act-labs gun help

[saintjo]

I recently got my vga act-labs gun in the mail. I only purchased 1 to see how well it worked before i shell out another 40 bucks.
I do have a question about getting the game to work. I am running mame v76 on a old tv at 640x800. I calibrated the gun as specified in the documentation. However certain games, like area 51, the gun does not line up with where i am shooting. I think this might have to do with calibrating at 640x480 then running a game that probably runs at 800x600.
Also, I am unable to shoot off the screen to reload. It always thinks I am shooting at the very edge of the screen even when the gun is pointed no where towards the monitor.
Anyone else have any suggestions or run into similar problems?

[Lilwolf]

You have to calibrate it more often then they say... One the VGA version (dont' have the tv one) I get better results by not letting mame change any resolutions or bpp (both) and using hwstretching...  

As for the shoot off screen... I'm assuming that they didn't fix this... So what you will need is either analogmame+ that has a button 2 fix... Or a cheat so you never have to reload...

sucks... they should have made it so that not hitting the screen was the same as pressing button 2 or button 3.  Would have made it easy (and closer to the originals)

[Chris]

You need to calibrate at the resolution you're going to play, so wait until the Area 51 attract screen comes up before you calibrate.

[u_rebelscum]

To back up what others have said, if you change resolutions of refresh rate, you need to recalibrate the gun.

Also, I am unable to shoot off the screen to reload. It always thinks I am shooting at the very edge of the screen even when the gun is pointed no where towards the monitor.

If it was shooting the very edge of the screen, you would get a reload; that's how the original game worked.

Are you sure you're not shooting somewhere in the middle, then the crosshairs move to the edge?  Or the crosshairs move to the edge, then back towards the middle and then fires?

Official mame is trying to first this, but is running into the problem you are having.  Any more info would be great.

[StephenH]

You should use the TV out version if you are using a TV.

[saintjo]

Thanks for everyones help.
I am using the TV out version of the gun.
No, I am firing completely off screen for 4-5 clicks and it still doesnt reload, so i am not moving the gun back on the screen in the middle of a click.
I will try analogmame when they do a 76 build and see if that fixes the shooting off screen.

And the calibration at different resolutions is kind of what i suspected as the one problem.
Thanks again

[night]

I will try analogmame when they do a 76 build and see if that fixes the shooting off screen.

"they" is rebel. up there ^^^  

[u_rebelscum]

No, I am firing completely off screen for 4-5 clicks and it still doesnt reload, so i am not moving the gun back on the screen in the middle of a click.

No, I'm not asking if you move the gun back to point on screen.  I'm asking if mame moves the crosshairs.  (This has to do with the way actlabs gun and official mame work.  I can go into how the lightgun and mame are supposed to work if you want know, but I can't promise I'll make sense. )

The problem is a noted "feature" of the gun.  Point off-screen and mouse button 2 is pressed at the location of the last on-screen shot.  Official mame's hack isn't work like it should, but my machine acts differently than a couple others that have posted info on this buggy hack.  

It's not needed, but I'd still be interested if you could discribe where the crosshairs move and where the game shoots with official mame when after shooting near the middle of the screen, you shoot off-screen.  Please carfully watch the crosshair move and for the game image of the shot.  I don't want to prejudice you, but for me the crosshair jumps (twice) and the shot is visible, but my location and timing is different than others.  Your info might help fixing the official mame.

I will try analogmame when they do a 76 build and see if that fixes the shooting off screen.

It's out, finally.

[caykroyd]

I read a review of the act-labs gun that says there is no "shoot of screen" reload feature.  Seems like a major flaw with their gun.  Maybe they'll fix this.