Dual emulation on widescreen possible?

[Blanka]

I'm into building a modern style arcade cabinet around a 70-80cm LCD screen. Problem is that the bigger ones are all wide-screen. But I thought of an idea to make use of the wide-screen instead of fear it.

I have a controller with a 2 person lay-out. Now I want a machine that can both run 2-player games full screen, and 2 single player games split screen. Is there a way to run 2 instances of Mame at once? Or even better, is it possible to make a Mame front-end that support 2 games at once in split screen layout? That would be totally awesome! Pac Man and many other games are 3:4 tall, which would deliver 2 900x1200 screens on a 1920x1200 display. With all dual-cores and quad cores, finding and distributing necessary power should not be difficult.
In theory I could go for the Eizo 30inch screen, which offers the function on the display side, but it would need 2 computers and thus at least 2000 euro extra (that specific screen is expensive), and the input handling would be an extra horde.

Sketch of what I want to have:


Another thought:
It would be totally awesome if a dual-screen front-end also deals with Skype voice chat and iTunes browsing. That way I could combine a phone, an arcade and a jukebox into 1.

[fantoboy]

I don't know about doing it with software, but my Samsung plasma can do a pip splitscreen like that.  So you would need 2 pcs or 2 video sources when you want to run the 2nd instance of mame.  You'd also need to toggle the 2nd player controller from one pc to the other.  Not what you wanted, but it is a solution.

[Lilwolf]

If your only going to use it for emulation, you might want to go witha  real arcade monitor.

Other then that, you will want it to be used for the sideart also right?  If so, you probably want to put it vertical and fill in the space... Then just setting up the aspect ratio correctly and everyting will work itself out.

Seems like a vertical widescreen would be great... especially for giving space for the artwork.

[Blanka]

I just want to use my two person controller for two one-person games simultaneously side-by side. It has nothing to do with orientation, siderart or "true arcade experience"