Sinden Lightgun Kickstarter date revealed!

[Howard_Casto]

Would it work to outline the monitor with EL tape instead?  IR LED strips all the way around would be more ideal, but i imagine that would require major changes.

Howard maybe you could get involved and help with the windowing idea if it bothers you that much?

Sure, either lower the price of the guns or give me a cut of the profits and I'll get right on that. 


I've yet to see these guns successfully used on an actual arcade cabinet standing at a reasonably close distance.  When we see that my mind might change but not until. 

[Titchgamer]

Would it work to outline the monitor with EL tape instead?  IR LED strips all the way around would be more ideal, but i imagine that would require major changes.

Howard maybe you could get involved and help with the windowing idea if it bothers you that much?

Sure, either lower the price of the guns or give me a cut of the profits and I'll get right on that. 


I've yet to see these guns successfully used on an actual arcade cabinet standing at a reasonably close distance.  When we see that my mind might change but not until.

Theres a streamer called uncle toy box who has been using his on a virtual pin cabinet but thats the only one I have seen used as part of a build thus far.

Lots of people have ordered them for that purpose though so I am sure it wont be long.

Of course your definition of reasonable distance will be personal but the rule of thumb thus far is 1.5x the screen size minimum.

Which on a 4:3 monitor is amply close imo,
But I have never liked to play right up close to the screen anyway, I play my A51 cab as far back as the hoses will allow.

[BadMouth]

For MAME, someone could just make set of custom bezels with the white outline.

[Titchgamer]

For MAME, someone could just make set of custom bezels with the white outline.

Yeah I think someone already has.

[KenToad]

That video by ETA Prime was disappointing. He dragged the crosshairs around just like a wiimote. It looked especially bad (laggy?) on the Jurassic Park game. I've yet to see anyone play a really difficult game like the harder stages of Point Blank or Time Crisis without the crosshairs on screen. Does it work with Mad Dog McCree on Daphne? That game was ridiculously difficult without a proper lightgun, so it should be a great test of the gun's accuracy.

[Titchgamer]

That video by ETA Prime was disappointing. He dragged the crosshairs around just like a wiimote. It looked especially bad (laggy?) on the Jurassic Park game. I've yet to see anyone play a really difficult game like the harder stages of Point Blank or Time Crisis without the crosshairs on screen. Does it work with Mad Dog McCree on Daphne? That game was ridiculously difficult without a proper lightgun.

I have not tried Mad Dog yet personally, But one of the guys said its fine.

[KenToad]

That video by ETA Prime was disappointing. He dragged the crosshairs around just like a wiimote. It looked especially bad (laggy?) on the Jurassic Park game. I've yet to see anyone play a really difficult game like the harder stages of Point Blank or Time Crisis without the crosshairs on screen. Does it work with Mad Dog McCree on Daphne? That game was ridiculously difficult without a proper lightgun.

I have not tried Mad Dog yet personally, But one of the guys said its fine.

Did he play it without crosshairs? I'd like to see someone play the barn shootout or something successfully without too many misses. There's a very short timing window before you get shot, so it should be a decent showcase of the tech.

[Titchgamer]

That video by ETA Prime was disappointing. He dragged the crosshairs around just like a wiimote. It looked especially bad (laggy?) on the Jurassic Park game. I've yet to see anyone play a really difficult game like the harder stages of Point Blank or Time Crisis without the crosshairs on screen. Does it work with Mad Dog McCree on Daphne? That game was ridiculously difficult without a proper lightgun.

I have not tried Mad Dog yet personally, But one of the guys said its fine.

Did he play it without crosshairs? I'd like to see someone play the barn shootout or something successfully without too many misses. There's a very short timing window before you get shot, so it should be a decent showcase of the tech.

I would imagine so, he does not like using cross hairs.
Singe is on my list but not got that far yet.

[KenToad]

Here's another DrewTalks video released today using the Sinden lightgun on a large 75" TV. He does turn off the crosshairs and plays Area 51 and Time Crisis, but the results aren't good. You can see him using the missed shots as tracking. At one point, he misses a huge power up icon in Area 51. I suppose it's possible that he's just not good at light gun games, but the results of iron sights aiming don't look accurate on YouTube, at least so far.

I have no problem with the white border or the price, if the technology approaches a decently accurate lightgun like say the GunCon 1 or 2, but I'm just not seeing that here.

[Titchgamer]

Here's another DrewTalks video released today using the Sinden lightgun on a large 75" TV. He does turn off the crosshairs and plays Area 51 and Time Crisis, but the results aren't good. You can see him using the missed shots as tracking. At one point, he misses a huge power up icon in Area 51. I suppose it's possible that he's just not good at light gun games, but the results of iron sights aiming don't look accurate on YouTube, at least so far.

I have no problem with the white border or the price, if the technology approaches a decently accurate lightgun like say the GunCon 1 or 2, but I'm just not seeing that here.

You cant really judge precision based on a game like Area 51 lol

I have some injuries right now so not performing at my best but I did a complete play through of Sammy Sports Shooting USA on Precision class with the Revolver and got 1st with no cross hairs.



You can get better scores than mine for sure but you wont get a better demo of accuracy.

I need more practice with moving targets lol

[KenToad]

Thanks again for recording and sharing your experiences. It's good to see that you're doing well hitting the stationary targets without an on-screen crosshair. I wonder if the moving target difficulty may be due to the latency of your monitor and/or the gun itself and its software? It would be interesting to see someone test the gun on a CRT, as the difficulty of many of these lightgun games were designed for nearly zero latency equipment.

[Titchgamer]

Thanks again for recording and sharing your experiences. It's good to see that you're doing well hitting the stationary targets without an on-screen crosshair. I wonder if the moving target difficulty may be due to the latency of your monitor and/or the gun itself and its software? It would be interesting to see someone test the gun on a CRT, as the difficulty of many of these lightgun games were designed for nearly zero latency equipment.

I dont think its due to the latency rather my lack of practice but obv with a game like that lots of little things can add up to a miss lol

But either way I am sure you would agree a game like that would be impossible to play without line of sight accuracy or cross hairs.

Its a game I really enjoy though, Wish I could iron the sound issues out though lol

[BadMouth]

Another problem COULD be people who have the belief and expectation that MAME is a plug and play gaming platform.  They have no concept of how to tweak MAME's settings to get a proper experience.  Games with analog controls usually play like ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- unless you take the time to set each one up individually.

In the next to the last video posted, the guy maps the axis and says that's all you have to do.  Didn't even calibrate in the game's service menu.  If multimouse is not enabled, Windows mouse settings will also affect the cursor.

Tweaking analog settings in MAME make a huge difference on guns that show up as joysticks.  Not sure when they are reported as mice. The low default sensitivity setting will make the crosshairs lag.  Default deadzone is huge.(and the crosshairs don't start moving until you've passed out of the deadzone).  Less than 100% saturation will throw off the accuracy.

Been years since I updated MAME or set anything up, but this probably still applies.

[Titchgamer]

Another problem COULD be people who have the belief and expectation that MAME is a plug and play gaming platform.  They have no concept of how to tweak MAME's settings to get a proper experience.  Games with analog controls usually play like ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- unless you take the time to set each one up individually.

In the next to the last video posted, the guy maps the axis and says that's all you have to do.  Didn't even calibrate in the game's service menu.  If multimouse is not enabled, Windows mouse settings will also affect the cursor.

Tweaking analog settings in MAME make a huge difference on guns that show up as joysticks.  Not sure when they are reported as mice. The low default sensitivity setting will make the crosshairs lag.  Default deadzone is huge.(and the crosshairs don't start moving until you've passed out of the deadzone).  Less than 100% saturation will throw off the accuracy.

Been years since I updated MAME or set anything up, but this probably still applies.

Absolutely.
I personally avoid positional gun games as I dont find them that enjoyable.
And I am certain the mouse settings have a detrimental effect on the cross hairs in mame.
But honestly I dont care enough to trial it as I do t need them lol

I actually started making a game list for mame and what you have to do to get each game working, Not all of them need service mode calibration but quite a few do.
Also some require other little tweaks here and there.

[KenToad]

Deadzone and the analog settings shouldn't affect positional data, as far as I know. The mouse cursor should snap to wherever it's pointed. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but lag in this case would be due to the latency between the Sinden gun, software, and display. Lag would also explain the inability to target quickly moving targets.

I bet we'll eventually get one of the YouTube channels with a technical setup like My Life in Gaming, Digital Foundry, or RetroRGB to do a full breakdown. It would not surprise me to see a decent amount of lag in this system.

I've also watched two videos demonstrating the gun encountering full crashes, where the gun just randomly stopped working. Hopefully, the software quirks will be ironed out soon. I'm not sure that all the people expecting their guns in November are willing to be beta testers.

[Titchgamer]

Deadzone and the analog settings shouldn't affect a mouse style pointer, since it sends positional data, not analog signals, as far as I know. The mouse cursor should snap to wherever it's pointed. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but lag in this case would be due to the latency between the Sinden gun, software, and display. Lag would also explain the inability to target quickly moving targets.

I bet we'll eventually get one of the YouTube channels with a technical setup like My Life in Gaming, Digital Foundry, or RetroRGB to do a full breakdown. It would not surprise me to see a decent amount of lag in this system.

I've also watched two videos demonstrating the gun encountering full crashes, where the gun just randomly stopped working. Hopefully, the software quirks will be ironed out soon. I'm not sure that all the people expecting their guns in November are willing to be beta testers.

From what I understand the crashes are thought to be caused by continued starting and stopping of the software.
Its not happened to me personally but its a known bug Andy is working on.

[Trnzaddict]

For MAME, someone could just make set of custom bezels with the white outline.

Yeah I think someone already has.

So the Sinden gun will work with a white border drawn in photoshop? This is good. So Rlauncher bezels can be modified as well with a white border and we don’t have to worry about the sinden software doing it for us. This will stop any focus issue mess with Rlauncher bezels and for cab users Will make it more seamless as it seems that a button needs to be pressed on the gun to activate the white border when a light gun game is started?

[Titchgamer]

For MAME, someone could just make set of custom bezels with the white outline.

Yeah I think someone already has.

So the Sinden gun will work with a white border drawn in photoshop? This is good. So Rlauncher bezels can be modified as well with a white border and we don’t have to worry about the sinden software doing it for us. This will stop any focus issue mess with Rlauncher bezels and for cab users Will make it more seamless as it seems that a button needs to be pressed on the gun to activate the white border when a light gun game is started?

Correct.

[KenToad]

The border button really should have been a toggle switch in order to minimize the chances of hitting it in-game.

[pbj]

So it lags and constantly crashes?

[Titchgamer]

The border button really should have been a toggle switch in order to minimize the chances of hitting it in-game.

You can turn it off or change it so not really a issue.

[Titchgamer]

So it lags and constantly crashes?

No lag and I think the crash issue has been fixed though not 100% on that atm.

[KenToad]

The border button really should have been a toggle switch in order to minimize the chances of hitting it in-game.

You can turn it off or change it so not really a issue.

I'm glad that it's customizable. Thanks for mentioning that.

[KenToad]

So it lags and constantly crashes?

No lag and I think the crash issue has been fixed though not 100% on that atm.

Do you have a way to test lag? Have you tried to replicate the crashes?

[Titchgamer]

So it lags and constantly crashes?

No lag and I think the crash issue has been fixed though not 100% on that atm.

Do you have a way to test lag? Have you tried to replicate the crashes?

Not really.
Best I could do is slow mo video on my phone but thats not really very scientific.

As for the crashes as I mentioned before its believed it was caused by constantly starting and stopping the software.
Its not happened to me but when I am having a game sesh with it I just start it and leave it.

[SammyWI]

For anybody interested I've been working on adding a stock to the Sinden.  My goals were to make no permanent modifications to the gun and to use things I already had on hand.  3D printed adapter from the back of the Sinden to a threaded connection for a real AR-15 buffer tube / adjustable stock.  Flat plastic (Kydex) on each side attached to the adapter with screws and attached to the gun with zip ties.  Seems sturdy enough so far.  Still a work in progress.  Zip ties look like crap but I'm not sure what else to use there.  Screws need to be black and possibly countersunk.  It does need to have some kind of raised sights added - the built in sights are way too low.  I have a cheap airsoft red dot on a riser here and it works fantastic (much like they do on real guns).

[Titchgamer]

Looking good man

[lllll44]

Those of who have the gun...do you keep "gangsta mode" always "on"? whats the con and pro of this option?

[SammyWI]

Those of who have the gun...do you keep "gangsta mode" always "on"? whats the con and pro of this option?

I leave this in automatic and it has worked fine so far.  Haven't messed with changing it at all.

[Titchgamer]

Same, just leave it in auto works fine.

[Trnzaddict]

Titch, do you know for a fact if delivery of orders placed now are definitely January? On the site he says he Is “starting” to hit November capacity but does not state if the cut off has been reached and January is now the time to expect delivery.

[Titchgamer]

Titch, do you know for a fact if delivery of orders placed now are definitely January? On the site he says he Is “starting” to hit November capacity but does not state if the cut off has been reached and January is now the time to expect delivery.

Afraid I cant confirm anything regarding deliveries.
I know about the same as everyone else on that front sorry.

[SammyWI]

Latest update on 3d printed stock adapter.  Now clamps to top rail.  Feels good and pretty sturdy.  Pretty close to final version I think.  I still need to clean up the clamping screws - they stick out on the far side and need to be black to match.  I put the red dot on a taller riser mount.  Feels more comfortable.  Will mess with sight alignment in the software now.  Once I get things finalized I will be sharing on Thingiverse.

[Titchgamer]

Looks great man top job

[SammyWI]

My stock adapter is now up on Thingiverse.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4631950

[Montell]

I have two recoil units ordered, but I am curious now if you leave the software running and the guns are sleeping, has anyone played other games/emulators with the software still running in the background? Any conflicts or issues since its different then aimtrak software, im just curious what implications this has on more demanding mame arcade games if the software is left running in the background, and has anyone noticed any conflicts with other software.

Would be really curious when one gets in the hands of someone with a dedicated arcade build with a frontend like hyperspin/big box and if theres any issues with the software running while playing other games or if anyone has seen a performance hit.

[Titchgamer]

I have two recoil units ordered, but I am curious now if you leave the software running and the guns are sleeping, has anyone played other games/emulators with the software still running in the background? Any conflicts or issues since its different then aimtrak software, im just curious what implications this has on more demanding mame arcade games if the software is left running in the background, and has anyone noticed any conflicts with other software.

Would be really curious when one gets in the hands of someone with a dedicated arcade build with a frontend like hyperspin/big box and if theres any issues with the software running while playing other games or if anyone has seen a performance hit.

Yes the software stays running in the background, Not noticed any real performance hit personally but I run a pretty modern spec machine.
Should be fine though as its only a small app and lots of the processing is done by the gun itself.

So far played MAME, Tekno Parrot, Model 2&3, PCSX, PCSX2, Demul and Dolphin.

Not used it in a cab setup so no idea how that runs personally but if I did I would likely setup scripts to start and stop the software with each game.

[ZTylerDurden717]

Demo of the pump and shooting recoil:

[Titchgamer]

Sounds a good thump.
Looking forward to getting my grubby paws on it to try out

[BadMouth]

So....is there a verdict on these things yet or are people still waiting for them?