3 sided cocktail table, PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!

[tyler a]

hello all,

to put it short, I NEED HELP. I know this question has been asked before in a way, and i have been through hundreds of topics but can not find a working detailed answer.
   i have built a 3 sided cocktail with players 1-2 on the front for horizontals and 3-4 on the side for verticals.i have mame, mala and winipac on a standard windows pc. all programs are operational but i am having dramas with controls, screen orientation and player swapping.
   i cant get side controls to work as players 1 and 2 on vertical games as well as getting the screen to flip ( i am able to play all games on player 1 controls and horizontal screen but thats useless) im not sure if winipac is working correctly becuase its remembering control  setups but they dont work.

im also wondering if i should uninstall everything and restart with a newer or older versions of all software.
Can anyone or does anyone have a detailed step by step guide or a setup for all software and working software versions i can use.

i finished building this arcade months ago and have been trying to get this to work for so long but i just keep hitting the wall

Any help would be much appreciated  and i thank you for taking the time to read this.

Thanks
     

[NOP]

sounds like you need a heavy dose of the TAB key!

launch a game, lets use pacman, from within mala.  Don't worry about mala's screen orientation yet.

after pacman is running its attract screen, press the tab key and get into mame's configuration.  You can select video options and rotate the screen into the proper orientation from there.  Then find the dipswitches menu and locate the cabinet style dipswitch, flip it to cocktail from upright.  (you will have to reset or restart a game to have that change take effect).  Putting the cabinet type into cocktail should enable the screen flipping on the vertical ends.  Not all games support this mode.  Not all games work properly when put into this mode, so be sure to play test a 2 player game on every cocktail game you have.

Then go into the controls menu and you will need to switch all the P1 and P2 input controls to wherever your joysticks are wired up. 
Use the "input (this game)" menu to change your mappings.

Now do that for the rest of your games.  There are probably some cheater utilities to let you do this type of thing globally on all games, but I like to do it by hand-its your machine, you should know each game that is on it.  It may also be easier to have multiple copies of MAME running on your machine-check the sticky posts in the mala forum on how to do this.

For mala, you will want to have 2 lists.  One for cocktails that is displayed when someone on the vertical sides controls the machine, and then one for horizontal.  In mala's display configuration section (sorry it's been 2 years since I was in there) you can have it select which list gets displayed when someone uses the joystick or buttons on their respective side. 

[Lilwolf]

Another thing you can try.  Most frontends handle more then one version of mame.  You might want to install mame twice, and use one version for vertical games, and one for horizontal.  Then the default setup for each will do.

I do something similar to this for multiple control panels using webmame (http://webmame.wikidot.com/) to specify which game goes to which category in hyperspin (the frontend).  But I don't believe it handles vertical monitors until version 2.0 (not out yet) and I'm not sure if you will be able to switch back / forth.   But webmame should work with most frontends (I've only used it with hyperspin and maya recently)

[GoTheBunnies]

Ahhhh the problems of a 3-sided cocktail.

I'm also doing a 3-sided cocktail build, and am having some similar problems to you, although I'm not using the sides for Players 3 and 4 - I still only want them for Players 1 and 2 but so that the players can play Cocktail games in the right orientation.

Anyway, the point of my post - look up CFG Magician (there's a fair bit about it on the GameEx forum) - it will help you change the settings for multiple games all at the same time - rather than each one individually.

[tyler a]

thanks heaps guys

i will give it another go and get back to you 

[tyler a]

NOP you are a legend. i cant believe after all the configurations i have been through that there was such a simple answer. your details worked perfect and now all games have been sorted and work great.  THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

one thing i cant get wright is the orientation swapping . i have it set so that when i manually swap the orientation with right mouse click, that it only shows cocktail games on vertical and so on. but i cant get it to swap orientation automatically like you mention above.

[loadman]

Hi,

This thread belongs in the MaLa section really ;-)

one thing i cant get wright is the orientation swapping . i have it set so that when i manually swap the orientation with right mouse click, that it only shows cocktail games on vertical and so on. but i cant get it to swap orientation automatically like you mention above.

I think the pic attached show the section you want to enable.

If not try the cocktail controller - controller mapping options

[tyler a]

thanks mate but i have that setting enabled and it is working were it only shows the games for that orientation, but i cant use my vertical side controls on vertical game list, i have to reach around and use front controller just to scroll down or up.

[loadman]

As I say

"If not try the cocktail controller - controller mapping options"  

I have a 3 sided cocktail myself.  

Many options depending on what you want.

Might be better to start a new thread in the MaLa section as other users may have suggestions based on what worked for them