Couple of Questions

[gt7766c]

Hi all. Just received my Rasberry Jamma and SD card from HSS for a horizontal setup and have a couple of questions. I've restored 2 arcade games thus far and am now building my first mame multi-player cab.

My setup: I'm restoring a 4-player NBA jam. CRT. I'm going to use an I-pac 4 for various reasons. The jamma connector will drive the CRT, power, coin door, speakers, etc. The controls through the ipac-4. The cab is about half-way done so I can't plug in the board just yet, but I'm really close. I have some experience with Mame and am learning attract-mode on my Mac.

Questions:
1) Will the menu joystick shortcuts still work (e.g., 1p start + joy right) if I'm going through an ipac-4?
2) How does the cab volume control work with the raspberry jamma volume control? In other words, can I use the cab volume control and if so, where should I set the raspberry jamma volume control to?
3) How should I setup coin inputs for 4 player games, like Konami's Simpsons, where there are 4 distinct coin inputs dedicated to each player? My initial thought was that the coin door will drive players 1 and 2 (we like using quarters in my house) and I'll have to add a 3 and 4 player credit button tied to the ipac 4? (I'm building the 4-player control panel box, not original, so I thought about adding credit buttons on the back)
4) What's the easiest way to edit the attract-mode setup and preferences outside of the cab? For example, I want to create a 3/4-player game display.
5) Advanced question that I'll probably never do but just curious. If I wanted to put a monitor on top of the cab and run two monitors (e.g., Dragon's Lair like back in the day), how would I do that? And/or, if I wanted the two distinct signals for Punch-Out, how would one do that?

Thanks,
Kris

[dee2eR]

I'll do my best to answer:

1. not the built in ARpiCADE shortcuts, they're set up to work with the player 1 inputs from the RaspberryJAMMA. You could adjust the hotkeys code to suit a different setup but unless I had the exact same setup I won't be able to do it for you. Does the IPAC4 have the same built in hardware shorcuts the other I/J-PACs have? If so they should work. [side note: if you haven't already bought the IPAC4 you could get the same result from just the 2 player version (or mini-PAC) and the built in JAMMA controls from the RaspberryJAMMA]

2. the RaspberryJAMMA volume control is actually signal attenuation prior to amplification, the cabside volume control will be after amplification. Both should work, just set them however works with your hardware. If you prefer to use one over the other there may be a sweet spot on the one you don't want to use that makes it just so but it's probably a good place to start to just have the unused volume pot at full volume. If you have extra amplification cabside you will need to bypass the cab or JAMMA board amp for best results, extra amping of the amplified mono signal from the RaspberryJAMMA is not recommended.

3. some 4 player games can share 1 coin input, some need 4 seperate coin inputs. I'm not sure how I would set it up but you will probably want all players to be able to add there own credits. If you're building a custom panel it may be worth just adding a credit button next to each start button, if you're working with an original cab it's not necesarily an option though. In Australia it's common for four player cabs like Simpsons and TMNT to use a credit sharing system with 1 coin mech and buttons to distribute the credits to each player (this was done with an extra PCB between the coin mech and the gameboard, the PCB simulates having 4 coin mechs by assigning the credits from one mech).

4. outside the cab you will need access to the second partition on the SD card to get to Attract-Mode settings. If you use Windows there is third party software that can add the ability to do it by a company called Paragon. I'm not sure offhand on a Mac. Linux will just be able to see it. Attract-Mode layouts (themes) are stored on the first partition of the SD card and can be accessed from any PC. For adjusting most settings it's probably quicker/easier to just use a keyboard and your cab.

5. it would be possible to split the video signal to 2 monitors, although this could add interference or other issues. The Pi isn't equipped to do 2 differing outputs, maybe it could be changed with software but I think this is a hardware limitation. You could fake the stacked screens of Punch-Out with a wide screen monitor mounted vertical but I don't think there's a way to do it to two CRTs. Same with the few triple screen super wide games. Maybe a future Pi revision or some other little computer could do it, I don't know.

Hope that helps.

[gt7766c]

Thank you dee2eR. You're the inventor correct? I'm super excited about this hardware&software setup. So customizable and plug and play.

Regarding #1: I went ahead and bought an ipac4 because I needed more inputs based on my calculations. NBA jam has 8 inputs per player x 4 for 32 inputs. From what I mapped out, the jamma edge and ipac 2 was a couple inputs shy. I'm also making the control panel modular so I can remove the 4-player and swap in a 2-player fighter setup (7 buttons) with a track-ball. I'm going to wire it up with a combination of molex connectors and just run the usb cable from the ipac4 to the pi. I believe the defaults are the same so it should work.

#2: Understood.

#3: I have a custom panel/box (it was originally a 2-player NBA jam that I'm turning into a 4-player), so I'll just add some credit buttons since I have the ipac 4. Very interesting regional difference you point out there.

#4: Can I run the pi (not attached to the RasberryJamma) and display on a regular desktop monitor to manipulate attract-mode? If not, I may look into the other suggestions as I just think it will be very difficult to modify the setting with a keyboard attached to the cab but I may end up doing that.

#5: Thanks for the info. I was just curious.


New question: Since I'm running a 4-player setup I want the 4 player versions of games (e.g., TMNT, Simpsons). As I understand it on some other threads, there is a parent/child relationship for these roms. How do I identify what to comment out or correct on the romlists?

Thanks again,
Kris

[dee2eR]

Yeah, that's me.

Swappable panels using USB makes sense, much easier to swap a single USB cable than many button connections. For the most part he default MAME keyboard commands should be intact (sometimes I've forgotten to put the keyboard command back in when I adjust something), you may need to setup at least players 3 and 4 for the Retroarch emulators though. If you run into any trouble getting it setup I'll be happy to help.

ARpiCADE should run and display on a regular HDMI TV, although some may not like the low res signal (the HDMI monitors I have tried can display the low res signal fine via HDMI).

[gt7766c]

Thank you for the help. I'm almost to the point where I can plug it into my cab and I'll come back with any questions as well as continue reading the other posts.

[dee2eR]

No worries.
I just realised I missed your question about the four player rom versions. Generally the 4 player versions are the parents and are in the hide array in the romscanner scripts, removing them from the array will let the romscanner add them to the list.

this is the hide array in my copy of /home/pi/.attract/noPornRoms.sh (the other one is just called sortRoms.sh and serves the same purpose without hiding adult roms):
hide=("*" "fixeight" "chainrec" "gauntlet" "gaunt2" "ssriders" "theend" "crkdown" "brubber" "esckids" "retofinv" "fpoint" "aafb" "agress" "sfiii" "sfiii2" "sfiii3" "jojo" "jojoba" "bloxeed" "viprp1" "tmnt" "tmnt2" "xmen" "rdft2" "rdft" "simpsons" "vendetta")

usually anything in the hide array is just there because I use a clone for that game and want the parent hidden. You can add or remove anything you like to suit your setup. Some 4 player games are 2/4 player selectable via the games dipswitches so won't appear in these lists.

[gt7766c]

Great news. I plugged up my crt and the rasberryjamma and arpicade booted right up. I was so excited and thank you. I know this has been a lot of work. I stared reading some of the klov thread.

Couple of questions now. I didn’t play around mucb while it was in the cab and am now hooked up to my led tv through hdmi. It doesn’t like the game res but the attract mode menu works just fine.

I’d like to edit some of the files on the pi but can’t get to a Linux command line. What am I doing wrong? In version 3.82 I hit f4 to go to the test menu. If I hit f4 again, it prompts me to exit attract mode. If I say yes I go to a blank screen and can’t see or do anything. Thoughts?

Kris

[dee2eR]

Sounds like your LED TV likes 480i but not 240p. If the TV is the place you plan to use the system you could run it in 480p mode.

As far as reaching the terminal goes you were doing the right thing, not sure why you got a blank screen instead of a terminal. Had you run any games before trying to go to the terminal? If so try again without running any games first as the resolution switching may have something to do with the issue you're having. F4 to exit both instances of Attract-Mode is the right thing to do though. (wish I had a better suggestion than just try it again though).

[gt7766c]

Thanks. It’s probably the resolution. I decided to put it in my Ms. pac-Man cab for now to play with and learn while I’m still restoring the 4-player cab. If I like it in there enough I may buy a second.

It’s an original ms pac with no board so I currently have a jamma adapter hooked up to a 60-in-1. The jamma adapter makes p1 start also p1b1 and the same for p2

I’d love for this to be a long term solution. Thinking ahead however, what should I do about the joystick shortcuts? I anticipate there being problems where the game continuously credits up while I’m pressing the combined p1 button... suggestions?

[dee2eR]

I guess the easiest thing to do would be change the shortcut to something else, or disable it entirely if you don't need a credit shortcut. See /boot/hotkeys.ini to edity the shortcuts.