Gun Cabinet Games (Beast Busters, etc.)

[Beast96GT]

Hi,  a few quick questions, I couldn't find anything in the search.

I'm looking at buying a SNK Beast Busters game that has 3 positional guns on it.   I want to know if this cabinet can be setup to play multiple games of this time, starting from SNK's Mechanized Attack to even Taito titles like Operation Wolf, Thunderbolt, etc.   

I'm already building a Mame cabinet, but I don't want to put positional guns on it.  That's why I thought this might be a way to play those games.   Thanks for any responses!

=Chris

[MTPPC]

My "Touched in the Head" bartop touchscreen plays a number of MAME shooters with the touch screen. I have to have it so lifting the finger fires for games like clay pigeon and turkey hunt, but that makes T2 a little harder. The touchscreen works pretty good for Mechanized Attack.

[compute]

Although I don't know about that game specifically, most positional "guns" are really just analog controls.  As long as you can find a way to interface those X's and Y's to a device (gamepad hack?), then you should be able to use those for any of those games.

[Endprodukt]

Should be no problem. Get an A-Pac and hook up the potis... You may have to add some resistors to the pots, but someone with more technical knowledge then I have should answer those questions.

[BadMouth]

Either the A-Pac or U-Hid will work and the pots are just hooked up to the interface.
No resistors.  It doesn't matter what value the pots are.

The A-Pac will work, but only had enough inputs for 2 guns, so you'd need 2.  There used to be a 6 axis version, but it's been discontinued.
I'd go with the U-HID.  It has to be configured to tell it which pins are hooked up to what type of input, but it will handle all three guns.
It can also be configured to have outputs, so using mamehooker and some external parts, you could have the recoil working.
(all with only one device!) http://www.u-hid.com/home/index.php

I bought a pair of positional guns with the intention of building a dedicated cab, but decided there weren't enough games to make it worthwhile.
Attached to my reply in this thread is a list of positional gun games.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,109833.msg1163299.html#msg1163299
It's missing Revolution X and Invasion.  Invasion requires a pretty powerful computer to play.

What really killed it for me was that Sega Model 2 emulator doesn't accept joystick input.
You can use a joystick to mouse program and that will get player 1's gun working, but the results aren't that great.

Jurassic Park, the Lost World is playable with the Supermodel emulator if you have a fast computer.

Although I never built a dedicated cab, I do have a thrown together CP with a big 2 handed gun from Wild Pilot mounted to the top of it.
I get it out a few times a year.

[Beast96GT]

Good information.     

Let me ask you this...  Would it be easier to get some kind of Jamma switcher and just pick up the other PCBs and switch between them?   I'm only looking to play a few games on it, like Beast Busters (of course), Mechanized Attack, Operation Wolf & Thunderbolt.   I saw a 6 in 1 Jamma board switch on jammaboards.com, but it was sold out... a search on here seemed to indicate that those switchers quit working easily?   I guess one thing I failed to mention is that I'd like to use as much as possible in the Beast Busters machine.   

Another option?
I just noticed a PC to Jamma converter on Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0KR05U3175
Is it possible to use this with a PC and some of the game ROMs and still get the recoil gun vibration?   THANKS.

=Chris

[Beast96GT]

Well, it looks like Beast Busters is Non-Jamma, go figure.   I'm guessing that makes it not a good candidate for any of this kind of work..

=Chris

[MTPPC]

My "Touched in the Head" bartop touchscreen plays a number of MAME shooters with the touch screen. I have to have it so lifting the finger fires for games like clay pigeon and turkey hunt, but that makes T2 a little harder. The touchscreen works pretty good for Mechanized Attack.

I switched over to an elo touchscreen and the "mouse click on lift" stopped registering. I switched it back to normal mouse operation and the shooters all work good except for the exidy games like clay pigeon and crossbow.