Light gun time crisis arcade build

[TimeCrisis]

Hello, I am planning on making a dedicated light gun arcade cabinet mainly for time crisis, I have many things to look into but I will start off with my first question.

how do I remove the gun flash from time crisis 1 in mame?

here is a video of someone using time crisis 1 with no gun flash (skip half way in)


Also when I play time crisis II and carnevil in mame I do NOT have gun flash, so I guess there must be some way to disable it in time crisis 1?

Thanks

[Jollywest]

The flash showing depends on your hardware setup. I would of thought the video shows Time Crisis being controlled by a mouse, so no flash.
If you are using IR guns, like the Aimtrak then there may be an option to turn the flash off in the Aimtrak settings but someone with this setup would be able to confirm either way.
You say you have no flash in Time Crisis 2 or Carnevil in MAME, what is your PC spec ? ... as I didn't think Time Crisis 2 was playable in MAME at this point.

[TimeCrisis]

time crisis II isn't very playable frame rate wise, however I can tell there is at least no gun flash when I play the game (its amazing to see the game with no flash btw!), and yeah same goes for Carnevil, obviously both games had gun flash back in its day of the late 90s, yet it's not there in mame, yet time crisis 1 has the flash of the original arcade, so it must be some setting in mame somewhere.

Choosing mouse or no mouse makes no difference, there is still gunflash, there are no differences in my mame setup for time crisis 1 vs Time crisis II/Carnevil, yet the flash is there in TC1, I was thinking hidden DIP Switches and service menu options but I tried this and there was nothing, Tried looking into cheats but it wasn't there as well.

aimtrack H/W settings provide no such options, they wouldn't anyway since they don't use on screen flash technology in their guns.

[Jollywest]

Interesting, ... I'm out at work at the min, so I can't test it but are you saying in Time Crisis when you click mouse button to fire it flashes?

[TimeCrisis]

Most definitely, I will continue to play around with the settings, if you could get time crisis 1 to work with no flash with your mouse that would be a great starting point for me.

[Jollywest]

Just a theory but maybe the video you posted was recorded by screen activity software like CamStudio for eg. not sure if it would matter but might be worth testing.

[TimeCrisis]

I did think that something like that maybe the case, but would it be possible to remove every quik flash perfectly the way it is in the video, and also there is still the point of my Time Crisis II and Carnevil games working without a hint of gunflash, maybe that was the way the rom was dumped for TCII, with the flash removed?

[Jollywest]

Ok just had a crack at this.

I tried CamStudio but it also plays back the flash as well in the recording, so that ain't it.

I could turn off the trigger flash on my Happ gun setup on Time Crisis through MAME, by sending a command through MameHooker to the USB2Gun board, but it still flashes on a mouse button press. I need the flash on though or the shots only register on lighter parts of the screen.

Other than trying to message the guy who uploaded the video and asking him, I'm out of ideas. Sorry for been of no use whatsoever. 

[TimeCrisis]

that's okay, the more information we can gather, the better we can solve the puzzle.

I just downloaded a couple of other roms of time crisis to give them ago and they produced the same results (both rev. A and B), had a look in the time crisis manual to see information about dip switches, they all appear to do mostly nothing.

I've known about this problem for 6 months and have researched every idea I can think of but can't get anywhere on it.

Interestingly enough model 3 emulator gives a very light flash for the lost world, I would barely call it a flash, it looks pretty neat and natural, however I'm assuming the original arcade setup back then would have had a pretty strong flash like time crisis 1 had, so it appears that emulator has disabled the flash for that game.

if anyone has any ideas for removing the flash in house of the dead 1 that would be great as well, the only other alternative is the PC version however I do not like that port as it looks incorrect to the arcade.

[TimeCrisis]

If I buy a namco arcade gun, can I test the recoil functionailty without plugging it into a real namco arcade machine or doing an aimtrak to namco convert.

I am open to suggestions on the design.



obviously I am hiding a 50" widescreen TV in those bezels

[TimeCrisis]

Does anyone know if the guncon 3 is line of sight? I can only assume it is since I have heard there are no crosshairs in time crisis 4 on the PS3.

can I check that the PSMove is line of sight, I only assume it isn't as there are crosshairs in House of the Dead 4 on PSN.

does anyone know what namco did with time crisis 4 on the ps3 to make it widescreen, I can only assume they expanded the view from the original arcade, I read on Wikipedia that the games supports 4:3 mode on the ps3, is this option selectable in the game?

[TimeCrisis]

I felt this was worth a semi bump

someone just listed an awesome custom made time crisis build on ebay.

seems he took the time crisis 1 marquee and cropped the image, then based the cabinet around the blue with yellow sight design.



I think he overdid the 'Namco' text in the design but it still looks awesome-ish

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Playstation-2-Arcade-Cabinet-Time-Crisis-Point-Blank-G-Con-Games-Room-MAME-/321630482650?pt=UK_Video_Games_Coin_Operated_MJ&hash=item4ae2abb0da

[Sky25es]

you know that the recoil output doesn't work/isn't hooked up in mame, don't you?
You can setup mamehooker to have your gun recoil working after each shot but it won't be controlled by the game itself...

[TimeCrisis]

how do you mean? I thought if you used the recoil kit it shot everytime you fired at the screen.

there was videos of people using it with demul HOTD2, and mame was not involved.

[Sky25es]

The original Time Crisis arcade machine controlled the recoil action via software. That means: No more bullets = no recoil until you reload.
You can use MAME in conjunction with MAMEhooker in many games that have their respective outputs hooked up so that they can control the recoil action (I.e. Operation Wolf). Unfortunately the recoil output for Time Crisis isn't hooked up/doesn't work. 
Sure, you can still use your recoil kit, but each time you press the trigger the solenoid will move even if you're out of ammo.

[TimeCrisis]

ah right I see, I imagine that would be a problem for all games, not sure how you would ever get around that, maybe some software that counts the number of bullets you have used since your last reload, and once it reaches a certain amount it will know not the fire the recoil.

[Sky25es]

As said before, it's a problem of MAME not having the recoil output hooked up and there's nothing we can do until a Mamedev is willing to take a look at it.
I think the right person for the job would be Howard Casto (The guy behind Mamehooker) but it's been a long time since we heard from him... (some rumors say that he enlisted in the french foreign legion, others that he's on a spiritual retreat in Nepal as a Zen Buddhist monk and some others say that he's been kidnapped by a Colombian guerrilla )

[TimeCrisis]

well it only applies to 1 game for me, all the other games are not on mame.

A counter would work perfectly though, I'm guessing aimtraks software would need updated to work with the recoil kit and count the number of times since last reload and not allow for the recoil to work until the next button press.

however it doesn't bother me much, the game tells me when I need to reload anyway, probably wont take notice my gun is recoiling since things move so quikcly in game.

just need to wait on updates on this thread

https://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=119610.160

before I can proceed further with the recoil.

[Sky25es]

... Ok. Good luck with your project. Looking forward to seeing the finished cab