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Author Topic: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil  (Read 49572 times)

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Jollywest

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Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« on: April 12, 2014, 09:05:16 am »
EDIT

Here's a video of the completed project;



ORIGINAL POSTS BELOW

Hi all,

Just a little heads up on an upcoming project;

I have a non-working but complete Global VR America's Army machine arriving some time this week.
The idea is to utilise the USB2Gun board inside and the Happ guns to make it into a Multi Lightgun Game Arcade using a PC and Emulators. (Hopefully the board is working or this may be a very short project :P)
I'm hoping that this board will create or more accurate arcade lightgun experience over the AimTrak or Actlabs guns.

I'll most probably do a blog on the project and will post the link here once I get started.

For now though I have a lot of reading up to do on which Emulators to use to play which games and how to incorporate the recoil (if it's possible), As well as the bumf on the USB2Gun board.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2014, 06:58:03 pm by Jollywest »

maffewl

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2014, 10:18:20 am »
Found this while searching your response in my shooter cab post. 

Subscribed.

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2014, 05:46:46 am »
So the cab turned up... eventually... and the overall condition was pretty good. There was the odd expected scrape to the side art and scuffs to the guns but nothing major :).
The machine arrived complete as well, apart from the top marquee box section. I should be able to fabricate this though, at some point down the line.

On firing up the cab for the first time, there were obvious problems. The monitor had no orange neck glow, very muffled sound and some of the cab cathode lights were out.

On further investigation the monitor was found to be shot;  :'(

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,139365

However, the lights were just a matter of re-connecting some loose wiring and the sound was sorted by replacing the two 3.5mm audio jack cables from PC to USB2Gun interface.

The HAPP Guns won't register shots on an LCD monitor using the version of USB2Gun in the machine, but I slapped in a 20" LCD monitor to test the video signals all the same. The results were good and I could navigate into the test menu and test the inputs.
All the inputs worked great including the gun triggers and recoil. Although I can't be 100% sure that the USB2Gun is fully functional as to register shots on a CRT monitor, everything tested on it so far is good.

The next job was to check out the PC specs to see if I could utilise the PC for my needs.
Unfortunately the specs of the CPU (Intel E2160 1.8ghz Dual-Core) and GPU (Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT  256mb) were too low but I have a Intel Xeon E5240 2.5ghz Quad-Core (with LGA775 to LGA771 socket adapter) and Ati Radeon HD 4670 spare that I can use in there instead. The 1Gb of DDR2 Ram in there may be adequate enough.
The plan is to use a Dual-boot setup to keep the Americas Army dedicated side of things the same, which uses Linux and have a Windows XP OS to run all the Emulated stuff.

Acquiring a full replacement monitor is also the plan but that may take a while to sort, so I'm looking at temporary measures to be able to test the USB2Gun fully and that's were I may need some input from you guys on here please.

Contined in the Monitor section ===> http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,139939.0.html

« Last Edit: June 29, 2014, 05:53:30 am by Jollywest »

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #3 on: July 13, 2014, 09:16:39 am »
Update time ...

After doing a bit more reading up, I realised that there was little chance of the TV setup damaging the USB2Gun board, so I tried it out.
The best I could muster was a faint, rolling, doubled image by swapping around the jumper. This was nowhere near good enough for testing out the guns.

However, I acquired a WG D9410 chassis and screen from two different sources this week and have it all fully working in the cab as of this morning  ;D

The guns and recoil work great and are perfectly accurate, so I now know the USB2Gun is 100% working as well ;D ;D

I've changed my mind on the Dual-boot setup because I think I will have issues getting the ATI GPU set up within the Americas Army Linux OS. I'm going to setup another PC with XP instead to run the emulator stuff and just swap the cables over to switch between PC's. I will have to purchase a few components though to build the 2nd PC.....that's the next job  ;)

 

mcseforsale

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #4 on: July 13, 2014, 11:44:20 am »
Pics or it didn't happen.   :angry: :lol

Anywho....I'm thinking about a lightgun game...BIGTIME.  Subscribed!

AJ

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #5 on: July 13, 2014, 12:38:14 pm »
Pics or it didn't happen.   :angry: :lol

Anywho....I'm thinking about a lightgun game...BIGTIME.  Subscribed!

AJ

Ok, ok, you got me .... it was all just an elaborate lie  :-[

.... Only joking  ;D ... here some pics;



I need to adapt the bezel to fit the pure-flat tube, hence why its missing;



The innards... USB2Gun on the right;



The WG D9410 installed;



The WG D9400 uninstalled;



I've just ordered all the 2nd PC parts required, hopefully they'll all land this week.


mcseforsale

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #6 on: July 13, 2014, 10:26:58 pm »
Sweet!  I'm in.  Wife just walked by and said "Your son would love one of those".  Hmmmm.  Interesting.

What kind of proc do you need to run these games and hardware?  I got some old PCs laying around but nothing with any good hardware in it.

AJ

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2014, 10:33:23 am »
Sweet!  I'm in.  Wife just walked by and said "Your son would love one of those".  Hmmmm.  Interesting.

What kind of proc do you need to run these games and hardware?  I got some old PCs laying around but nothing with any good hardware in it.

AJ

I haven't worked with Linux at all and the cab PC came pre-configured with it on, so not sure how it runs the game and hardware, sorry.

The 2nd PC is the one I'll be using to see if the USB2Gun will work in a windows environment.

mike boss

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #8 on: July 14, 2014, 12:05:51 pm »
Long, long, long ago I was working on a project like this.
I got my hands on a free Virrtua Cop machine (that was gutted).
Was going to go with an LCD monitor, a pair of Aim Trak's housed in a pair of GunCon2's. I completed a custom MaLa layout for the project and had compiled a list of games for MAME + various other emulators. I was really excited for the project, but at the time lacked the skill set to complete it. I'm super stoked to see how your project turns out as I think the idea is SUPER F'N COOL!
I decided I would just add the Aim Trak units to another project and import the MALA lists to have a unique list (per console) of the Gun games.
I still have the PC actually................reminds me I gotta sell a ton of stuff!

Keep up the awesome work !

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #9 on: July 14, 2014, 02:28:58 pm »
Long, long, long ago I was working on a project like this.
I got my hands on a free Virrtua Cop machine (that was gutted).
Was going to go with an LCD monitor, a pair of Aim Trak's housed in a pair of GunCon2's. I completed a custom MaLa layout for the project and had compiled a list of games for MAME + various other emulators. I was really excited for the project, but at the time lacked the skill set to complete it. I'm super stoked to see how your project turns out as I think the idea is SUPER F'N COOL!
I decided I would just add the Aim Trak units to another project and import the MALA lists to have a unique list (per console) of the Gun games.
I still have the PC actually................reminds me I gotta sell a ton of stuff!

Keep up the awesome work !

Thanks, its been slow going but finally getting somewhere with it now  ;) ... I just hope the USB2Gun will work with Windows or the project may come to an abrupt halt!  :-\

That PC (if it is of modest spec) may come in handy if you were to replicate the project  ;)


Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #10 on: July 25, 2014, 07:33:31 am »
It took a while for all the PC parts to arrive (the Ram took 10 days for some reason) and the MOBO was faulty as well so I had to wait for a replacement but I got it all built last night.
I only had about an hour to connect it to the cab and do some brief testing.
The guns actually show up in the Windows Controller menu as Lightguns but they both report as being GUN 1 (even though each has its own calibration menu). edit -> see post below
When I calibrate and test the guns in the Windows controller menu, the cross in the test box follows the gun movements dead on accurate and the triggers report different button presses when fired on and off screen.
However, I had a brief try of HOTD3 PC Game and the calibration is way off.
I never had chance to try much tweaking though and I've got 3 busy days in the real world, so hopefully I'll jump back on this early next week.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2014, 03:07:58 pm by Jollywest »

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun - MAME / SM3 working
« Reply #11 on: July 28, 2014, 03:43:55 pm »
I had some more time on this last night and had some luck with getting the guns to work.
The guns actually report in windows as analog joysticks, but the USB2Gun board is named as Lightgun 2.03.
The guns are both also named as Gun 1, which is why I initially thought they reported as lightguns.
Still no luck in getting them working right on HOTD3 PC game, even when gamepad is selected as the input, the calibration is way off.
However, they are working great in MAME. I had to change a few settings in mame.ini to get them to work though.
I had to enable joystick and off screen reload in device input, have joystick as the lightgun and positional controller and had to change joystick deadzone from 0.3 to 0.0 and joystick saturation from 0.85 to 0.95.
The games that originally used a lightgun that I've tested so far (Beast Busters/Lethal Enforcers/Time Crisis) work highly accurately and the games which used a mounted gun (T2/Alien 3) work ok and are accurate but the gun only registers a position on the screen on each individual trigger press, so if you were to hold the trigger down it would only register shots in the one position no matter where you moved the gun whilst holding the trigger down.
The white flash on screen on each trigger press is a bit much on these games as well.
Also the guns work in Supermodel (Lost World/Star wars) spot on accurate too. The only setting I had to change in supermodel.ini was to enable inputautotrigger for reloading.
Other emu's I've tried are SM2 and Demul but I can't even get games to boot in Demul yet and the SM2 emu won't save anolog controls after I've changed the inputs, I'll have another bash at these tonight.
.... Oh and nothing on the recoil side of things yet either.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2014, 06:54:08 am by Jollywest »

BadMouth

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #12 on: July 28, 2014, 06:00:30 pm »
Good to hear that the MAME and Model 2 games are working!
I thought there was a good chance they'd track like mounted guns since they show up as analog joysticks.
Is there a white flash like the light guns of old?  IIRC, the one guy who tested this board before said there wasn't.

It's understandable that they wouldn't work with HOTD3 with the game viewing them as analog joysticks.
If you think about how the game would have interpreted analog joysticks, there was no reason to have an analog joystick held in your hand to correspond 1:1 with screen position, nor a reason to calibrate it as such.

Howard Casto's Troubleshooter 2 can take input from wii controllers (seen as analog joysticks) and inject that into the game.
It might work for these too.

If they don't work in Demul, a workaround (for player 1 anyway) would be to run an autohotkey or glovepie script to convert the joystick location to system mouse location.  At least with older versions, Demul was hard coded to get light gun input from the system mouse.

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #13 on: July 28, 2014, 06:37:03 pm »
Good to hear that the MAME and Model 2 games are working!
I thought there was a good chance they'd track like mounted guns since they show up as analog joysticks.
Is there a white flash like the light guns of old?  IIRC, the one guy who tested this board before said there wasn't.

It's understandable that they wouldn't work with HOTD3 with the game viewing them as analog joysticks.
If you think about how the game would have interpreted analog joysticks, there was no reason to have an analog joystick held in your hand to correspond 1:1 with screen position, nor a reason to calibrate it as such.

Howard Casto's Troubleshooter 2 can take input from wii controllers (seen as analog joysticks) and inject that into the game.
It might work for these too.

If they don't work in Demul, a workaround (for player 1 anyway) would be to run an autohotkey or glovepie script to convert the joystick location to system mouse location.  At least with older versions, Demul was hard coded to get light gun input from the system mouse.

Yea it's model 3 (supermodel) that the guns are working with, still struggling with saving configured analog controls in SM2 but I've just been reading a post of yours about only having 1 analog device connected at a time to map properly, I'll try this tomorrow.

There is a white flash on a trigger press and the crosshair does track on screen with the gun movement.

I've got demul to load games now (had to use directx11 plugin) but they are running very slow. I can map the analog movements of the gun and trigger presses in the pad plugin but it's not relating in game. The mouse works fine. I'll try that workaround tomorrow if I can't get them working, thanks.

Thanks for the tips about troubleshooter 2 as well, I'll give that a go too.

BadMouth

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #14 on: July 28, 2014, 11:36:04 pm »
The gun games in Model 2 emulator don't support analog controls, at least not directly.
There's a way to get it into a strange debug mode where they work, but the emulator will use X's and O's for the crosshairs and you have unlimited ammo.

To use two guns in Model 2 emulator, you need Howard's Troubleshooter 2 and you must use M2 emulator version 1.0

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun - HOTD 3 (PC) working
« Reply #15 on: July 31, 2014, 09:10:46 am »
Bit more progress last night...

The guns are now working in HOTD 3 PC game by using Troubleshooter 2.

Model 2 games Rail Chase, Virtua Cop 1 & 2 and Gunblade are working on player 1 by enabling 'use player 1 as system mouse' in TS2 as well, but I couldn't get player 2 working.
However, I've just realised that even though I clicked on the Model 2 version 1.0 download link on the nebula website it actually downloads the current, version 1.1a. I'll source 1.0 tonight and give it another blast.

In a previous post I stated that the guns create a white flash on screen on a trigger press and that the crosshair follows gun movements on screen. Well I've now realised that it only tracks the movements on the lighter parts of the screen. I've turned the brightness up a bit and it works to a point on some games that need to track movements for continuous fire (Gunblade/Rail Chase), but T2 is too dark for it to be of much use.

Anyone know how to calibrate guns in Rail Chase 2?... The F2 test menu doesn't seem to have a gun calibration section.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2014, 06:55:00 am by Jollywest »

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun - SM2 working
« Reply #16 on: August 01, 2014, 05:32:18 am »
More success last night...

I found version 1.0 of SM2 emu and now the guns work a treat on HOTD, VCOP 1 & 2 and Behind Enemy Lines, by using Troubleshooter 2. (Thanks to Howard Casto for that, great work!)
I'm struggling to calibrate the guns in Gunblade though because the calibration screen is black, and is done with axis movement rather than trigger presses. I'm also still looking for a way to calibrate the guns in Rail Chase 2 if anyone has an idea, thanks.

Tonight ..... Demul!
« Last Edit: August 25, 2014, 06:55:21 am by Jollywest »

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #17 on: August 02, 2014, 02:56:58 pm »
No joy with Demul yet unfortunately, I can get the guns to register shots and reload but no axis movement.
As Badmouth mentioned the mouse is hard coded into the emu, and I've tried a joystick to mouse auto hot key script but the movement is too erratic to be of any use.

As for the recoil... I'm hoping to be able to use mamehooker to get this going.

EDIT

Well that was short and sweet! .... Looks like Mamehooker doesn't support the USB2gun, so the recoil is going to be a no go I think unfortunately.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2014, 02:57:30 pm by Jollywest »

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #18 on: August 04, 2014, 03:14:57 pm »
No joy with Demul yet unfortunately, I can get the guns to register shots and reload but no axis movement.
As Badmouth mentioned the mouse is hard coded into the emu, and I've tried a joystick to mouse auto hot key script but the movement is too erratic to be of any use.

As for the recoil... I'm hoping to be able to use mamehooker to get this going.

EDIT

Well that was short and sweet! .... Looks like Mamehooker doesn't support the USB2gun, so the recoil is going to be a no go I think unfortunately.

If all games are going to be emulated, can't you just disconnect the solenoid wires at the USB2GUN and run them to a different setup consisting of an LEDWiz or Pacdrive and some transistors?  It might even be possible to utilize the transistors on the USB2Gun, but I wouldn't want to fry that thing!

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #19 on: August 04, 2014, 03:53:32 pm »
I just want to say how impressed I am that you've got USB2Gun board up and running with the happ guns on a PC.  Well done, this has been a huge nebulous question for years - mostly because nobody wanted to fork the cash and be wrong - that and the other op that had one didn't really know what he was doing it felt like.  Kudos to you and thanks for sharing.  One of these is definetly in my future now!

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #20 on: August 04, 2014, 03:54:30 pm »
No joy with Demul yet unfortunately, I can get the guns to register shots and reload but no axis movement.
As Badmouth mentioned the mouse is hard coded into the emu, and I've tried a joystick to mouse auto hot key script but the movement is too erratic to be of any use.

As for the recoil... I'm hoping to be able to use mamehooker to get this going.

EDIT

Well that was short and sweet! .... Looks like Mamehooker doesn't support the USB2gun, so the recoil is going to be a no go I think unfortunately.

If all games are going to be emulated, can't you just disconnect the solenoid wires at the USB2GUN and run them to a different setup consisting of an LEDWiz or Pacdrive and some transistors?  It might even be possible to utilize the transistors on the USB2Gun, but I wouldn't want to fry that thing!

Yea I suppose I could do something like you suggest to get it going. I'm trying not to interfere with the cab wiring too much though, so it's just a matter of swapping out PC's to switch between Windows and the dedicated Linux side of things. For the moment I may just leave the recoil and come back to it later.

BadMouth

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #21 on: August 04, 2014, 04:37:04 pm »
It's nice to know it works, but I'm still curious as to exactly how it works.
If the guns track (albeit with the brightness turned up), then they are not working like the guns of old...yet the guns themselves ARE the guns of old!

I wonder what the camera on the Happ gun is capable of detecting, being that nothing in the gun itself has changed since they worked by flashing white and analyzing what part of the screen was being drawn? 
Maybe the USB2Gun still does this, but does it automatically and repeatedly (without the flash) since faster processors are now available that might be able to take the refresh rate into account and make sense of everything in a timely manner.

Are these emulated games running at different resolutions and refresh rates?

With the original cameras in the guns I can't imagine they're working off too different of a principle than the originals, but I'd still be tempted to see if they do anything at all with an LCD screen.





Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #22 on: August 04, 2014, 04:39:52 pm »
I just want to say how impressed I am that you've got USB2Gun board up and running with the happ guns on a PC.  Well done, this has been a huge nebulous question for years - mostly because nobody wanted to fork the cash and be wrong - that and the other op that had one didn't really know what he was doing it felt like.  Kudos to you and thanks for sharing.  One of these is definetly in my future now!

Thanks, It's a question I'd asked myself for sometime. I even pm'ed the other guy who had one to see if he'd sell it to me as he's based in the UK as well, but no go.

The cab wasn't actually that pricey, A forum member on a UK arcade site put it up in a valuations section for spares/repairs so I made him an offer and bingo! The monitor replacement cost the most but was still reasonable.
My thinking was even if the USB2gun didn't work in windows, then I still had a dedicated Americas Army for pretty cheap looking at what they sell for and could of always sold it for what I put into it or even more maybes.

To sum up, the guns work flawlessly in MAME games that originally used a lightgun, on the ones I've checked so far (about 25 or so), once calibrated the aim is absolutely dead on.
They work spot on in Supermodel on the 2 supported Model 3 gun games.
They also work great on HOTD 3 pc game and Sega Model 2 gun games (apart from Gunblade/Rail Chase 2, which have calibration issues) using TS2.
There are limitations to the setup though... The recoil obviously at the moment, the white flash on screen on a trigger press can be a bit much in games that require constant shooting, the games which originally used a positional gun in MAME don't track on dark areas for constant firing and no axis movement in the Demul emulator.

For the moment I'm just going to get all the MAME gun games calibrated and tested but if I get any success with any other emulators or the recoil I'll update.



Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #23 on: August 04, 2014, 05:25:38 pm »
It's nice to know it works, but I'm still curious as to exactly how it works.
If the guns track (albeit with the brightness turned up), then they are not working like the guns of old...yet the guns themselves ARE the guns of old!

I wonder what the camera on the Happ gun is capable of detecting, being that nothing in the gun itself has changed since they worked by flashing white and analyzing what part of the screen was being drawn? 
Maybe the USB2Gun still does this, but does it automatically and repeatedly (without the flash) since faster processors are now available that might be able to take the refresh rate into account and make sense of everything in a timely manner.

Are these emulated games running at different resolutions and refresh rates?

With the original cameras in the guns I can't imagine they're working off too different of a principle than the originals, but I'd still be tempted to see if they do anything at all with an LCD screen.

Yea its a bit strange isn't it but you could be right with how the USB2Gun may work, that would make sense.
The tracking isn't of much use anyway, as to get the tracking to work somewhere decent you have to turn up the brightness till the blacks are light grey and then it looks naff.
I can't remember whether the guns tracked on the dedicated side of things, I'll swap the PC's back at some point and have a gander. It's maybe just a windows thing.
At the moment I have all the games running at one resolution, 800 x 600. The refresh rate is 60hz. (I think... I'll double check that). The plan is to use GrooveyMame to have the games run at there native resolutions/frequencies to make use of the Quad-sync monitor.
Do you think the switching of resolutions will cause issues with the setup?... for eg, constant re-calibrating.
I plonked an LCD in there when I first got the cab to test the video signal and the guns never registered shots on it, I may try an LCD again with the Windows PC if you think it may make a difference.
I'll be knocking some videos up at some point as well and I'll post them here.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #24 on: August 04, 2014, 10:13:56 pm »
Kind of sounds like they work like the guns of old.  Maybe they sense position when they see the white screen and if it's nothing but light colored screen maybe it cycles.  Just speculating. 

At the moment I have all the games running at one resolution, 800 x 600. The refresh rate is 60hz. (I think... I'll double check that). The plan is to use GrooveyMame to have the games run at there native resolutions/frequencies to make use of the Quad-sync monitor.
Do you think the switching of resolutions will cause issues with the setup?... for eg, constant re-calibrating.

I'm not sure.  If they work like the old guns (and act labs guns), the device needs to know the resolution and refresh rate to work.
With the act labs guns, you had to move the gun vertically and horizontally across the screen for it to determine this.  You had to redo it anytime you played a game with a different resolution.  Fortunately with emulators I could just set them all the same.

Since the video signal is passing through the USB2Gun, the device may be able to determine it on the fly....or they could be made to only work at one resolution and refresh rate.  :dunno
« Last Edit: August 04, 2014, 10:19:28 pm by BadMouth »

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #25 on: August 07, 2014, 12:44:45 pm »
Hey guys,

Another owner of a working usb2gun setup here!

I was coming to make a post about my findings with the board but I noticed this topic so I'll just add some info here for anyone looking. I purchased the board and two Happ guns in March and was meaning to come and make a post about them but was just having too much damn fun!   :D

First off, I'm currently running a dual boot of America's army and XP (for MAME), running everything at 640x480 60hz off of a temporary IBM e74 monitor.

The guns themselves are super accurate in the games I've tried in MAME (Area 51, Lethal enforcers 1&2, Point Blank 1&2, etc). I had some issues getting off-screen reload to work (in MAME) but since shooting off-screen triggers button 2 in Windows I just used XPadder to map that to a combination of up+ another button (mapped to trigger) on the keyboard and set the digital cursor speed to max. Since there is an area at the top of the screen for reloading, shooting off-screen instantly brings the cursor to the top and activates the trigger.  Works perfectly, problem solved!

As, for whether or not the guns will need recalibration upon resolution change. The guns (in Windows) are mapped to coordinates just like any other joystick. The Min/Max values should remain the same, the only thing that might change with a resolution switch might be the center point of where the joystick is mapped to. I'm going to conduct further testing on this, but as long as all those values stay the same it's conceivable to think that we might get away with not having to recalibrate every time the resolution changes. More info on this coming soon!

My next step is to find a proper monitor (hopefully capable of 15khz and 30khz) as for now I'm limited to 640x480 and up.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #26 on: August 07, 2014, 03:28:51 pm »

The guns themselves are super accurate in the games I've tried in MAME (Area 51, Lethal enforcers 1&2, Point Blank 1&2, etc). I had some issues getting off-screen reload to work (in MAME) but since shooting off-screen triggers button 2 in Windows I just used XPadder to map that to a combination of up+ another button (mapped to trigger) on the keyboard and set the digital cursor speed to max. Since there is an area at the top of the screen for reloading, shooting off-screen instantly brings the cursor to the top and activates the trigger.  Works perfectly, problem solved!

Hi! ... Nice to know I'm not alone on this and good idea with the reload issue. I found it only to be in a few MAME games so far. In Area 51 for example, I was just shooting at the top of the screen but think I'll give your idea a go, thanks.

Did you buy the America's Army game disk & USB2Gun direct from Global VR?

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #27 on: August 07, 2014, 06:20:10 pm »

Hi! ... Nice to know I'm not alone on this and good idea with the reload issue. I found it only to be in a few MAME games so far. In Area 51 for example, I was just shooting at the top of the screen but think I'll give your idea a go, thanks.


The more the merrier!

As for the reload, yeah, not the most elegant solution, but MAME doesn't want to see the second button as "off-screen" from what I can tell.

This method does work perfectly though, you just have to make sure that the analog control values are maxed to ensure instant reload.


Did you buy the America's Army game disk & USB2Gun direct from Global VR?

I got the usb2gun board, 2 Happ guns, a pc, and the game from Jammaparts. I figured (much like you) that if I couldn't get it to work in Windows or Linux that at least I could build a dedicated America's Army cabinet. Luckily, everything works good in XP.

I was a little worried, having done my research and coming across another guy who couldn't seem to get it work. But I believe that he was using Namco guns and also was expecting the guns to track on screen perfectly. The guns do track (on bright surfaces) but they don't need to, because of the screen flash.

I then found this topic http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=82460.40. There was a guy who mentioned he got it working and figured I'd give it a shot. Quite an investment for "might work" but I was desperate hahaha.

Having tried some of the other light gun options (Topgun, Aimtrak) and having grown up in arcades playing the classics, I'm definitely happy with this setup!

The end result I'm hoping, will be building a cabinet (once I get a proper monitor) and having the perfect gun setup, with joysticks and buttons as an after thought : )

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #28 on: August 09, 2014, 02:27:43 am »
Glad to have ran across this.  I'm working on gathering parts for a dedicated light gun cabinet and this seems like it will fit the bill great.  Subscribed for sure.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #29 on: August 09, 2014, 11:24:18 am »

I got the usb2gun board, 2 Happ guns, a pc, and the game from Jammaparts. I figured (much like you) that if I couldn't get it to work in Windows or Linux that at least I could build a dedicated America's Army cabinet. Luckily, everything works good in XP.

I was a little worried, having done my research and coming across another guy who couldn't seem to get it work. But I believe that he was using Namco guns and also was expecting the guns to track on screen perfectly. The guns do track (on bright surfaces) but they don't need to, because of the screen flash.

I then found this topic http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=82460.40. There was a guy who mentioned he got it working and figured I'd give it a shot. Quite an investment for "might work" but I was desperate hahaha.

Having tried some of the other light gun options (Topgun, Aimtrak) and having grown up in arcades playing the classics, I'm definitely happy with this setup!

The end result I'm hoping, will be building a cabinet (once I get a proper monitor) and having the perfect gun setup, with joysticks and buttons as an after thought : )

Your a brave man! ... All that must of cost a pretty penny, that's for sure. All worked out in the end for you though ;)

I also tried the Topgun as well as the Actlabs, and I can say the accuracy on the USB2Gun setup trumps them both.

Good luck with building your cab, keep us posted. :)


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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #30 on: August 09, 2014, 11:42:35 am »
Glad to have ran across this.  I'm working on gathering parts for a dedicated light gun cabinet and this seems like it will fit the bill great.  Subscribed for sure.

I've messaged a member on here who mentioned he may be able to source the USB2Gun for cheaper than Global VR sell it for.
Once he gets back to me I'll post the details here.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #31 on: August 09, 2014, 11:54:52 am »
Glad to have ran across this.  I'm working on gathering parts for a dedicated light gun cabinet and this seems like it will fit the bill great.  Subscribed for sure.

I've messaged a member on here who mentioned he may be able to source the USB2Gun for cheaper than Global VR sell it for.
Once he gets back to me I'll post the details here.

Do it. I'm in for one.
***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #32 on: August 09, 2014, 02:01:28 pm »
Glad to have ran across this.  I'm working on gathering parts for a dedicated light gun cabinet and this seems like it will fit the bill great.  Subscribed for sure.

I've messaged a member on here who mentioned he may be able to source the USB2Gun for cheaper than Global VR sell it for.
Once he gets back to me I'll post the details here.

Awesome man.  Hope he's able to do it.  I've got the cabinet (a metal behemoth of a Sega Virtua Tennis cab *representational pic attached*) and a CRT to fit.  I was really not happy with the idea of using the Aimtracks with the CRT. 

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #33 on: August 09, 2014, 05:10:57 pm »
Right well I've had a reply from the guy who may be able to source these boards.
Basically he owns a sourcing company and when he gets to work Monday he is going to be all over this.  ;)
Either I'll update as I hear anything or he may update here himself.

I'm back on with trying to get the recoil working and sgtsocko's remapping idea got me thinking.
When I go into controller settings Player 1 Gun (seen as a Analog Joystick) has 14 buttons and Player 2 Gun has 6.
Trigger on-screen is button no.1, Trigger off-screen is 2 and start is 3 on both guns.
4, 5 and 6 are unknown for both guns and the rest of the buttons on player 1 are the rest of the cab stuff, ie. coin slot, service panel buttons etc...
Would it be plausible that either 4, 5 or 6 is the recoil?
If so, is there anyway to remap them or run a script to have button 4 for example activate when Button 1 (trigger on-screen) is pressed?


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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #34 on: August 09, 2014, 05:33:13 pm »
Hey guys ,

 Super busy this weekend but nanotechs website for the optigun ( usb2gun) has some really good info about whats supported ie: recoil, resolutions.

http://www.nanotechent.com/optigun.php

I'm not using recoil in my guns so i can't test with this aspect (yet!) but, more info from me soon early this week!

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #35 on: August 12, 2014, 05:29:26 pm »

When I go into controller settings Player 1 Gun (seen as a Analog Joystick) has 14 buttons and Player 2 Gun has 6.
Trigger on-screen is button no.1, Trigger off-screen is 2 and start is 3 on both guns.
4, 5 and 6 are unknown for both guns and the rest of the buttons on player 1 are the rest of the cab stuff, ie. coin slot, service panel buttons etc...
Would it be plausible that either 4, 5 or 6 is the recoil?
If so, is there anyway to remap them or run a script to have button 4 for example activate when Button 1 (trigger on-screen) is pressed?



Any luck with this theory? Not sure if there would be a way to trigger those buttons off hand, I'll take a closer look when I get some free time.

According to this http://nanotechent.s3.amazonaws.com/support/OptiGun-User-Guide.pdf

Pins 5 and 7 are used for force feedback in conjunction with a 24V input (J2). I should note also that this document shows a different layout for the USB2Gun than what my board looks like, so I'm going look for something that can confirm this information. I'm pretty sure I've seen a document that explained how to hook up recoil though. I'll have a look through my manual and check the web again for anything relevant.

I'm curious Jollywest, how many pins are your guns? Mine are 4. If the pinout information is correct, it could be that in order to get force feedback you would need 6 pins and an external 24V power input. I know my optical boards in my guns only have 4 pins out as I've replaced one board. So maybe the other 2 pins come right from the recoil mechanism? Hopefully someone with some experience can answer that question.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #36 on: August 13, 2014, 02:03:29 am »

When I go into controller settings Player 1 Gun (seen as a Analog Joystick) has 14 buttons and Player 2 Gun has 6.
Trigger on-screen is button no.1, Trigger off-screen is 2 and start is 3 on both guns.
4, 5 and 6 are unknown for both guns and the rest of the buttons on player 1 are the rest of the cab stuff, ie. coin slot, service panel buttons etc...
Would it be plausible that either 4, 5 or 6 is the recoil?
If so, is there anyway to remap them or run a script to have button 4 for example activate when Button 1 (trigger on-screen) is pressed?



Any luck with this theory? Not sure if there would be a way to trigger those buttons off hand, I'll take a closer look when I get some free time.

According to this http://nanotechent.s3.amazonaws.com/support/OptiGun-User-Guide.pdf

Pins 5 and 7 are used for force feedback in conjunction with a 24V input (J2). I should note also that this document shows a different layout for the USB2Gun than what my board looks like, so I'm going look for something that can confirm this information. I'm pretty sure I've seen a document that explained how to hook up recoil though. I'll have a look through my manual and check the web again for anything relevant.

I'm curious Jollywest, how many pins are your guns? Mine are 4. If the pinout information is correct, it could be that in order to get force feedback you would need 6 pins and an external 24V power input. I know my optical boards in my guns only have 4 pins out as I've replaced one board. So maybe the other 2 pins come right from the recoil mechanism? Hopefully someone with some experience can answer that question.

I haven't had much time on this lately but I'll get time tonight to have another go on this.

My board also looks different.

Your theory is right there are 4 pins from the guns and 2 direct from the solenoid, and a 24v power supply connected to the USB2Gun to power the recoil.

The recoil works fine in the dedicated Americas Army Linux side of things, it's getting it to work in windows somehow.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #37 on: August 14, 2014, 02:15:40 am »
I did have some time on this last night, unfortunately I'm no further forward on the recoil element.

I've tried Auto HotKeys scripts and Xpadder to map the keyboard buttons to the joystick but so far it's a no go, I can map the joystick to keyboard buttons easily enough but not the other way round.

I've had slightly more success in Demul, using Xpadder to map the joystick to mouse.
I had to select the 'spring' option in xpadder mouse settings and reduce the deadzone to 1% in normal settings, now about the first 5 inches in every direction around the centre point of the screen are accurate, but then the cursor accelerates past this and the accuracy is about 2 inches off by the time it gets to the edge of the screen. I'm using Windows 8.1 and have tried a registry hack to stop mouse acceleration but it makes no difference.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2014, 05:09:51 am by Jollywest »

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #38 on: August 14, 2014, 04:26:45 pm »
Hello all,

As mentioned previously by Jollywest, I have been working on sourcing these boards at a discount price. There is good news and bad news on this front. I have started a thread about it here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,140666.0.html

Thanks!
Unbeatable Mortal Kombat Master

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #39 on: August 15, 2014, 07:16:04 pm »
BadMouth gave me a heads up.

Just FYI, anytime you need help with something mamehooker related, post in the software forums... I don't check the main forum anymore.  ;)

Why don't you PM me what you are trying to do exactly and I might be able to help.  I did glance over the document on the optigun briefly.  If it's needing a generic data string sent to a hid device, then mamehooker already supports this.  It's the "Generic HID Send Data" function.  Or at least in theory it'll work for you.  When I wrote the function I tested it on some generic usb devices I had lying around like Missile Launchers and ect and they all responded.  A little work might be necessary. 

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #40 on: August 15, 2014, 07:45:53 pm »
Ok... I took a look at that document a little better. 

In theory at least, and this is just in theory, how you send the byte sting should be something like this:

Vendor and Product ID are self explanatory.  In the pdf VID =&h04b4 and PID = &h6571 but you guys have mentioned it isn't exactly the same product so you might want to double check on that. 

Now going by that pdf, to fire off outputs you use output type 1 in which it says the 0 byte is the mode (so &h01) byte 1 is the actual output value in bit masks and byte 2 is the mask to tell it which outputs to fool with.  The other bytes are omitted for a 8 byte total. 

So assuming the solenoids are hooked up to output 1 and 2 and the VID and PID are correct, in the function box in mame hooker would be filled out like so:

Device# = 1
Vendor ID = &H04b4
Product ID = &H6571
Report Length = 8
Bytes = &h01:&h03:&h03:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

The second byte(&h03 in this example) you would set to &h01 to turn on output #1, &h02 for output 2 and &h03 to turn them both on.  To turn them off, obviously set the byte to &h00.  The third byte is the mask.  Setting it to &h03 would have it control just the first two outputs, but for a script with would probably be best to mask each output individually. 

So Output 1 on would be:
&h01:&h01:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00
and off would be
&h01:&h00:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Likewise output 2 on would be:
&h01:&h02:&h02:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00
and off would be
&h01:&h00:&h02:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Again this is making a ton of assumptions like the documentation is actually correct... the hardware allows write access, ect....

I hope some of that is helpful. 

Oh one more thing.... when it talks about bits in the docs it means bitmasking.... again it's poorly documented in the pdf but one can assume that each multiple of 4 (aka a bit) is associated with that number output, so start with the number 0 and then for every output you want on, you add a value like so:

Output 1 = +1
Output 2 = +2
Output 3 = +4
Output 4 = +8
Output 5 = +16
Output 6 = +32
Output 7 = +64
Output 8 = +128

Obviously to have multiple outputs on at once, you add multiple numbers to zero.



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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #41 on: August 15, 2014, 11:02:11 pm »
Howard_Castro = Stud!

subscribed again.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #42 on: August 16, 2014, 02:06:58 am »
Thanks Howard. I tried Mamehooker briefly with it without joy and so I was looking for a software approach to the issue. After I'd exhausted all those options I was going to come to you with this if I still didn't have it working, I know your a busy man! :) thanks to Badmouth too for giving you the heads up.

I'm eager to get on this ASAP but first opportunity I get will either be late tonight or tomorrow.

One thing, when I tried Mamehooker before I had it linked to Mame and reporting outputs but the option for 'writing to custom.ini' was missing. Is this because Mamehooker couldn't see the device?

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #43 on: August 16, 2014, 12:15:56 pm »
Write to custom ini???

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #44 on: August 16, 2014, 12:30:01 pm »
Sorry... 'Edit ini for current rom'   :-[

Was a while back, lol!

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #45 on: August 16, 2014, 08:11:49 pm »
Well it was because you hadn't used it yet. 

Well edit ini for current rom only works while an emulator is running (it reads the current rom and opens the ini file) so yeah it won't work without an emulator running and even then really only works reliably on mame and supermodel.  Edit specific ini works well for "unsupported" emulators and stuff running via troubleshooter. 

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun
« Reply #46 on: August 18, 2014, 04:58:59 pm »
Ok first chance I've had tonight to try Mamehooker again.

The vector and product ID's of the board I have are different to the manual.
They are;
Vector ID = &H1AB7
Product ID = &H6570

I've put the command into the test function box under the Generic HID send data heading using the info posted, apart from the Hardware ID's obviously, which I've changed to the above.

I'm not getting anything though still.

I've tried different device ID's all the way up to 16, not sure what else to try. Any ideas?
« Last Edit: August 18, 2014, 05:10:59 pm by Jollywest »

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I've finally found a program that emulates the guns as a mouse accurately to within a few pixels.
It's called JoystickMouseTool, I had to use it in absolute mode and disable enhance pointer precision in mouse settings in the windows control panel.

It's working great for player 1 in Demul, some of the games need to be calibrated in the Service menu for extra accuracy but other games work fine at default.

I've also tested it on American Laser Game, Mad Dog McCree direct from the CD-Rom and through the Daphne-Singe emulator and it works great.

It should work in any mouse controllable game/emulator as well using the JoystickMouseTool program.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2014, 06:59:08 am by Jollywest »

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun - Recoil working
« Reply #48 on: August 25, 2014, 06:50:23 am »
I've had quite a lot of time on the project over the last 2 nights and its definitely been worth it as we now have Recoil!!  ;D

Big thanks to Howard for helping with this, without Mamehooker this wouldn't have been possible.  :applaud:

So the manual wasn't very accurate with the version of board I'm using but Howard still managed to pull plenty of info from it for me to trial and error things.

As well as the Recoil there are a few other commands that may come in use.

One thing that may vary with the commands is the VID and PID, depending on which version of board is used. On the version I'm using the VID is &H1AB7 and the PID is &H6570. To find out this go to Device Manager, expand Human Interface Devices, right-click HID Game Controller, select Properties, click on the Details tab, select Hardware ID's from the drop down menu and they are in there. Adapt the following commands to suit.

The commands found are as follows and can be entered into the Mamehooker test box for global use or into a specific rom ini using the Mamehooker Script Editor drop down menu;

Player 1 Auto-Recoil:
  This command makes the recoil stay on and fires a single tap on a on-screen trigger press until Windows shuts down or until another recoil command is sent to the player 1 gun. This is useful for games that use a single-shot function.
ghd 1 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h04:&h00:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 2 Auto-Recoil:
ghd 2 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h04:&h00:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 1 Manual-Recoil: This command is useful for games that use a multi-shot function (for eg, T2) and can be put into a specific rom ini through the MameHooker script editor drop down menu, when Mamehooker finds a recoil output in a MAME game.
ghd 1 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h04:&h01:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 2 Manual-Recoil:
ghd 2 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h04:&h01:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 1 Turn-off flash: This command is only really useful in games where the screen tracks the guns movements accurately, these games are only games that have a high brightness colour scheme throughout the game on every part of the screen, for eg. NY Captor.
ghd 1 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h03:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 2 Turn off flash:
ghd 2 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h03:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00


Player 1 Turn on flash (1ms Duration): The third byte, &h01 in the case below changes the duration of the flash in milliseconds. For example, changing &h01 to &h05 will make the flash last for 5ms, &h010 = 10ms and so on. I'm not sure what the default is but I've set it to 1ms and its quicker and the gun still functions properly.
ghd 1 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h03:&h00:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 2 Turn on flash (1ms Duration):
ghd 2 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h03:&h00:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00
« Last Edit: August 25, 2014, 09:08:11 am by Jollywest »

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #49 on: August 25, 2014, 09:42:00 am »
 :applaud:  This is as big as discovering the guns work to begin with.
Finally a complete interface that utilizes original guns!
(which is no longer in production and in limited supply  :lol  )


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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #50 on: August 25, 2014, 11:59:07 am »
 
:applaud:  This is as big as discovering the guns work to begin with.
Finally a complete interface that utilizes original guns!
(which is no longer in production and in limited supply  :lol  )

 :lol :lol

Yep!... Handy that isn't it :lol .... I guess if this was done 6 years ago when it first came about it would of been a different story.

There is at least a handful of members who will benefit from this I suppose.

It's a shame really because the setup is as an original arcade lightgun setup should be.
You never know though if BYOAC member, Purple  Tophat, manages to get enough people together for a bulk order of these, then they may think about bringing them back into production  :dunno
« Last Edit: August 25, 2014, 01:46:54 pm by Jollywest »

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #51 on: August 26, 2014, 08:05:56 am »
Great work figuring all that out.  The "optigun" manual was almost completely worthless in terms of documenting the commands.  I wonder if Foley wrote it himself?  ;)

For the record mamehooker just uses a generic "hid write" function which can be done in vb and c almost as easily as writing to a file, so a dll could be written to support all those commands quite easily.  That being said, considering the only person that ever wants to monkey with outputs and advanced scripting of outputs is me, I don't really see the point.

I'm glad to see the hid write function get some use.  I added it because I got sick of people PMing every week to add support for their custom I/O board.  Strangely enough when I added it and started replying that they could do it via the function they determined that it would take some actual work on their part and decided it wasn't worth it. 

Funny how that works.  ;)

Btw those auto recoil commands... you might want to play with those some more.  It's really odd that the third byte is used for the duration so the second byte might enable looping, ect.  My guess is with some tweaking of the settings you can get those to do a repeatable "machine gun" firing pattern as well.  Or at least the optigun manual alluded to that. 

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #52 on: August 26, 2014, 10:54:54 am »
Cheers Howard, you've made me realise I've left a command out of that list.

The manual recoil command does make the recoil fire repeatedly (like machine gun fire) while the trigger is held down in games like T2, Rev X, Operation Wolf etc.... I did notice the gun getting pretty warm after a while though using it like this.

The command I missed out adjusts the duration of the recoil;

Player 1 Manual Recoil (Recoil Duration 5):
ghd 1 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h04:&h01:&h05:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

The third byte, &h05 in the above command makes the recoil do a double tap. The duration between tap's ranges from &h02 (tap..tap) to &h09 (tap...........tap). &h01 is just a single tap.

Thanks again Howard, I'm sure they'll be other commands I come across.


« Last Edit: August 26, 2014, 03:09:49 pm by Jollywest »

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #53 on: December 30, 2014, 07:02:18 pm »
Added a video of the completed project to the original first post  :)

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #54 on: December 30, 2014, 07:12:02 pm »
Nice setup  :applaud: That snapping would get old in a hurry  :dunno Good job!  :cheers:
         

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #55 on: December 30, 2014, 07:21:51 pm »
Got any video of 2 players in action? I had some CRT light guns in The Beast, but the screen flashing during 2 player games was downright unbearable.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #56 on: December 31, 2014, 01:05:32 am »
Nice setup  :applaud: That snapping would get old in a hurry  :dunno Good job!  :cheers:

Thanks, I had to boost the video audio a bit for the in-game sound to be heard and quality has been sacrificed a tad, making the guns sound quite a bit more snappy than in the flesh ;)

The recoil can be turned off on the cab though if it did start to mess with the melon, through MAMEHooker. :dizzy:

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #57 on: December 31, 2014, 01:12:46 am »
Got any video of 2 players in action? I had some CRT light guns in The Beast, but the screen flashing during 2 player games was downright unbearable.

I haven't got any vids yet but definitely in the games that originally used a positional analog joystick as a gun, like T2, Alien 3 and RevX, the flashing can be a bit much  8)

I have the flash duration shortened to 1ms through MAMEHooker though, and that definitely helps.
I suppose it wouldn't be any worse compared to original dedicated cabs that had the flash thing going on  :dunno

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #58 on: June 16, 2017, 09:29:35 am »
Jollywest,
Looking at doing a similar project with one of my cabs. I have a few questions for you. Are you running groovymame or standard MAME? If GM, are you running multiple resolutions with your monitor or sticking with one? I read about calibration issues if switching resolutions. I have a trisync monitor in my game.

Have you used demul, or any of the other emulators?

I know necrobump... But this thread is where all the info resides.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk


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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #59 on: June 16, 2017, 09:58:57 am »
Hi, I'll do my best to help out but it was a while ago and the memory is a bit fuzzy.

Pretty sure I used GroovyMame and I definitely only used one resolution - 640 x 480 ...
Otherwise every time you change resolutions, you have to recalibrate the guns in windows.

As for different emulators, I have Demul, Sega Model 2, Supermodel and MAME setup. I also have a few PC Games as well.

Not tried the Demul Shooter program though.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #60 on: June 16, 2017, 10:20:38 am »
Thanks a bunch for the quick reply. I am gathering info to do one of these too. I have a Target Terror cab and just picked up the usb2gun board. Gotta get a PC picked up next.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk


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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #61 on: May 26, 2018, 02:34:23 pm »
bumping this hoping you still have pictures. I just got an America's Army cab....
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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #62 on: May 26, 2018, 03:00:30 pm »
Nice one 👍... I wouldn’t worry too much about the photos, they were just a few shots of the outside of the cab. The important info is all still written throughout the thread 😉.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #63 on: May 26, 2018, 04:55:55 pm »
Nice one 👍... I wouldn’t worry too much about the photos, they were just a few shots of the outside of the cab. The important info is all still written throughout the thread 😉.

But do the USB2Guns work on Win7x64?
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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #64 on: May 27, 2018, 01:50:14 am »
I couldn’t say for certain but sgtsocko had it working with XP according to his post on this thread and I have it working on 8.1, so I’m pretty sure anything inbetween should work too.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #65 on: May 27, 2018, 09:42:09 am »
Awesome!  Hope you don't me me PMing you if I get hemmed up; I have another project to finish before I tackle this one but I plan to do tons of documentation.
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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #66 on: May 27, 2018, 11:45:37 am »
Awesome!  Hope you don't me me PMing you if I get hemmed up; I have another project to finish before I tackle this one but I plan to do tons of documentation.
Yea no problem 👍

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #67 on: June 08, 2018, 06:20:51 pm »
pinging jollywest..........................


what front end are you using and how are you selecting and exiting games?
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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #68 on: June 09, 2018, 05:09:05 am »
pinging jollywest..........................


what front end are you using and how are you selecting and exiting games?

I'm using MALA but before you go down that route there is one issue that I never managed to fix with it on my setup, maybe you will have more luck if you get the same problem though.
Here is a thread which explains it;
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,146574.0.html
I think the issue is that the PC doesn't see the USB2GUN as an encoder, like an I-PAC, so no key-presses are registered during game-play. After a short time, the PC (or MALA?) thinks its idling and returns to the MALA menu screen and I have to ALT-TAB back into the game via a wireless keyboard.
I literally spent days trying to work this out but gave up in the end. I tried turning off the Anti-virus software plus any other programs that might be causing the issue as mentioned in the above thread without joy.

Regarding selecting and exiting games, the following script will need to be run at MALA startup.
It sends an ALT & F4 command when pressing both 'Start' Buttons together forcing a game to close, returning you to the MALA Menu.
You'll need to check in Windows which game controller ID has been assigned to each of the guns by the PC.
In my case 1joy3 corresponds to Player 1 Start button and 2joy3 corresponds to Player 2 Start button; 
Code: [Select]
2joy3::send {F4}
1joy3::
{
send {Alt down}
sleep, 200
send {Alt up}
}

The PC recognizes each gun and Start button as 1 Game controller with 3 buttons;
1: On-screen trigger press
2: Off-screen trigger press.
3: Start Button
In the MALA Options, under the controller tab, I have Joystick setup as so...



This equates to;
Player 1 On-screen trigger press = Start Game
Player 1 Off-screen trigger press = Next Emulator
Player 1 Start Button = Scroll Down Game List

MALA doesn't recognize multiple Joysticks and so I had to set up the Keyboard options like this..



This equates to;
Player 2 Start Button = Scroll Up Game List (this relates to the script mentioned above where P2 Start Button = F4)
« Last Edit: June 09, 2018, 05:12:40 am by Jollywest »

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #69 on: June 09, 2018, 11:54:41 am »
That is an immense help.  Do you have a mala game list?

And did you set  up any console lightgun games with any success? Like the super scope games or even the PS2 ports of the crisis games?
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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #70 on: June 09, 2018, 01:08:41 pm »
That is an immense help.  Do you have a mala game list?

And did you set  up any console lightgun games with any success? Like the super scope games or even the PS2 ports of the crisis games?

I've never tried any console emulators on it, only arcade emulators plus a couple of PC games.
I've attached my MALA Game list and a list of compatibility issues I came across in some games.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #71 on: June 09, 2018, 07:56:01 pm »
I've been reading through the thread and may be of help with regards to front ends and consoles as I've been working on an Aimtrak modification project (which I'll post up at some point). I've managed to get the following emulators to launch using just the Aimtrak through a Simpletouch FE skin by a mixture of BAT files, Autohotkey scripts, command line etc. In game they all use the Escape key to exit and they then drop back into Simpletouch FE. The list below are all tested and it's only Mame games which consistently need anything other than the escape key.




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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #72 on: September 30, 2018, 04:26:03 pm »
Hi, I have been reading this thread but being a newbie I have been struggling with being able to move forward on a project. I have acquired an america's army arcade game. There was no monitor or computer but everything else intact. I have picked a makvision 27/29" monitor and also have a computer with Windows 7 OS. I have downloaded and installed
groovymame. I have downloaded many of the games that Jollywest has on his game. At this point games start but none have any accuracy on the guns. Like Jollywest the USB2 reports as Lightgun 2.03. Each individual gun reports as gun 1. I have calibrated the guns in windows. My problem is where to go next. Any help would be appreciated.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #73 on: September 30, 2018, 09:24:02 pm »
Each game has an original service menu where the guns also need to be calibrated.  The default key in mame is F2, but some older (early 80's) games used dip switch settings.  See if you can get it working in one of the newer ones first.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #74 on: October 01, 2018, 02:37:21 am »
Have you changed the mame.ini file, as explained in post 12;
‘However, they are working great in MAME. I had to change a few settings in mame.ini to get them to work though.
I had to enable joystick and off screen reload in device input, have joystick as the lightgun and positional controller and had to change joystick deadzone from 0.3 to 0.0 and joystick saturation from 0.85 to 0.95.’

Also, make sure mame isn’t changing the resolution of games to that of something different than your windows resolution. I use 640 x 480.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #75 on: October 01, 2018, 06:27:45 pm »
Thanks for the responses. I did go into the service menu in some of the games themselves and the cross hair's were way off even during calibration. Strangely some of the time the cross hair would be Ok toward the center of the screen but as I moved toward the edges they would go way off compared to where I was pointing it. I did enable joystick and off screen reload in device input. Also followed the other settings in mame ini file. Do I set the resolution for all games in Mame ini ? I believe that is set on auto. I'll have to check. I remember seeing references to resolution several times in ini. Which one is the correct one for all games ? Does it matter the resolution of windows itself ? I changed the windows resolution to 800X600 for now. When I changed windows to 640X480 the makvision lost the picture. Again thanks for the input.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #76 on: October 01, 2018, 07:00:45 pm »
I did check the mame ini file as per Jollywest's settings everything does match. In the "per-window video options" I set it at 640X480 on resolution. There are other resolutions of 0,1,2,3 all of those are on auto. I am going to check as many games as I can in the F2 game option's as well. I will let you know if anything changes.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #77 on: October 01, 2018, 07:02:33 pm »
Thanks for the responses. I did go into the service menu in some of the games themselves and the cross hair's were way off even during calibration. Strangely some of the time the cross hair would be Ok toward the center of the screen but as I moved toward the edges they would go way off compared to where I was pointing it. I did enable joystick and off screen reload in device input. Also followed the other settings in mame ini file. Do I set the resolution for all games in Mame ini ? I believe that is set on auto. I'll have to check. I remember seeing references to resolution several times in ini. Which one is the correct one for all games ? Does it matter the resolution of windows itself ? I changed the windows resolution to 800X600 for now. When I changed windows to 640X480 the makvision lost the picture. Again thanks for the input.

Your monitor might only support SVGA (800x600) Also if it does VGA, you may have to try 640x480 interlaced. Post what model of monitor you have.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #78 on: October 01, 2018, 07:10:18 pm »
The monitor is Makvision M2929d1-62. When I launch mame it tells me "SwitchRes: could not find a video mode that meets your specs"

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #79 on: October 01, 2018, 11:55:38 pm »
The monitor is Makvision M2929d1-62. When I launch mame it tells me "SwitchRes: could not find a video mode that meets your specs"

Your monitor looks to be 1024x768. Since you are using Groovymame and switchres, hop over to that board and make sure you are getting things set up properly there first. You should not be getting that message. That indicates your GM/resolutions are not set up properly.

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #80 on: October 02, 2018, 07:16:00 pm »
Thanks DudeRegular. I have been looking on the boards and installed groovymame correctly but have not installed Crt Emudriver and removed existing drivers. I am only assuming that this is my primary source of issues. I will read the tutorial's and get everything set up and post results here when I am done. Again thanks for your help !

Brian74

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #81 on: December 05, 2018, 10:46:07 am »
Anyone know if v2.0 of the board will work?
         

Buhdee

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #82 on: May 21, 2019, 11:00:11 am »
How did you get off screen reload to work?
« Last Edit: May 24, 2019, 03:11:57 pm by Buhdee »

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #83 on: May 25, 2019, 07:16:48 am »
How did you get off screen reload to work?
Which games?

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #84 on: September 03, 2019, 03:30:11 pm »
Hi there,

sorry for the necropost, but I just stumbled across this for the 1st time.

As I cant pm (yet?) I would love to know more about this machine, as Id love to build one on my own.

1.)
I wonder if this was a "standard windows xp / vista" running on this machine ?

2.)
I really wonder what kind of system was used for the "USB Dongle" ?

I already found out the "community" found a way "around" for all Global VR products ?
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=129168.1920

3.)
What would be the total size of this game ?

4.)
Is there a way to play with different controls, like mouse or i-pac for example ?

5.)
And last but not least, I already googled a lot, but it doesnt look like as if the iso of this game is floating around on the net ?

Thanks in advance and highest regards.



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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #85 on: September 03, 2019, 04:14:06 pm »
I cant pm (yet?)
You can now that your account has been auto-upgraded to Jr. Member.   :cheers:

And last but not least, I already googled a lot, but it doesnt look like as if the iso of this game is floating around on the net ?
Sorry, but we can't help you with this due to Rule 5:police:


Scott

vargas14617

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun - Recoil working
« Reply #86 on: October 19, 2019, 09:20:28 pm »
I've had quite a lot of time on the project over the last 2 nights and its definitely been worth it as we now have Recoil!!  ;D

Big thanks to Howard for helping with this, without Mamehooker this wouldn't have been possible.  :applaud:

So the manual wasn't very accurate with the version of board I'm using but Howard still managed to pull plenty of info from it for me to trial and error things.

As well as the Recoil there are a few other commands that may come in use.

One thing that may vary with the commands is the VID and PID, depending on which version of board is used. On the version I'm using the VID is &H1AB7 and the PID is &H6570. To find out this go to Device Manager, expand Human Interface Devices, right-click HID Game Controller, select Properties, click on the Details tab, select Hardware ID's from the drop down menu and they are in there. Adapt the following commands to suit.

The commands found are as follows and can be entered into the Mamehooker test box for global use or into a specific rom ini using the Mamehooker Script Editor drop down menu;

Player 1 Auto-Recoil:
  This command makes the recoil stay on and fires a single tap on a on-screen trigger press until Windows shuts down or until another recoil command is sent to the player 1 gun. This is useful for games that use a single-shot function.
ghd 1 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h04:&h00:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 2 Auto-Recoil:
ghd 2 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h04:&h00:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 1 Manual-Recoil: This command is useful for games that use a multi-shot function (for eg, T2) and can be put into a specific rom ini through the MameHooker script editor drop down menu, when Mamehooker finds a recoil output in a MAME game.
ghd 1 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h04:&h01:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 2 Manual-Recoil:
ghd 2 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h04:&h01:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 1 Turn-off flash: This command is only really useful in games where the screen tracks the guns movements accurately, these games are only games that have a high brightness colour scheme throughout the game on every part of the screen, for eg. NY Captor.
ghd 1 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h03:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 2 Turn off flash:
ghd 2 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h03:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00


Player 1 Turn on flash (1ms Duration): The third byte, &h01 in the case below changes the duration of the flash in milliseconds. For example, changing &h01 to &h05 will make the flash last for 5ms, &h010 = 10ms and so on. I'm not sure what the default is but I've set it to 1ms and its quicker and the gun still functions properly.
ghd 1 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h03:&h00:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

Player 2 Turn on flash (1ms Duration):
ghd 2 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h03:&h00:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

if I add this to test box

ghd 1 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h04:&h00:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00

ghd 2 &H1AB7 &H6570 8 &h04:&h00:&h01:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00:&h00


 it works but I can't get it to work in mame what am I doing wrong? I edited current game which was area 51 but no recoil even after restarting mame. 

Jollywest

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #87 on: October 20, 2019, 01:24:42 am »
Have you set up MAMEHooker as per the tutorials? >
http://dragonking.arcadecontrols.com/static.php?page=mhtutorials

vargas14617

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #88 on: October 20, 2019, 09:47:26 am »
Ok progress.  Had to tell mame.ini osd to windows. Have recoil on gun one. Can’t get gun two to recoil



Update restarted machine no recoil. Frustrated 
« Last Edit: October 20, 2019, 12:35:44 pm by vargas14617 »

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #89 on: July 16, 2021, 10:33:49 pm »
Hellllloooool!

Hoping that someone who can help will see this. I’ve been in the process of building this USB2Gun cabinet for a looooong time. I’ve had major health issues including being in a coma and the surgeon telling my wife they’ve done all they can for me but she needs to prepare herself for the fact that I’m probably not going to pull through. Then a week in ICU, 5 blood transfusions, months in a wheelchair…crazy and scary stuff. It’s been a long and difficult road back from there unfortunately, but I am still here!

Anyway, that’s sort of why things have taken me so long to get to this project done. Having this cabinet has been a dream for many many years and I’m GOING TO DO IT! With the help of user Jollywest (whom I can’t get ahold of at the moment), I have gotten my cab to the point where I have only two sets of issues remaining.

1. Calibration. I don’t even understand where I am supposed to go to calibrate. I know that each game supposedly has it’s own through F2, but is there a master calibration I am supposed to do first? If so, where would I find that and what do I do when I get there?

2. Recoil and screen flash duration through Mamehooker. I am using the version of the board that has the jamma connector so it has a different VID and PID than the one Jollywest was using (and different from the one that came in the America’s Army cab). I was able to locate the VID and PID but I have no idea how to enter that into the Mamehooker defaul ini file and what I am supposed to do with it. I tried following the instructions in this thread but I’m sure I got it wrong because it didn’t work. I’m way out of my depth on this.

I’ve tried to attach a couple of shots I took trying to show the VID and PID for my board as well as what I tried to enter into the default ini for Mamehooker but the files are too big. Here is a Dropbox link to the screen caps. I don’t know what I’m doing!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y0pvwvcbyjus1y6/AACb5MdA8A1I9BcdCog2jl6Ta?dl=0

This cabinet has been one of the great goals that I have had for myself to complete and when I got out of the hospital I told my wife I was going to finish this and finally have my dream machine one way or another no matter what. Can anyone help explain to me how to get this done? I’m SO CLOSE. I can play everything but my guns don’t shoot on the sides of the screen, the recoil doesn’t work, and I want to shorten the screen flash.

Thanks so much to anyone who can help me out!!! I really sincerely would appreciate help in finally finishing this project! I also want to show my wife that I’m not full of it and that I can get it done! 😁
Unbeatable Mortal Kombat Master

Purple Tophat

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #90 on: July 18, 2021, 12:20:54 pm »
So I found the calibration screen and have gone through the process a bunch of times. The first time I track the crosshairs around the screen it goes all the way around. The second time it will not recognize the bottom 1/3rd and right 1/4 of the screen. Any ideas? Otherwise everything is calibrated fine. Just can’t shoot the bottom or right side with either gun. Any help?
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purbeast

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Re: Multi Lightgun Game Arcade : USB2Gun with Recoil
« Reply #91 on: June 24, 2023, 06:48:56 pm »
I know this is old but I am having issues with offscreen reload not working on my setup.  I just started messing with a usb2gun today and have it working fairly well in groovymame based on the info in this thread and others, all except the offscreen reload.

Just to clarify, this is a groovymame setup in a Windows 10 PC running at 320x240 resolution on a CRT and using Happ light guns.

Here is a video of it in action showing the issue.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cKGxYjKx7vU