Building a four-player arcade cabinet

[FredMSloniker 2]

I had the inspiration to make a sort of arcade machine that can support up to four players, each with their own screen and controls. So this is the design I came up with:

 

 

Since it's hard to see the details, let me walk you through it. The first level is a cross of decorative cubes with a power converter in the center; I'm attaching power from underneath. On the second level, four screens and four keyboards frame a server rack, with its network mode set to internal and the servers talking to the left, right, back, and top sides. On top, two pieces of cable connect the top side to the screen and keyboard at the front. (There's no room to connect a floppy drive, so be sure to install the OS on the servers before you finalize the setup.)

 

As far as I can tell, this leaves every server capable of talking to its screen, its keyboard, and the other servers. Once I write the code for the actual games, I just run it on each server, they hook up to exchange data, and voila, they can play poker or maze shoot or whatever I come up with.

 

Can anyone think of something I've done wrong? Oh, and on a related note: I read on the wiki that switches only transmit up to 20 packets every five ticks, but is that in fact a limit on communication in general? Does it apply to the server's internal switching? Could the servers communicate faster if I spent the extra resources and power to give them wireless network cards? Can two computers communicate faster if they're connected by a cable instead of a switch?

 

[SpiritedDusty 3]

I believe each server rack is independent of others and limits on one server rack will not apply to limits on other server racks. The 20 packet per 5 tick limit should count independently for each server rack. As for your other questions, I have no clue. Sangar would probably have to answer them.

[pedrosgali 8]

This idea is awesome, I have no clue about your networking problem however.

I really want to see 4 player pong for this cabinet, each player takes one screen edge and any missing players their edge becomes a wall. So it could serve as 1-4 player pong!

[Sangar 92]

A few thoughts:

• You can power the server rack directly, no need for a power converter.
• You could place disk drives underneath the screens. Unless the reason you decided not to do that was an aesthetic one?
• Your switch throughput numbers: where on the wiki does it say that? Because that's not quite right: by default switches transfer one packet every 5 ticks, and have an internal queue of size 20. I think this doesn't apply to internal messaging, but I'm not sure TBH, you'll have to try it out yourself. Sending them via WLAN or when connected directly would definitely be free of this limit.

Love the idea, looking forward to the finished thing!

[FredMSloniker 2]

• Your switch throughput numbers: where on the wiki does it say that? Because that's not quite right: by default switches transfer one packet every 5 ticks, and have an internal queue of size 20.

 

I misread the wiki entry on that. Thanks for the correction! I'll have to test whether that applies to server racks; hopefully it won't, as that would rather rule out faster-paced games.

[Murlocking 0]

I misread the wiki entry on that. Thanks for the correction! I'll have to test whether that applies to server racks; hopefully it won't, as that would rather rule out faster-paced games.

Hello there, very old thread I know but I was wondering if you ever got this project finished? 

Would love to have a game of 2 players Snake  

Very cool idea!