How to enable TATE mode?

BigWeather

New member
Jul 1, 2013
51
0
How do I try TATE mode with Steam? Want to see if that is sufficient before biting of $150 (or $500, gulp) for true cabinet support. Thanks!
 

BigWeather

New member
Jul 1, 2013
51
0
Never mind, figured it out. Yeah, TATE isn't as good as true cabinet support (at least based on the videos showing it in operation). Second question -- for now my setup would be a large (65") TV in landscape with a small (20" or so 16:9) monitor for the backglass / DMD. Does cabinet mode support this? I figure the 65" TV has enough physical height that playing it cabinet wouldn't be too annoying (unless it stretches the width rather than side barring it). Thanks!
 

gust334

New member
Jun 20, 2018
55
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With the current version v1.70.21...

My opinion is that there is little point in getting cabinet mode if your playfield display will remain in landscape. The base game will play just fine in landscape. The default camera views will show the playfield and DMD, and many tables have settings where the camera will zoom into activity at the top of the table if nothing is happening below it. Those tables that have activity in the backglass will scroll onto the backglass as necessary.

The base game will also play in portrait. The substantial difference between cabinet mode and base-game-portrait is that with the base-game-portrait mode, the playfield is a tall trapezoid, using the full screen width at the bottom but being somewhat compressed into the middle at the top of the playfield/display. In cabinet mode the top of the playfield, furthest from you, fills the whole width of the top of the portrait display, and the playfield is a rectangle overall.

As far as screen sizes, the game doesn't care about the real physical dimensions (65"/20") as long as the primary Windows screen is set to portrait. The game units are pixels.

The cabinet mode setup has fields for top, left, width, and height of each rendered item: playfield, backglass, and DMD. It simply uses the coordinates you specify to place rendered items on the screen(s).

Although I have been running a three-screen setup, I just did an experiment where I set playfield, backglass, and DMD values so that all three mapped non-overlapping into smaller regions on one portrait screen, and it worked as expected, if a bit tiny.

In my three screen setup I usually set my backglass screen to not use the full width of its landscape 16:9 display, because using the full width makes the backglasses look really stretched. I don't know the proper width, but I'm guessing it is somewhere between 1:1 and 4:3.

Similary, I set my DMD screen to not use the full height, because using the full height makes the DMDs look tall and thin. DMDs seem to want a 3:1 or maybe even 4:1 aspect ratio. Again, I haven't invested any time to determine the right ratio.
 

BigWeather

New member
Jul 1, 2013
51
0
Thanks for the information, gust334. I ended up getting cabinet mode because I prefer view 4 (total top-down) to any of the TATE / normal views. Played around with it some and it looks like the playfield monitor has to be portrait or it doesn't work, which is a shame as it is physically big enough that going 607.5 x 1080 (maintaining same ratio as 1080 x 1920) would work fine. Anyhow, managed to use my TV as my backglass/DMD and a the small 20" TV in portrait as my playfield. Works fine enough, I guess, except now I can't play non-cabinet DX11 as the application is mostly off-screen. Not sure what is happening there. Anyhow, long term I'll likely get a 40"-ish TV to use portrait and use that smaller TV in portrait as backglass (on top) and DMD (on bottom). Should that work? Thanks!
 

gust334

New member
Jun 20, 2018
55
0
Yes, in cabinet mode you must set the primary display portrait for the playfield. You may enter coordinates to place the backglass and DMD on a second landscape screen, with them stacked vertically on that screen. The cabinet mode configuration utility has a 2-screen/3-screen menu, but I don't really know what the point is since you still get top,left,height,width settings for all three rectangles.
 

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