Trouble with Aimtrak sensitivity in Ubuntu

[HungryDave]

I tried to search this one out but couldn't find anything useful yet. Hopefully this isn't a repeat!

I was using Windows Vista on my arcade PC but it was delivering choppy sound and was just slow all around. I tried out an install of Ubuntu 11.04 and it fixed all my issues and it booted much faster. I'm up and running with a compiled version of groovymame 64-bit.

The only problem I'm having now is that my Aimtrak lightgun that worked flawlessly in Vista is now super-sensitive in lightgun games. It works just fine as a mouse cursor outside of MAME. Once I fire up a game (opwolf, lethal enforcers, term2, and others) the crosshair will only travel to the extreme edges of the screen. I can find a very small spot that I can actually keep the crosshair visible. I've recalibrated the gun and in certain games and it still freaks out. I've tried tweaking the sensitivity in MAME and some of the other analog settings to no avail. Obviously this isn't the way to play.

Has anyone else tried to use an Aimtrak (or any lightgun) in Ubuntu (or any flavor of Linux) with any luck? I really don't want to go back to Vista...

Thanks!
Dave

[spoot]

Interested to hear about a fix......I've been eying buying a set for my Ubuntu cab.

[HungryDave]

I'm just checking back in. I'm still having the problem and I think I'll have to switch back to Vista 64.

Does anyone know if something odd happens to input scaling when MAME takes over? It's almost as if the scaling is still set for a larger resolution and then applied to a smaller one (or vice versa). I've tried all kinds of combinations of desktop and MAME resolutions with no success. It just seems odd that the pointer moves fine outside of MAME and then goes to hell once a game fires up. 

Thanks again for reading!

P.S. If a mod reads this, could this topic be moved to the Linux forum? I think it would be more appropriate there. Thanks!

[HungryDave]

Here's my final followup. I just couldn't get the gun to track properly with any version of MAME in Ubuntu. I threw in the towel and installed Windows 7 and the gun is working perfectly now.

I'm pretty sure it's a MAME/Ubuntu issue. The gun works great outside of that combination.

[Lawrence]

Hi,

I had exactly the same problem and managed to solve it this
morning by doing the following:

Solving erratic cursor for Linux/OSX MAME ports:

1) In the Aimtrak utility, configure the Aimtrak Light Gun as a joystick instead of a mouse.
2) Assign gamepad (GP) buttons instead of mouse buttons.
3) In the 'mame.ini' file, set the 'joystiq_dead_zone' value to 0 (Default is 0.3)
4) In the 'Analog Controls' UI menu for AD games, set the 'Autocenter' values all to 0.
5) Follow normal mame configuration as suggested by Aimtrak manual.