4 Player Cab/Dual Screen Project-Photos-Now need some KVM Tech Opinions!

[slapaham]

I'm looking to build a 4 player cab but I can't think its feasible with the cabinet I've got. They are your standard sized cab (i.e. standard 2 player size) - can anyone suggest a way of building a 4 player layout where each player has 6 buttons each and a stick... or point me in the direction of similar sounding cabs that do this successfully...

As I said before, I don't think this is feasible (for a start, I'm not sure that many people could fit round a cab that size!) and I think I will have to opt for extra players using control pads, but thought I'd ask for some feedback here first. Any help would be much appreciated!

[srarcade]

What kind of cabinet do you have? Pic would help for suggestions. You're probably going to have to fabricate something to replace what you have already. I am assuming you are talking consoles since you want to have 6 buttons per player. (There are no arcade games that use 6 buttons on 4 players) Do you need 6 buttons per player for all 4 controllers? Think of the games that you would have 4 people going all at once on and built it around that.

[Turnarcades]

As there is no 'standard size' you will need to be more specific - at least some dimensions but preferably a pic to see how it goes together would help. Most 4-player panels will have to be made to a certain size for comfort - for example, we are UK builders and build smaller cabinets that are often noted to be 'too small' by American standards, but we make the best use of the space we have to make them more suitable for UK homes. With 4 players and just 4 buttons for player 3 and 4 though, we barely have space to make it work on a panel 39" x 15". If you went with more basic layout for player 3 and 4 you could make it narrower but would probably have to go deeper, much like a Simpsons, Gauntlet or Turtles cabinet.

There is no need for anything more than 4 buttons for players 3 or 4, in most cases two or three is enough.

[Jack Burton]

Put ports for playstation controllers on the sides of the cab.

[u_rebelscum]

As others mentioned, pictures and dimensions would help, 6 buttons for P3 & P4 are not needed for mame but for some console games, and how close is too close for you and your friends?

Assuming the cab is 24" wide, and has space to "bulge" the CP out a lot, and the room has space for players to stand much to the sides and still see the monitor (like gauntlet), and the players don't mind playing from the side, and you don't need 6 buttons for every player, then yes, I think you can do it.  Otherwise....

[DaveMMR]

Bam!  Rearrange the sticks to add more buttons and you're set.   

[slapaham]

Thanks for the advice people. I will try and get a photo up of a cab. The only problem with it is it's all built into one, made from fibre-glass and so does not allow for a huge amount of flexibility - this is not the kind of cab you could build a seperate control panel neatly into so you're stuck with the dimensions given. I will do a bit of measuring also and post them up here when I get around to it.

I hadn't really thought about the third and forth players enough - its good to know for MAME games they'd only need 4 buttons each max for those 2 players but then that makes me consider whether or not It future proof for consoles and newer MAME games that might need 6 buttons for each player (was there ever any arcade games that did?)... however, I'm one of these people who doesn't see building an arcade cab that plays console games as an authentic experience and like to keep pure arcade!

I like the arrangement on the photographed control panel but because of the shape of mine I can't see it working and I wouldn't want that few buttons (preferably 6 for at least players 1 and 2) - however, its good inspiration!

Totally agree about the UK comment - we seem to be much more restricted for space!

Anyway, I'll get some measurements, etc sorted...

[slapaham]

Also, just to add, I'm not entirely against putting ports in for 2 pads but I'd much rather have proper arcade controls if it is achieveable! 

[vidmouse]

does not allow for a huge amount of flexibility - this is not the kind of cab you could build a seperate control panel neatly into so you're stuck with the dimensions given.

I'll believe it when I see the photo.
'Till then, anything is possible...

[slapaham]

Okay, here's a photo of not the greatest cab in the world. This is the first one I built and its the only one I can get to at the moment - my plan is that now I know the problems and hurdles with these cabs I can make a far better job of the next one! (Yes, I have multiple cabs! ) This ones just for messing around with ideas!

Sorry about the photo quality but if you look closely - above the buttons is a rectangular indent - this is obviously one hurdle... its not deep but to make the panel presentable you obviously want a degree of symetry! I havent taken the measurements but hopefully the size of the sticks and buttons will give you some idea of scale... if anyone really needs them then I'll venture into the dive of a cave that is our garage! Suggestions please! (not on the garage! )

[severdhed]

wow...thats going to be tough.  did you build that?  was this cabinet originally not an arcade cabinet?  i have never seen a cabinet shaped quite like that before.  the control panel angle looks uncomfortably steep. (unless you play from some kind of reclined position with your legs straddling the cabinet.  what is that rectangular cut out there for?

with those dimensions, i don't see how you would ever make a 4 player control panel work.  if this was my cabinet, i'd bust out a saw or two, cut off the control panel, build a box type panel to attach to the cabinet, that is wider than the actual cabinet.  preferrably at a much lower angle.

[Ginsu Victim]

Man, that's an extreme angle!

[slapaham]

The cabs are actually transport kiosks - the indent was where an adhesive label once was - however, the shape very much resembles that of an arcade cabinet (other than perhaps the steep front panel - which I think when you look at the photos below isn't quite as bad as you may think - you note this may be uncomfortable, but actually it is quite good when sat on stalls - it had originally been a concern but it works pretty well, I think!) The shape of the cab is actually very nice - here is an early shot -



and a later one...



Haha, I think people are going to see what I mean about how limited it is for extra controls - it was a complete pain in the arse getting the 2 sets in originally so I think I'm setting may sights too high to hope for another 2!

[slapaham]

darn it, apologies, I didn't rotate the images!

[vidmouse]

Hmmm....
I made this quick drawing before I saw the full cab:

Thought maybe you could make a "deck" to sit on that slanted area and secure it
somehow to act as a 4p control panel.

Now that I see the full photo however, I don't think I would do it that way.
That is a very unique cab and a deck would ruin the lines on that thing
horribly.  I would suggest if you want four player, hook up a four player
USB hub and use two additional gamepads, it will be much cleaner,
and really how often do you play four players?

Just out of curiousity, how did you score one of those kiosks??
That's an interesting use, neat conversion!

[slapaham]

I think the first picture was very misleading on the angle - it is steep but not too steep - haha, yes, its very odd how I got hold of the kiosk - I'll let you all into a secret, I have around 10 of these!

They convert really well to arcade cabs - I don't think it would enter your mind that they once were transport kiosks - great size too and very light compared to your standard cab as they are made from fibre glass!

Basically, I worked for the county council for a couple of years until very recently when I had to quit to concentrate on my final year at Uni. I used to check the notice board and strangely enough I was after a laserdisc player so I posted a wanted ad. This guy got in contact with me, nice chap, who worked for the council redistributing old, unwanted materials they had. He said he had a player which later turned out to be a MSX 2 computer complete with laserdisc drive - fantastic!

I'd been looking to build a cab for ages and never thought I had the ability so quite a bit after the laserdisc collection I thought he'd be a good person to ask for materials - he said he had just the thing - I thought, that will be some wooden tables or something then! Although, that was the kind of thing I was after. He showed me in the storage room rows of these kiosks and at first, I couldn't see the potential - it was dark and cramped in that place then it clicked just how good they were. I took one and got on with it. A few months later I showed him my work and he was impressed. He said that he had a proposition for me - would I like to do it as a potential business idea - he said I could have them as the storage centre was getting demolished and they were just going to be scrapped! I thought aboput it and thought what the hey! So I'm now stuck with loads of them. They are good, robust cabs with a lot of potential. I'm going to build a few and sell them (hopefully) at a bit of profit and then sell the remaining cabs as either kits or as they are to people who are looking for this kind of thing. I havent really had the time to plan it all out yet as I'm so busy but in the summer I will have more time. I'm going to keep 2 - one for a PC-based MAME cab and one as an Xbox-based MAME cab. The PC one will be shaped around a more retro-look while the Xbox one will be white and influenced by Japenese cabs (nice and modern)

For the four player thing - yes, from looking at the cab again (I havent been in the garage for aaaaaaaaaaaaages) I'd agree - pads are by far the best option!

[slapaham]

Other notes of interest are I got a few touchscreen monitors with them too and they work nicely with the cabs and the speakers were installed by me (the subwoofer on the side and the 2 tweeters at the top on the front - they are nothing particularly special - this is a test run cab really!) Interingly the few montiors I got have built in speakers though I never tried them out! The thing that looks like a coin door should be there is where transport tickets were once printed - I will probably install a coin door in it's place on the ones I do for myself. I kept one of the printing machines just in case I could mod it do something useful (which i haven't found a use for unsuprisingly!) The cab also has a built in fan that keeps the whole cab absolutely freezing - trust me, I played this thing last summer and I was cold without the back door on the cab!) The cab has locks for the door on the front and the back pre-installed and I have the keys. Wooden shelfs are inside and seem to vary from cab to cab (none of these things are exactly the same inside for some reason!) - these could hold anything pretty heavyweight and can be easily removed if needs be) All in all, these were quite neat for what I wanted.

[severdhed]

since you have so many, you could always have two cabinets side by side, linked together.  you'd only need 1 PC even..just wire up the second cabinet as players 3 and 4, and make sure the video card in your PC can support two monitors.  have both monitors displaying the same image.  then you'd have plenty of room for 4 players, and with two screens, it wouldnt be crowded

[slapaham]

it wouldnt be crowded

it might be where I had them set out though! No, its a good idea, I had considered something similar but not quite the same. I thought if I ever decided to emulate anything other than MAME/Arcade I could always do some kind of system link between 2 cabs. Could be quite nice!

[slapaham]

Darn it, severdhed! You've got me thinking now!

[Turnarcades]

Not sure if this design would be great for making a 4-player panel. It would look very 'glued on', be out of proportion, probably overbalance the cabinet and be weord to play with 4 players. Although many 4-player cabs have a hefty slant on the monitor, having angled joysticks for players 3 and 4 and being so close to that small screen would cause disorientation. Ditch the idea unless you want to scratch-build a cabinet.

[Jack Burton]

How thick is that fiberglass that you have your joysticks mounted in?  Cause those style joysticks need to be mounted in at least 1/2", and better for 3/4 or 5/8" thick panels.  If you don't then the joysticks are too tall.

Also, the buttons should be closer together if you are going for a SF2 layout.

I'm sorry if this is too critical, but this is the truth.  You would never be able to play any Street Fighter game on that cabinet at anything approaching skillful without causing severe damage to your wrists. 

I think you should consider some option to make the CP much shallower before you do anything else.

Also, now that I think of it, I think a steering wheel would sit very well on the current angle. 

Not too many people build dedicated driving MAME's.  I know that I am always scrolling through my rom list and wish I had a steering wheel.

[Chris2]

since you have so many, you could always have two cabinets side by side, linked together.  you'd only need 1 PC even..just wire up the second cabinet as players 3 and 4, and make sure the video card in your PC can support two monitors.  have both monitors displaying the same image.  then you'd have plenty of room for 4 players, and with two screens, it wouldnt be crowded

I like this idea. You can get 4 people on there and keep the cool shape of your case. Plus, I'm not sure if you could make Mame work for this, but you could set it up so that multi-monitor games display properly across the displays, which is something that you don't see very often in home-made cabinets.

[slapaham]

As I'm intending to have 2 cabs for myself, I've been building them so they are easily swappable with whatever system I want to run MAME on (PC or MAME)... As I have a few PCs hanging about I think I may well build both cabs with this idea in mind... I agree with you Chris2 - it is a nice suggestion - one worth investigating!

Jack Burton - I know I've bodged the one shown a bit but this was the first kind of cab I've ever built - since collecting the rest of them I've seen this as a 'practice' cab - we encountered a lot of problems with the shape of the inside of the cab (it is extremely tight!) and I hadn't been around these forums much when I was building it!

The fibre glass isn't all that thick but the sticks don't look odd or feel uncomfortable at all - I'm pretty happy with how they are - and there isn't much I could do about this anyway without making it look like a dog's dinner... the fibre glass is also really stong so I have no concerns about stability either! I may consider replacing the sticks with something different - any suggestions for something better?

Totally agree with the comment about the buttons - the buttons as they are, are admittedly a shambles - but with doing this I know how to ammend them next time. They aren't actually that uncomfortable and they are still easy to utilise but as you say they can definately be improved!

The steering wheel idea has crossed my mind and I would like to do it (I have a very good Thrustmaster wheel which could be modified) but with all these other ideas buzzing around my head I'm going to have to prioritise - can't have all 10 cabs in my house! I'll definately continue to consider possibilities about potential projects though so keep those ideas rolling in!

As for the steepness - I know people keep saying about this - but I've just been tinkering with setting up my Xbox in the cab for a trial run (gotta say the built in speakers on the touchscreen monitors pack a real punch - first time I've ever tried them! ) and the buttons and sticks are fine - not so great for tall people but that has more to do with its not a massively tall cab but on high stools they are perfectly comfortable and easy to use... okay, so its not quite a traditional look for a cab but these are based around traditional cabs - we were discussing it over lunch today and to build a flat panel would really ruin the cabs and I don't think it would improve it enough to warrant it.

So far the plans are (ever think I should have posted this in project annoucements?) 2 player Xbox cab (which I have just tried and works amazingly well!) with players 3 and 4 having infa-red pads. And another that is a poweful PC-based cab - again 2 players with 3 and 4 having pads of some sort... possibility of a trackball on this one too... Then weighing up the options of how to make the 2 cabinets talk to each other so that it can be used as a dual screen system too! Sounds good to me and I don't see it being too difficult to achieve!

[severdhed]

put a PC in both cabinets, on the second cabinet use a KVM switch so that you can switch the controls and monitor between being a stand alone cabinet, or 3rd and 4th players on the PC in cabinet 1.

or, do the xbox method, wireless controllers for the second cabinet, and just send the video output to both monitors.

[slapaham]

The KVM switch sounds a good idea... I think I'll pick one up but also consider getting a VGA switch so that I can quickly and easily switch from PC to Xbox and vice versa in the second cab (the Xbox uses VGA as well).

I will build 2 player's controls into each cab. This means that the second cab can be used in conjunction with the first cab for the dual screen and also as a standalone Xbox cab when you switch the VGA signal... The only problem with this is that when you want to siwtch over the controls from PC to Xbox (or vice versa) you will have to do it manually by unplugging the PS/2 wire from the PC and transferring it over to the Xbox... There may be a way that I could split it so that it remains plugged into both but something tells me this would compilcate things and probably not work (especially with some of the wiring I'm considering already with the Xbox!)

Thanks for the input guys, I'm quite excited about this new project idea!

[severdhed]

do you already have the encoders?

if you had an xarcade encoder, all of the adapters connect to it via 9 pin serial cables.  i had a cabient witha  pc and dreamcast and i used a 9pin serial switchbox to toggle the controls between the systems...it would work the same with an xbox

[slapaham]

I don't use my X-Arcade in my cab - the encoders I use are premade PS/2 keyboard hacks. I think if I plan to do the dual screen idea I may have to use another encoder in one of the cabs as I'm guessing the button layouts are exactly the same for each encoder (meaning that players 1 and 3 and players 2 and 4 will have exactly the same key presses - any ideas of how to get around this?)

Basically, the way I'm interfacing the encoder with the Xbox is via an adaptor that converts keyboard presses and maps them to the buttons of an Xbox controller.

Hope this makes sense!

[slapaham]

I suppose the KVM switch may solve the problem of the 2 same keyboard hacks though? I've never had any experience with these switchboxes so I'm not 100% sure how they function!

EDIT - Done a bit of research and from what I've gathered a KVM box would not solve this problem. From what I've figured out - players 1,2,3 and 4 would all need different keys to each other as they are running on the same computer - it is only the signal that is split across the 2 screens... god, without playing with one of these its a bit confusing... Anyone suggest the kind of KVM box which would be best for what I want so I can (hopefully) pick one up cheaply and see what it's capable of!!

[TheShanMan]

If you don't anticipate 3 or 4 players playing at the same time happening too frequently, you could do what I did. I installed DB9 connections on the cab, and then made control boxes to sit on your lap for player 3 and 4.

[slapaham]

Yes, I'd thought about that - it would work quite well but now I have this dual screen idea in my head I want to give it a go as I think that would be the best option I could hope for!

Thanks for your help though!

[slapaham]

Amended title...

I found this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rextron-Port-Share-Switch-REX09422/dp/B001HN5540/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234739802&sr=8-9

and wanted to get people's opinions. If I was to use 2 seperate computers and keyboard encoders but have the same picture beamed to both screens would this do the trick?

I have a feeling when it says 'first come, first served' it means when people are hammering away at the buttons on each cab it might struggle to register the keys... opinions please!

So effectively you have something like this -



(obviously with joysticks this is an old photo!) each cab would have a PC inside with a keyboard encoder for controls but they would both effectively controlling only one of the computers (which ever one is running MAME)

Kind of want to know whether or not the hyperlinked box would allow this to happen!

[DeLuSioNal29]

What about www.mameroom.com?  They have 4 player kits you can buy that are pre-cut.  You can also custom design your own as well.

[severdhed]

here is what i would do:

two cabinets, two computers, two keyboard encoders, two monitors

each cabinet is completely independent from the other.  cabinet 1 is set up completely normal, it's video card needs to have dual outputs.

the second cabinet is set up relatively normal, however the keyboard encoder is reprogrammed so that it uses a completely unique keymapping from that of the first cabinet.  a KVM switch is installed in cabinet 2 so that it can be a stand alone 2 player cabinet, then you press a button, and it is mirroring the video from cabinet 1, and is not players 3 and 4 on the cabinet 1 PC.

i hope i am making this clear. 

i dont know if the encoders you were planning on using would work with this or not..but this would work fine with an ipac, or any other encoder that allows for reprogramming.

[slapaham]

Hi severdhed

Yes, that all makes sense - it sounds like a good suggestion apart from I would have to get hold of another encoder as the ones I have are not programmable unfortunately. 

However, as mentioned before I thought this might solve the problem (Although, I'm doubtful!) I was still wondering whether any techies out there could offer their opinion on it -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rextron-Port-Share-Switch-REX09422/dp/B001HN5540/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234739802&sr=8-9

This would effectively solve my encoder problem but I have a feeling (as mentioned before) if 4 players are mashing keys on what the computer effectively sees as 2 keyboards at the same time then it isn't going to respond well... hope I'm wrong but I'm sure I'm not... feedback please on whether or not this is a viable option or whether I should chuck this idea out the window and take up severdhed's suggestion and just stomach the bill for another (programmable) encoder (though I will warn you, if it includes anything other than simply plugging it in and attaching the crimps to the microswitches I'm not going to be overly keen!)

[slapaham]

Oh, and just thought I'd say thanks to DeLuSioNal29 - I'd love to get one but I'm trying not to spend too much and living in the UK would make the shipping pretty horrendous! Cheers though - they look rather good!