them both at the same time playing different games... you could just have one computer between them... and have a dual monitor video card and have it setup in clone mode... Work great in fighting games, but not in driving games... and they would be tied too each other.  You COULD have a monitor / keyboard switch attached to one... so flip a switch and it now has the other computer controlling both... flip it and you have each running on different computers...  Seems a bit awkward.

Good luck..

[severdhed]

EDIT:   i guess i should have read the previous post, since it lays out the same thing i am suggesting below...  oh well:



there is a way to do this, however not in the traditional sense.  it also has a few hardware requirements that you may or may not meet.

you can set up the second cabinet as a remote terminal for cabinet one, using a KVM switch.  just to give you an idea how this will work, I am going to make a few assumptions about your cabinets...it may or may not work given your current hardware configuration:

Cabinet 1 would require that the video card has two outputs and is capable of cloning the display (most cards do this)
cabinet 1 has a controller interface that connects via USB
the monitors in cabinet 2 needs to be capable of runnign at the same resolution that cabinet 1 is using.


cabinet 1 is set up like normal, player 1's controlls are using mame defaults for player 1.

for the second cabinet, you have a controller interface that is PS2, such as an Ipac.  you wire player 1's controls to the player 2 side of the encoder, and then configure mame to use those keys for player 1 instead.  you connect the encoder in cabinet 2 to the keyboard input on a KVM switch.  you connect cabinet 2's monitor to the KVM switch also.  you then run one set of cables from the KVM to each PC. 

that way, when you are using cabinet 2, it works just like normal, then you can press a button on the kvm, and it isntantly displays whatever is on cabinet 1.  this also connects the ipac on cabinet 2, to teh ps2 port on cabinet 1, and since that ipac is already wired up as player 2, you will be able to use it as the player 2 controls. 

player 1 will be on cabinet 1, and player 2 will be on cabinet 2....when you are done, just press the kvm button and cabinet 2 is back to it's normal operation and you have two independent arcade cabinets once again.



i dont know if this will work in your situation..and i'm sure you could tweak a few things here and there to adapt this plan, but i just wanted to let you know that it is possible.

good luck

[lucca]

That's a clever way to do it. Here's what I was thinking:

There is a peer to peer version of the kaillera client that allows two people to play kaillera enabled emulators directly without the need of a kaillera server in between. You should be able to link up two computers through a LAN connection and set up a game. It won't be seamless and you will see configuration windows, but a program like AutoIt should be able to automate the linking process.

http://kaillera.movsq.net/ - for more info
http://www.god-weapon.com/ - for kaillera friendly emus

[Sardu]

one pc, dual monitor, both cp hooked up to the one pc?   usb cp though

[daywane]

Thats what I was trying to post.
I timed out 
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8895
Klov don't show the coctail version.
These are Nintendo monitors. Hard to work with.
I plan on yanking the Nintendo monitors and use 2 flat screen LCD monitors
My Video card has dual monitor out put
I have the larger stand up version. 4 Player

[muffin man]

reason i asked was

theres a arcade arena called planet zero anime in houston, and they had to neo geo (look alike) arcades set up with tekken, two cabinets on side to side faced opposite, and a projector as well showing both opponents. and when cabinet 1 was playing soon as cabinet 2 inserted credit on cabinet 1 it came up as new opponent

so i figured how is this possible really?

[Ummon]

I think the same way the driving cabs are linked. But Mame isn't yet set up to handle that. Lots of desire in the community.

[Spaz Monkey]

Here's what immediately came to mind: from the jamma harness, split the video out wires.  Plug each side into a different monitor. 

[Sardu]

Here's what immediately came to mind: from the jamma harness, split the video out wires.  Plug each side into a different monitor. 

And the 2nd player needs to be wired to the other cabinet's CP

[daywane]

I havedone this before.
all you guys are over thinking this.
OK dont go with a nintendo VS system. ( not very comon cab)

Go to ebay. look up video card (PCI slot or  AGP)
I got a 64 meg radion pro
has 2 VGA out and 1 svid out
I had this going years ago when I was doing Sidwinder hacks
build your cabs. (i dont care how you join them. Heck thay can be 3 rooms apart)
use longer wires.
1 pc
2 monitors hooked to 1 video card
4 game pads or any other arcade input system
long wires
each monitor will show the same thig as long as you cloned your desk top to each monitor.
the controlls do not care how long the wires are.
(side winders game pads can not be extended. bot the wires you solder to the contact CAN)
this a simple set up.

[Sardu]

I havedone this before.
all you guys are over thinking this.
OK dont go with a nintendo VS system. ( not very comon cab)

Go to ebay. look up video card (PCI slot or  AGP)
I got a 64 meg radion pro
has 2 VGA out and 1 svid out
I had this going years ago when I was doing Sidwinder hacks
build your cabs. (i dont care how you join them. Heck thay can be 3 rooms apart)
use longer wires.
1 pc
2 monitors hooked to 1 video card
4 game pads or any other arcade input system
long wires
each monitor will show the same thig as long as you cloned your desk top to each monitor.
the controlls do not care how long the wires are.
(side winders game pads can not be extended. bot the wires you solder to the contact CAN)
this a simple set up.

That's what I was saying earlier, 1 pc, 2 monitors (cloned)   

[NickG]

I heard something about XMAME having native support for multple players across cabinets.  (Not to be confused with functionality for link games such as Gallop Racer.)

[Ummon]

I don't think you can just clone the video, for two reasons which are entwinced: two players, two perspectives, and they are interactive.

[severdhed]

it depends on the games you are playing...cloned video would work with lots of games, fighting games, beat em ups...any multiplayer simultaneous games would work fine.  you couldn't do full screen racing games linked up like that of course, but if you had two 2player cabinets, you could do a video clone and play some 4 player games, two on each cabinet

[Jack Burton]

The games at planet Zero support linking cabinets.  that means two cabs and two independant pcbs.  That means the two cabs can play one player games separately, or match up against one another.

But if all you want to do is have a separate cab for each player, I recommend you build one complete cab, then simply clone the inputs and video over to another second player.

There are a number of ways to go about splitting up you inputs, but I figure the absolute easiest and cleanest way is to just buy separate USB I-pacs and set the same inputs to both panels in MAME.  If you don't wanna spend the extra $40 on a 2nd I-pac, then you can always just extend the wires over to the second cabinet through project boxes, hacked cables, and terminal strips.


NOTE: This is all assuming you are using emulators.  If you are using real hardware then you will simply need to buy the requisite equipment, pcbs, monitors, powersupplies, harnesses, etc.

[Xiaou2]

 Games in Mame which support 2 Monitors, such as "Outrunners",  can be used with
a single video card which has dual monitor output.

 When you run such a game, Press tab and go into video options.. and you can see the
many dual monitor output options.   

 I dont have mine hooked up currently... but if I recall correctly, Mame might over-ride
the clone option, and create the spanning automatically.   If not, then you may have
to alternate between the two styles of output by adjusting the settings in the control
panel/video settings,  depending on what you wanted to play.


 Any game which can be seen with one screen will work great with clone mode.

 Any Non-Mame game probably wont support dual monitor output to two players.
In such a case.. the only option would be to have a 2nd pc (or console) linked up.

 There is the rare change that some games can be ran in multiple instances in window
mode... and can be dropped to the 2nd display.

 A theoretical thing to try,  would be to set up a Virtual machine that has another virtual OS
running a game on it.   However, I would think that may suffer lag and or focus problems.

[protokatie]

Games in Mame which support 2 Monitors, such as "Outrunners",  can be used with
a single video card which has dual monitor output.

 When you run such a game, Press tab and go into video options.. and you can see the
many dual monitor output options.   

 I dont have mine hooked up currently... but if I recall correctly, Mame might over-ride
the clone option, and create the spanning automatically.   If not, then you may have
to alternate between the two styles of output by adjusting the settings in the control
panel/video settings,  depending on what you wanted to play.

I just tested this on my dual screen laptop. It works, but you have to first tell MAME to use 2 screens first, otherwise the game will run with both screens shown on the first one only.

[Ummon]

Ahh, I forgot about that feature in mame because I generally don't use two monitors simultaneously, and have the desktop cloned. In any case, perusing the news at mame.org, it seems there's stuff relevant to this thread.

[ItchyD]

If anyone ever gets mario kart arcade working, I'd love to know about it.

[daywane]

N64 emulators play Mario cart well and let you use sidewinder wheels.
fun as heck
I have only had 2 wheels hooked up.
Wife did not care for it.
It is a learning curve.

[Jack Burton]

He means Mario kart Arcade GP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Kart_Arcade_GP_2

It might be working in a gamecube emulator in a few years.