GameEx for a 3-sided Cocktail Cab?

[GoTheBunnies]

What you will need to do is use PlugInRotate to switch the FE into vertical mode and then you will have to set games to cocktail mode manually using the dip switches (there is not automated way to do this AFAIK). In mame.ini set it to "autosave" so when you exit it should keep that setting.

Tom: I could update the PlugInRotate to go into cocktail mode instead of rotating left or right when launching a vertical game. If you can add a App_CMD_Type.RotateCocktail I can add that quite easily.

So with PlugInRotate, and the new cocktail feature I think you will have the best possible solution for a 3 sided cocktail cab

Thanks Headkaze - one more potentially stupid question - if I use the PlugInRotate to go into cocktail mode, how does it know the games for which it needs to rotate? (ie how does it identify a cocktail game that needs to be shown vertocally)?

[headkaze]

Thanks Headkaze - one more potentially stupid question - if I use the PlugInRotate to go into cocktail mode, how does it know the games for which it needs to rotate? (ie how does it identify a cocktail game that needs to be shown vertocally)?

GameEx tells the plugin it's a vertical game. That just means when you launch a game that is vertical GameEx will go into cocktail mode. When you exit the game it will stay that way. Just means you don't have to change seats to select the next game (only when you launch a game in a different orientation).

[bkenobi]

I haven't played with CFG Magician in quite a while, but I just saw that picture you posted Tempest. That looks really nice, but I have one comment. Convention usually has radio buttons as a mandatory selection rather than an optional one. You have a radio button for freeplay and cocktail. Those should really be toggle (check mark) buttons since they are a binary selection. Also, the other options don't have a "none" option, so when you select one thing, it would appear you can't turn off the selection to disable setting the dip switch. One thing you could do is put a "disabled" or "none" option for each of those.

Good stuff!

[Tempest]

Good point.

[bubbafish]

I'm a GameEx user who has been playing Mame games on an ordinary PC.

I'm soon getting a 4-player cabinet oriented as a 3-sided cocktail (Dreamcade 2.0) and ran across this thread today.

This is what I'd like to do:

1) For horizontal games, run the game horizontally using the side-by-side controls.

2) For vertical games (non-cocktail), run the game vertically where the two players share a single controller on one of the ends.

3) For vertical games (cocktail), run the game vertically where the two players sit across from one another on each end with their own controller, and the display rotates 180 deg between turns.

Is there a definitive way to accomplish this easily, in terms of screen rotation AND control configuration?

Ideally I wouldn't have to configure each game separately to do this, but I have to do, I'd be willing to do it for my favorite games.

[GoTheBunnies]

I'm a GameEx user who has been playing Mame games on an ordinary PC.

I'm soon getting a 4-player cabinet oriented as a 3-sided cocktail (Dreamcade 2.0) and ran across this thread today.

This is what I'd like to do:

1) For horizontal games, run the game horizontally using the side-by-side controls.

2) For vertical games (non-cocktail), run the game vertically where the two players share a single controller on one of the ends.

3) For vertical games (cocktail), run the game vertically where the two players sit across from one another on each end with their own controller, and the display rotates 180 deg between turns.

Is there a definitive way to accomplish this easily, in terms of screen rotation AND control configuration?

Ideally I wouldn't have to configure each game separately to do this, but I have to do, I'd be willing to do it for my favorite games.

Yes, you can accomplish all 3, itâ??s easy enough, but time consuming.

This is what I had to do â??

â?¢ Identify the Mame games that have a cocktail switch (I used romlister to do so). From memory, I ended up with about 180 games, but there were a lot of duplicates

â?¢ Once identified, go through and manually change the switch on each individual game. Change the switch, exit and test, 1 at a time. Youâ??ll find that just because a game has the switch, doesnâ??t mean it will flip. On about 30% of them, the switch doesnâ??t do anything.

â?¢ Once I had a â??cleanâ?? list, I created a separate menu item in GameEx of Cocktail Games, so that there was absolutely no confusion for a user as to what was going to flip and what wasnâ??t. I think my clean list (ex duplicates etc) is about 70-80 games long.

Hope that helps!

[headkaze]

Once identified, go through and manually change the switch on each individual game.

I thought CFG Magician can do this? It should be able to set the switch for each game.

[GoTheBunnies]

I thought CFG Magician can do this? It should be able to set the switch for each game.

The last time I looked at it, CFG Magician didn't have the option to change the cocktail switch. But even if it now does, you still have to check each game individually as I described above, so it's actually a more effective process to change the switch and test one at a time IMO.