Interesting idea my buddy came up with

[TheGameAh]

I know this isn't practical, and I know someone here has probably already done it.  But it would be neat to see I think.  I've got my cab in nearly complete condition.  My buddy said wouldn't it be cool if you could link two of them together.  One person could be on one panel playing against someone on another cabinet, playing the same game.

I started seeing it in my head.  You'd need an IPAC 4 player version, a video card that support dual monitors, extension cables, etc.  Like I said, not practical to have 2 arcade cabinets in the same room, but it would be neat to see in action.

[AlanS17]

If you intended to play the same game on the same screen then you only need a splitter for your monitor. That really makes one machine only a shell, though. Seems to me to be a kind of a waste.

[TheGameAh]

Well you could have the second machine set up as a mame machine, then simply run the extension cables over and hook them up when you wanted to do the two player.  But you're right, it's not a practical idea.

[steve_pss]

are there any games (say like driving games) that support a split screen like this?

[grafixmonkey]

What would you play two player that way?  Just have two one-player cabs, with mirrored screens, for street fighter?  Or two 2-player cabs, and hook 'em up to play TMNT?

This might be a good idea for mini-cabs, built to be one or two player but able to link up, and small enough to carry around at will.

Here's what I'm thinking:   Molex connectors would allow you to plug a second control set into your ipac whenever you want, just attach your buttons and joysticks to molex plugs and counterpart molex plugs to your ipac.  The monitor can be disconnected and reconnected at will, and you can get extension cords for them so your cab could even have a "monitor out" port on the back of it.  Dual screen video cards are nice.  I use one for grafix, so I set the display mode to 'Clone' (it's nVidia) and started up Mame.  Seems to work!  

I think the best way to accomplish the easy hot-plugging control panels would be to get 15-pin Molex connectors, which can handle a joystick, 6 buttons, coin, start, one spare, and two ground pins, and make the layout of the button and joystick connections standard for your molex plugs.  (i.e. the top middle button will always be on the same molex pin on every layout you hook up.)  Then, all you have to do is plug a player's layout (might be two layouts on a panel) into the player you want it to be.  

It might be worth putting the Ipac into its own box, and having four female molex connectors hanging out.  Then you're completely modular, you can even plug in a dance pad or arcade-enabled coffee machine.

Here's my dualie playing dualie-Golden-Axe on dualie screens.  dualie.

[APFelon]

My first post to this forum... Hello!  

Now that introductions are concluded, I actually was thinking about this myself. I know in Japan they had setups like this for fighting games (players sat facing each other, each their own monitor, so their hands could be hidden from their opponents. It eliminated the "cheating" of players who would react to hand movements instead of the action onscreen.

I think your idea is pretty cool, and if you have a spare cabinet and some money burning a hole in your pocket, it might be a fun, unique project.

Half the fun of making a MAME cab is building the cab itself, right?

[AlanS17]

Well you're gonna have a hard time playing games that had different stuff on different screens, but mirroring a screen isn't difficult at all. (It would still feel like a waste of a cab, though.)

Unless... you built a 2 fully-functional cab with the ability to be "taken over" by another one to allow for external a/v input and control output.

[TheGameAh]

Unless... you built a 2 fully-functional cab with the ability to be "taken over" by another one to allow for external a/v input and control output.

This was the idea I was poking at in my second post above

[_Iz-]

Why not build 2 complete, fully functional cabinets and link them with ethernet? Then you could play separate games on either or play together using mamenet or Kaillera?

[aust_txv]

My first post to this forum... Hello!  

 I know in Japan they had setups like this for fighting games (players sat facing each other, each their own monitor, so their hands could be hidden from their opponents. It eliminated the "cheating" of players who would react to hand movements instead of the action onscreen.

True.  Plus if you play fighters with fighters they tend to stick their elbow in your ear hole when they come up short.  Nice idea to keep the rec room from becoming a wreck.  I have to test this out hook up to my cab and a tv to test it out.  Sounds cool.  You got me thinking.  This idea would help out with cab crowd... Nice for sports games maybe.  Just what I was looking for, a reason to construct another cp.  Oh Hello back.

Questions for ALL

S-video  y splitter ?  Will there be any timing issues with video (video lag) ?
Are there such things as composite video y splitters ?

Thanks,

TV

[TheGameAh]

Why not build 2 complete, fully functional cabinets and link them with ethernet? Then you could play separate games on either or play together using mamenet or Kaillera?

More details, please Iz.    I'm not familiar with either of those programs.

[SirPoonga]

Can always use www.kaillera.com

[TheGameAh]

Thanks for the link.

[IIOIOOIOO]

If you want a quick run of how kaillera works out, go grab that CP2-x
emulator... Final Burn Alpha XL2 POWERSMASH! Or whatever the current iteration is called. The win-gui has Kaillera interface built right in, so it's pretty easy to hop on there and browse for games etc. I've had some success, but not a ton because of diff emus don't sync very well, and they're all jumbled together on there. However, doing it on an internal network would work much better, since you'd be using the same emu etc.

[_Iz-]

I also hear the network code in xmame (linux) is top notch.

[Aceldamor]

Can always use www.kaillera.com

That would be ideal, just have one of your cabs be the server.  If your a broadband user however, how do you not make your server public?

This whole thread give me the justification to build a cocktail cab.....MUAHAHAHA. I'll probably be single but at least i'll have a cocktail cab.

[_Iz-]

That would be ideal, just have one of your cabs be the server.  If your a broadband user however, how do you not make your server public?

This whole thread give me the justification to build a cocktail cab.....MUAHAHAHA. I'll probably be single but at least i'll have a cocktail cab.

1. Link the cabs with just a crossover cable

-or-

2. Set the server to only accept connections from the cab's IP addresses

-or-

3. Put everything behind a firewall and block Kaillera's port.

[crashdmj]

I recently just posted a similar idea only with two bar top CPs. My buddy is building a bar for our house basement (Im still in college) and I had a cool idea of having two monitors, both flush with the bar and overlayed with lexan, set in on different ends of the bar. The CP would be a simple neo geo layout (fighters mostly cab i guess) and basically you could "fight someone" at the other end of the bar and you'd each have your own controls. I think it would be simple, easy and fun. Like it was previously mentioned I'd be mirroring the first screen, so would I need a monitor "y" cable? No special software or videocard right?
Derek

[The Man]

Why not build 2 complete, fully functional cabinets and link them with ethernet? Then you could play separate games on either or play together using mamenet or Kaillera?

This was discussed in another thread sometime ago.  I ran a little test using Kaillera on my home network and found, at that time, that it really didn't work like I wanted it to.  You could play co-op games, but not head to head games.  Screen flipping isn't supported in MAME (one user on one screen and another user on another screen), and as far as I can tell it still hasn't been implemented in MAME yet.  The previous discussion was on Cyber Ball and the head to head Nintendo games.

Take all this with a grain of salt, I haven't looked into it for quite sometime.
TM

[Howard_Casto]

Screen flipping has been supported in mame for years.  Perhaps your talking about something else?  Be more specific.  


Kaillera sucks, that's just not a good way to do it.   Unfortunately that's about the only way to do it.  I did see a products geared towards consoles a few years back that might work though.  It was designed for split screen games.  You told it where the divide line was and it literally split the video signal into two seperate ones.  (Or 3 or 4 depending upon the game)  This use of a dual monitor setup would make more sense as you would be splitting the screen instead of doubling it.  Of course the cabs would have to be next to each other to play properly.  

There are some drawbacks though.....  Fist off I think it only worked on svid and composite, so forget about having a nice arcade monitor.  Also remember you are simply physically blowing up the image, so the image on each screen would be half the resolution that an image that size would normally be.  

I wish I knew the name of the product, but it was very short lived.  Mainly because most kids don't have 4 tv's to play n64 on.    If you look on ebay you might get lucky and find one, however.  There are also professional quality versions of this device, but you'll pay a butt-load for them.  

[TheTick]

Like it was previously mentioned I'd be mirroring the first screen, so would I need a monitor "y" cable? No special software or videocard right?
Derek

Monitor "y" cables can get pricey but they are available (i.e. $40 or the price of a dual monitor video card, well maybe half the price).

[crashdmj]

Monitor y cables are only like 18 bucks for a 6 in one (db15 m to x2 female).
Derek

[TheTick]

Whoops... that's what happens when you use CompUSA pricing as a reference (not that I'd ever shop there again)

[Trenchbroom]

The perfect cab for this setup?  Nintendo Vs. cabinet of course.  Player one on far left side of left screen and player 2 on far right of right screen so they can't see each other's joystick movement.  Take up a lot less space then a back-to-back cabinet would.

[paigeoliver]

I have seen many of those Vs. Dualsystem refitted with TMNT and other assorted 4 player games. More comfortable than cramming 4 people in front of a 25" cabinet.

Matter of fact. This thread got me thinking that I could just use my spare cabinet as a clone of my main cabinet, but with a trackball and 4 way, thus completing the holy trinity of controls (8-way, 4-way, and trackball).

I am going out to get a splitter cable!!

[grafixmonkey]

  I'm not sure how far a monitor cable can go before the picture goes funny...  A friend had a monitor cable spanning his room, and the image came up in red only (missing blue and green).  He said it was because of the length, but I'm not sure if it's that or broken wires.  He was kinda nuts.  (had 6 computers, 386, 486, old junk, just sitting in his room piled in a corner doing nothing but running windows.  Didn't even have them serving anything.)

When I see more than one monitor being driven from one PC, it's usually done one of two ways:
*  Use video card with two plugs, and 'clone screen' mode.
*  Use a breakout repeater box, with an input plug and two or more output plugs.  It repeats the signal instead of just powering two screens off one port.  A Y cable might work fine for just two screens though, I've never actually seen it tried before.

[crashdmj]

I was shopping around websites for long monitor y cable and a site said that a y cable would be good up until 25 feet before the pic distorts or you have significant signal loss. If that occurs you could buy this box thingy they had which amplified the signal and made it perfect. The downside was that the box was like 60 bucks, but then again who will use more than 25 feet?
Derek

[grafixmonkey]

Didn't know how long that bar in your basement was.  

If you use a Y cable with one short and one long segment on the end, let me know if you see any image ghosting...   I'm curious if it would happen or not.

[crashdmj]

Sadly I have yet to act on my second project before I finish my first but I was think the same thing you are, whether or not there is ghosting due to one cable from the "y" being longer than the other.
derek

[grafixmonkey]

Unfortunately I dropped my transmission lines class halfway through, so I couldn't guess.