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Author Topic: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup  (Read 41152 times)

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twistedsymphony

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #40 on: February 10, 2016, 08:29:42 am »
I posted a link to a gameplay video when I revived this thread you can see the LEDs are on but they're flashing too fast to make out a pattern.

here's the link again: https://www.instagram.com/p/BBf8TNyTGM-/?taken-by=twistedchu

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #41 on: February 10, 2016, 08:34:41 am »
I saw the video but tbh I can't make out the leds.  I'm assuming it's the white dots on the boards. 

They might not be flashing at all.  Leds often shimmer just from the oscillating power. 

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #42 on: February 10, 2016, 08:56:38 am »
Yeah the white dots in the center of the board... maybe I'll see if I can get better video with a different camera, I have a nice HD camcorder but I'd suspect it has an IR filter... we'll see.

As for that 5-pin chip... I don't think it's a flip flop. the 8-pin IC uses all 8 pins for a single flip-flop, so it'd be 3-pins shy.
Based on other chips I'm seeing in this size I'm guessing it's either something simple like a NOT gate or a low voltage transistor being used as a logic gate. I also see a few manufacturer using this size chip as a sort of diode pack.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #43 on: February 10, 2016, 09:10:25 am »
Well I found a pinout for the led arrays and it is a bit confusing to me. 

The pins are:

12v
5v
C
B
A
GND

So no data lines really by the sound of that.  You've just got three lines period.  Also having 12v AND 5v is a bit odd.  If you have 12v what do you need 5v for?  I can only guess 5v to trip the transistors and 12v to actually power the leds, but if that's the case what do lines A-C do?

The boards are all generic right?  I'm having a hard time figuring out what, if any, blink pattern these could create piggy-backed using 1997 tech. 

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #44 on: February 10, 2016, 09:35:09 am »
but if that's the case what do lines A-C do?

The boards are all generic right?  I'm having a hard time figuring out what, if any, blink pattern these could create piggy-backed using 1997 tech.

Addressable LEDs before their time?

If they are all identical but do something different when placed in different positions, there must be some method for them to figure out where they are and what they need to output differently from the others.
I guess they wouldn't really need to know where they are.  The gun could figure that out during calibration.
They would need to know to do something different than all the other boards.

Gotta be some type of communication.  Maybe not data, but a pattern or amount of voltage or resistance.

EDIT:
Quote from: twistedsymphony
I do believe the order of the sensors in the chain matters though. It starts one in from the bottom right of the screen then goes around clock wise ending on the bottom right.

So the main board knows what pattern the chain is laid out in...
Some variable is changing as you progress through the chain which affects the pattern.
At the edge of my skill level here, but that flip-flop chip twistedsymphony sounds like it has a clock that's variable based on the voltage of an input.

My work (at work) is piling up while I'm chewing on this.
I feel like if I could sit down and focus on it for an hour or two, I could figure it out.  :angry:


The more I read up on this stuff, the more it sounds like the clock is jut there to synchronize stuff.
Are we sure that each board is flashing at a different rate?

Since the LEDs form a square, the gun could know where it was as long as a corner was in view.
Maybe any flashing is just for the sake of preventing IR light from other sources such as reflections from affecting it.

Even if that's not the case, maybe we could hack something together that uses a rectangular outline of IR LEDs and works as long as a corner is in view.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 10:35:38 am by BadMouth »

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #45 on: February 10, 2016, 11:07:58 am »
"Calibration" is interesting.

there are 4 adjustment screws on the Gun I/O board I believe they're adjustable caps, not pots. everything I've read has said to never EVER EVER touch these, they're set from the factory and shouldn't ever need to be changed.  The position of these on the board leads me to believe that there are 2 of these per gun, probably an X and Y adjustment. each one of these sits next to a tiny 50Hz inductor.

The sensor in the gun itself has 3 adjustment screws, again these look like adjustable caps, not pots. and again I've been told to never EVER EVER touch these, they're set from the factory and shouldn't ever need to be changed.

The thing is this whole gun assembly is self-contained, it doesn't need to be attached to anything at all to function, the output pins will happily provide whatever X and Y voltage coordinates that match where the gun is pointing. That's what makes this system so beautiful for use with a PC. The Games that use this each have their own internal calibration, which really just adjusting how the game interprets to whatever output voltage the Gun I/O is providing.

Sega was pretty brilliant in the design because it means that you could swap out the IR guns for a set of mounted guns with POTs for X and Y and the game wouldn't know the difference. technically you could even play an analog based game like Super Monkey ball or even a racing game and just tilt the gun around instead of using an analog stick... or pedals and steering, again because the game doesn't know the difference.

The Gun I/O has a 12V input for power, and then it uses a Voltage converter to create 5V. I originally assumed that this was just for the analog output voltage since it works within a 0-5V range, it seems odd to me that it would use this on the LED matrix, even more strange that it would use it in addition to 12V.

The Circuit design on the LED board should be easy to determine, as it's a single layer/single sided PCB with mostly obvious traces.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 11:17:42 am by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #46 on: February 10, 2016, 11:50:29 am »
You have them on a 4:3 monitor.  Experimented any with a 16:9?

I wouldn't expect it to work, but it would be cool if it did.
I guess you could put them on an oversized 4:3 bezel in front of a 16:9 monitor and the extra Y axis would be adjusted for in the in-game calibration.....

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #47 on: February 10, 2016, 12:58:11 pm »
The only thing I can think of would be one of those chips (probably the flip-flop) acting like a capacitor.  Caps have to "fill" before any voltage is passed along which creates a tiny delay.  So voltage is passed to board 1, after a delay caused from energizing the chip, the led lights up allowing voltage to flow to board 2, and so on and so forth.  That would make the lights blink in sequence.  But that would only need one line and probably wouldn't even need a clock, so I don't know what the other 2 or 3 wires are for. 

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #48 on: February 10, 2016, 01:42:05 pm »
You have them on a 4:3 monitor.  Experimented any with a 16:9?

I wouldn't expect it to work, but it would be cool if it did.
I guess you could put them on an oversized 4:3 bezel in front of a 16:9 monitor and the extra Y axis would be adjusted for in the in-game calibration.....
I have no doubt that it will work. This setup came out of a Net City upright using a 27" CRT angled back about 20 degrees, and it's designed to drop into the "Delux" cabinet with a 50" rear projection screen and the board set originally came out of a "dedicated upright" which has the sensors pointing up and reflecting off of a mirror. Ghost squad and newer games all ran on 42" or larger 16:9 LCDs with the same hardware. I think you're right that any inconsistencies between setups just gets sorted out in the in-game calibration. Heck i just eye-balled the placement of the sensors in my carboard bezel and was still able to calibrate it pretty much perfectly.

We'll know for sure soon though; I'm installing this on my projector which is a 108" 16:9 screen. I just need to build the extended LED board harnesses which is a few hundred crimps that I'm not looking forward to  :lol

The only thing I can think of would be one of those chips (probably the flip-flop) acting like a capacitor.  Caps have to "fill" before any voltage is passed along which creates a tiny delay.  So voltage is passed to board 1, after a delay caused from energizing the chip, the led lights up allowing voltage to flow to board 2, and so on and so forth.  That would make the lights blink in sequence.  But that would only need one line and probably wouldn't even need a clock, so I don't know what the other 2 or 3 wires are for. 

I think you're over thinking this, I highly doubt there's any analog trickery going on with the LED boards, that just seems like it would just way over complicate things and open it up to falling out of calibration way too easily.

This is just complete speculation on my part but if I was designing this board this is what I would do:
 the flip flops are used for latching, think of it like 1 bit of memory per flip flop. If we assume that the mystery chip is maybe an "AND" gate then we could use A for a pulse signal and B to be the signal for the previous board in the chain. When A+B are both positive then then toggle the flip flop and turn the LEDs on, This means that it will turn on the LED AFTER the one that is currently list. meanwhile all the other LEDs in the chain (including the previously lit LED) will have positive for the pulse on A but a negative for the value of B and thus toggle their LEDs off.

This would in effect turn on 1 LED at a time in sequence. the C wire could just be a feedback to let the gun I/O know when the last LED in the chain has been deactivated. This could be accomplished by simply putting a pull-up resistor across B and C such that when NO LEDs are on C is low but if ANY LEDs are on then C is high.. that way the Gun I/O knows it's done one rotation and to start the sequence again.... this would also be helpful for starting the sequence since none will be on to start, and work as a check since it knows it should count to 10 before getting the "all-clear" and if it doesn't there's a problem.

This would have to happen very fast. If we assume it wants to check gun position for every frame (and the game runs at 60FPS) then at minimum it would have to make a full rotation in under 16ms.

again, this is just my personal speculation.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 01:46:31 pm by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #49 on: February 10, 2016, 02:30:58 pm »
What kind of minimum distance does the sega ir setup allow?

I experimented with the aimtrak and while I'll concede it does work very well, it doesn't work for my setup with the minimum distance requirements - I couldn't get satisfactory accuracy closer than about 2.5 - 3 feet which was just too far away for an approx. 19in screen. So I'm back at working with some crt guns.

Personally, I'm working on a tool with my brother to increase functionality of the Guncon 2's on pc. The aim being proper screen flashing for the PS2 Guncon 2's using the EMS topgun driver...

why not just use the Wingun driver, you might ask? Well, Wingun works great (and I'd actually recommend trying it!) with XP 32 bit but it can't support anything further. Same with the Guncon2PC driver. The topgun has a driver for x86 and x64 that is *also* compatible with 3rd party Guncons and works under Windows 7...but lacks proper screen flashing for darker games. Using autohotkey I've come up with a way to at least generate a directinput mouse click that is very slightly delayed to be during a flash (which is triggered off of a raw input). That, combined with a tailored control profile in the ems panel is starting to have noteworthy results. I'll definitely make a thread when that gets further along. This method won't work for the model 2 emulator (or raw input needs) ...but I may try a physical delay circuit for the trigger to send both an instantaneous key for our flasher program and a separate, slightly delayed key as the shot button. That would be the best of both worlds as it would still generate raw input for model 2/troubleshooter2 and a flash.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 02:34:34 pm by burn_654 »

twistedsymphony

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #50 on: February 10, 2016, 03:59:28 pm »
What kind of minimum distance does the sega ir setup allow?

It seems about the same as what you're seeing. The screen I was testing on is a 19" LCD and the sensors were placed 22" corner to corner and the gun could be used as close as 23" away from the screen (from screen to tip of gun). the calibration and test screen in the NAOMI was really excellent as it would tell you exactly where it would lose signal. This distance didn't really seem to be effected by gun angle or lateral distance either.

You might want to look into building a mirror cab. This is what they did in a lot of light gun arcade machines including House of the Dead 2 and Lethal Enforcers. The monitor was placed on it's back pointing up and then there was a large mirror placed at a 45 degree angle. the result is that the "effective distance" of the screen is now another 2ft or so which keep the game challenging and solves any other tracking issues you might have from the screen being too close to the gun.

check out this pic:

You can see the mirror in house of the dead 2 on the left and the result is that the monitor (and the IR sensors) look like they're a good 2-3ft away from the front glass, from the light gun's point of view that's how far away the sensor is too since that's how far the light actually has to travel.
compare that with the house of the dead 1 cab on the right which is a direct view monitor with no mirror and they have to have a pedestal in order to create distance between the player and the screen.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #51 on: February 10, 2016, 05:49:31 pm »
That's some great info, thanks for that.  :)

Clever how they promoted optimal aim distance for the hardware with the design of the cab. I suppose that's contrary to the point blank and area 51 crt/flash gun cabinets I've seen where the guns were stored much closer.

I had no idea House of the Dead 1 used IR guns? The game has a brief white flash that I had assumed was for crt gun detection, as does Lost World which used the IR setup. Why would the games incorporate a flash if it wasn't necessary - compatibility with older hardware perhaps? The ir guns should work fine without it. Unless it was purely an aesthetic thing at that point.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #52 on: February 10, 2016, 06:09:51 pm »
Don't quote me on this, but I think the earlier ones had a crt option. 

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #53 on: February 10, 2016, 06:47:00 pm »
House of the Dead 1 used CRT guns on CRT cabs, the HOTD1 cab in that pic uses CRT guns. They did make a deluxe version with a 50" projector screen and IR based guns. Completely different hardware than what I'm using though.

HOTD1 was a Model 2 game and the analog IR system wasn't implemented until Model 3 (Jurassic Park: the Lost World).

a lot of games, even those that used CRT guns and didn't need make the player stand further away for the guns to work, did so because it make the game more challenging.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 06:58:59 pm by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #54 on: February 15, 2016, 02:25:41 pm »
I've made some interesting discoveries....

I found that all of this IR equipment isn't just used by Sega, the same system was used by Namco for Time Crysis 4 as well as newer games such as Dead Storm Pirates, it's also used by Taito in Elevator Action: Death Parade and a few other games. I've found lots of people referencing the equipment as the "OMZ" IR gun board and in newer Sega Manuals (2 Spicy and newer) they regularly refer to the gun sensor with an part number prefixed with OMZ or OMJ despite it looking identical to the older sensors.

This leads me to believe that the IR setup isn't a piece of Sega equipment but rather a 3rd party "off-the-shelf" device, though even searching the OMZ part numbers leads me no where so I'm not really sure where this equipment comes from.

Another interesting thing I noticed is that in the time Crisis 4 manual the LED board arrangement around the monitor is mirrored from what Sega uses. At first I thought maybe there was difference in equipment but then I realized it shouldn't matter... if the sensors are all mirrored left to right then all that will result in is the X-Axis being reversed... and as a matter of fact Namco is likely using it properly since their sensor arrangement would result in 00,00 being top left while Sega's 00,00 is top right.

Another interesting though is that if this is indeed the same equipment then that means we should be able to use Time Crysis 4 IR guns with the rest of the sega hardware, so we could have that sweet recoil setup without having to hack anything together. There's actually a whole selection of guns available that would work... the HOTD 2 and JP used non-recoil hand-guns while HOTD3 used a pump action shotgun, HOTD4 used a machine gun, Ghost Squad used an assult rifle with recoil and two additional alternate fire buttons, HOTD EX , 2 spicy and Sega Golden Gun all used a .45 style gun with recoil and of course the Time Crisis 4 gun with the slide action recoil. finding these guns at a good price is difficult but knowing that they're available and should just work means that going forward there's a lot of potential options in the future.

here's the time crisis 4 manual for anyone that is interested: http://wiki.arcadeotaku.com/images/6/60/Time_Crisis_4_DX_Manual_issue2.pdf

----

I also got my AVR board in yesterday and got the firmware flashed, I still need to build the harness and we'll see if I can actually use this bad boy in MAME  :cheers: sadly I might not have time until later this week
« Last Edit: February 15, 2016, 02:53:53 pm by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #55 on: February 15, 2016, 04:02:25 pm »
Well maybe the thing to do is search for boards from the unpopular lightgun games.  I know when I was building my Pac-man repro I would search for sky shark parts because they were in the same cabinet, but nobody likes sky shark so the prices are low due to sellers not knowing what they have.

Chinese auction sites might be another place.  There is probably a company in China that makes the boards to all these things, so you might be able to cut out the middle man.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #56 on: February 15, 2016, 04:45:40 pm »
Well maybe the thing to do is search for boards from the unpopular lightgun games.  I know when I was building my Pac-man repro I would search for sky shark parts because they were in the same cabinet, but nobody likes sky shark so the prices are low due to sellers not knowing what they have.

Chinese auction sites might be another place.  There is probably a company in China that makes the boards to all these things, so you might be able to cut out the middle man.

I've got all the parts already so I've no need to search for cheap alternatives. but I figured this info might be useful to others who wish to follow in my footsteps.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #57 on: February 15, 2016, 06:30:28 pm »
Yeah that's what I'm talking about.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #58 on: February 16, 2016, 03:46:25 am »
Just something to think about...

  I believe the main reason CRT Gun games used a front-surface-mirror...  was not so much to do with the gun tracking..  but more so to create difficulty and to keep some people from stepping back too far.

 If the CRT is right out in the open...  anyone could just reach their arm over.. and directly pop targets at mere inch ranges.
However,  when the CRT is unreachable... and is about 4 feet away from you (2 ft due to the mirror.. and the gun 2 ft from the glass),
then you have a lot more room for error in targeting... thus, more challenge.

 Also, some of these LED bases systems may have preferred the mirror setup, as the inner cabinet area may have better blocked stray light that could have effected their tracking performance.


 As for the sequence of lights being too fast...  there are some low dollar consumer cameras that can do high speed capture.  See if you can get a local  (amateur,  a camera shop guy,  or digital photographer )  to get a capture for you.

 Not sure why, but my XP laptop does not play your Instagram vids.  Maybe consider some youtube uploads?

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #59 on: February 16, 2016, 09:09:53 am »
You might want to look into building a mirror cab. This is what they did in a lot of light gun arcade machines including House of the Dead 2 and Lethal Enforcers. The monitor was placed on it's back pointing up and then there was a large mirror placed at a 45 degree angle. the result is that the "effective distance" of the screen is now another 2ft or so which keep the game challenging...

Just something to think about...

  I believe the main reason CRT Gun games used a front-surface-mirror...  was not so much to do with the gun tracking..  but more so to create difficulty and to keep some people from stepping back too far.

 If the CRT is right out in the open...  anyone could just reach their arm over.. and directly pop targets at mere inch ranges.
However,  when the CRT is unreachable... and is about 4 feet away from you (2 ft due to the mirror.. and the gun 2 ft from the glass),
then you have a lot more room for error in targeting... thus, more challenge.

 :applaud:

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #60 on: February 16, 2016, 03:14:56 pm »
Something to note... arcade gun games used a  Front Surface mirror.   If you use a typical mirror.. you get a feint distortion which causes a ghost image.

 Ive seen a guy on youtube  (green power something... )   use paint stripper,  to remove the gray backing paint on a normal mirror... leaving the shiny silver coating ... and then of course, all you have to do is flip the shiny side to the front.


 Here it is:

« Last Edit: February 16, 2016, 03:16:50 pm by Xiaou2 »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #61 on: February 18, 2016, 09:50:50 pm »
Ok so I had semi success getting this working in mame...
hardware wise everything works lovely... the KADE board with the MaxArcade firmware interfaces with the Gun I/O board perfectly and windows is seeing it as a pair of analog joysticks.

Unfortunately MAME is taking the term "joystick" too litterally. there's a giant fake dead-zone in the middle of the screen and it doesn't track linearly so when I'm near the boarders the cross hairs line up but as I move toward the center the cross-hairs move faster than my gun and then snap to the center ...

Anyone know how to disable this crap and force mame to treat the analog data as coordinates as opposed to a suggestion? as it is now it's nearly unplayable.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #62 on: February 18, 2016, 10:17:21 pm »
Ok so I had semi success getting this working in mame...
hardware wise everything works lovely... the KADE board with the MaxArcade firmware interfaces with the Gun I/O board perfectly and windows is seeing it as a pair of analog joysticks.
Glad to hear that.   ;D

Unfortunately MAME is taking the term "joystick" too litterally. there's a giant fake dead-zone in the middle of the screen and it doesn't track linearly so when I'm near the boarders the cross hairs line up but as I move toward the center the cross-hairs move faster than my gun and then snap to the center ...
Have you tried adjusting the joystick dead zone to zero in mame.ini?  (may also need to tweak saturation)

joystick_deadzone         0.3
joystick_saturation       0.85


Scott

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #63 on: February 18, 2016, 10:47:35 pm »
+1

When I wrote those wiimote scripts a few years back I had to set the deadzone to 0 and the saturation to 1 for them to work correctly.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #64 on: February 19, 2016, 07:10:56 am »
ah, that's much better. I knew mame would have something but I was looking in the menus not the ini.
still needs to be calibrated but at least it's tracking smoothly and linearly.

what is the "joystick_map" used for in the mame.ini? is that something that could be used to dial in the calibration?


I also have to reverse the X-Axis in the tab menu. Which I'm thinking I can avoid if I simply run the led emitters counter clockwise around the screen instead of clockwise.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #65 on: February 19, 2016, 08:01:34 am »
Try using F2 in game to access the original game test menu, a lot of mame gun games have a gun calibration menu in it for better accuracy.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #66 on: February 19, 2016, 08:54:30 am »
This is like mapping positional guns.  You need to have a good understanding of all the analog settings in MAME as well as understand that you have 3 layers of calibration to deal with; windows, mame interface, game service menu.

from an old post about analog guns:

1.  Calibrate the positional gun in windows by pointing it along the edges of the screen.
2.  In mame.ini set the dead zone to zero.
3.  In mame.ini set the saturation to 1 (100%)
4.  Calibrate the gun in the game's service menu
5.  Adjust the sensetivity under analogue controls in MAME's in-game menu until the crosshairs don't lag behind the gun movement.
    (there is only ONE sensetivity setting, ignore all settings that include the word DIGITAL)

I also have to reverse the X-Axis in the tab menu. Which I'm thinking I can avoid if I simply run the led emitters counter clockwise around the screen instead of clockwise.

or just reverse the leads for the x-axis on the KADE.  ;)
« Last Edit: February 19, 2016, 09:25:00 am by BadMouth »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #67 on: February 19, 2016, 09:43:32 am »
there's only 1 wire for the X-Axis... nothing to reverse  :lol


Not all games have gun calibration in MAME. the first game I tested was Lethal Enforcers... checked the test menu... no calibration :-/

if the analog output can be mapped correctly outside of the game then any in-game calibration shouldn't be needed since MAME is just sending screen coordinates into the game.

A better solution might be to have a wrapper that re-interprets the analog data as a pointing device and allows for it's own calibration. that would theoretically remove any need for calibration within the emulators themselves.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #68 on: February 19, 2016, 10:11:49 am »
What about the calibration features in the windows gamepad control panel? could that be of some use?

It's been a while since I've had to use it but for analog joysticks you used to be able to calibrate there by moving the joystick to its extremities.

This is exciting stuff to see happening!

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #69 on: February 19, 2016, 11:06:44 am »
if the analog output can be mapped correctly outside of the game then any in-game calibration shouldn't be needed since MAME is just sending screen coordinates into the game.

Nope, that's not how it works.  You still have to calibrate each and every solitary gun game.  This sets the min and max values for the emulated hardware, which default to 0 on most games.  A few  true lightgun games don't have a calibration option as you've discovered, but other than that... yeah you've got some work ahead of you.

Badmouth's list is correct.  Calibrate the "joystick" in windows control panel first and go from there. 

I would suggest starting with games that used analog guns, like Terminator 2.  That'll give you a good idea if it's a hardware thing or what.


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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #70 on: February 19, 2016, 11:30:42 am »
yeah the first thing I did before even loading up MAME was calibrate in windows. I had to unplug the button wires because the Gun I/O has a "screen out" button that gets activated whenever it loses track of the gun and windows asks you to push a button when you're done calibrating  :lol

I get what you're saying about needing to calibrate in-game too. i guess I just assumed that mame would have mapped the pointing device coordinates to whatever the default calibration the game had.

I don't mind putting in the work as long as everything works well and I only have to do it once.

I've started listing out all the light gun games playable in mame and on other emulators... Is there a list of PC games that can be played with a light gun?

... The more I get into this the more surprised I am that we don't have a dedicated sub-forum for "shooting" games/cabs ;)
« Last Edit: February 19, 2016, 11:33:22 am by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #71 on: February 19, 2016, 11:35:08 am »
Downoad the Aim-Trak manual from ultimarc.
It lists every single gun game in MAME and instructions for setting it up if there is something oddball about it.

There is a really big thread in the main forum where we listed pretty much everything there is, then Darth Marino posted videos of most of them.
I can't be bothered to find it at the moment, but it is there.  (This is one of the reasons I wanted a gun subforum.  I'd have stickied it)

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #72 on: February 19, 2016, 11:37:42 am »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #73 on: February 19, 2016, 11:40:14 am »
I know.  Lightguns were relatively easy back in the day, but now that we've moved to lcds it's a bit of a mess. 

I wouldn't sweat Lethal Enforcers not working btw.... it's kind of a cruddy game and while looking for a solution for you I ran across several posts of the real arcade game not registering shots accurately... apparently it has issues.

There are very, very few pc games that don't have a working arcade port.  House of the Dead III is one, but that game seems to randomly not want to accept inputs, so it's kind of broken on a modern pc.  Typing of the Dead Overkill is another.... it comes with house of the dead ok.  For the most part the remaining games are just ports of the old sega games, which are emulated fully at this point.  I've done a lot of work on the model 2 games with troubleshooter 2. 

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #74 on: February 19, 2016, 01:35:36 pm »
awesome, thanks !

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #75 on: February 20, 2016, 04:37:06 pm »
So I got new hardware and disassembled both guns again to clean and grease them. The red gun was missing the tape on the shielding so I pulled it back and snapped a photo:


looks like I was wrong, there are a couple of chips under their.

I also pulled the plastic cap off the tip for a better pic of the sensor:


the sensor is a lot larger than the hole in the cover which is interesting. but we get a better look at it.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #76 on: February 20, 2016, 06:45:30 pm »
That looks like 4 photo sensors to me.  Averaging out the values of the 4 would give you the relative position.  I suppose it's a bit more complicated than that though. 

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #77 on: February 22, 2016, 09:00:23 am »
Over the weekend I made up the extended harness for the LED emitters
over 250ft of wire and 120 crimps... my fingers hurt.



I also found that there's a dip-switch on the Gun I/O board labeled "29 <-> 50" I suspected that this inverts the X-Axis... and it does.  most likely referring to the 29" monitor in the mirror cabs and the 50" monitor in the deluxe rear-projection cabs. hence why the 29 setting inverts the X-Axis (0,0 top right) while the 50 setting does not (0,0 top left)

Posted a video of Terminator 2:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BCEqJG2zGIV

Played around with calibration a bit. I found that most games simply have you center the gun but don't do any calibration for edge detection. Which means in these games that the gun will be centered properly but then be off the more you aim toward the edges of the screen the further off the calibration is. so far the only way I found to compensate for this is to tweak the saturation value in the MAME.ini. 0.83 seems to work pretty well I'm suspecting because the sensors sit further out from the screen so technically the visible area is only 83% of the tracking area.

I suspect this will cause problems when I move up to a wide-screen setup since I'll need some way to adjust the saturation of the X and Y axis independently.... I'm still thinking for some games it might be best to translate the "analog stick" data as a mouse pointer.





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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #78 on: February 24, 2016, 11:17:42 pm »
More info... So I noticed some Time Crisis 4 equipment was up for sale on eBay...

Weird that all of these parts are clearly the same exact design but they're all also completely different PCBs.

LED board is nearly trace for trace identical but the silkscren is different.

Sensor is the same but uses a smaller connector which allows for a more narrow board

Gun I/O is probably identical to one of the later Sega models but most interesting is that it has the URL for the manufacturer  ;D
http://www.ohmic.co.jp
and an email?: ohmic@ff.iij4u.or.jp

found it on their website: http://ohmic.co.jp/cat/zahyou-01.html

And if you though Happ's prices on the Sega equipment was high... don't even bother looking to see what they charge for these parts
« Last Edit: February 24, 2016, 11:23:11 pm by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #79 on: February 25, 2016, 10:12:36 am »
Following this thread for a full read through later :-)

I have Lethal Enforcers 3 with mirrored CRTs and this gun technology, but was missing the optics board for P2 and found all replacement parts to be ridiculously expensive.  Had planned to pull P1 and put into a smaller cabinet, but will need some of this information for the conversion.

I have the OMZ-2D LED from the previous post in mine.