I've found a way to make real arcade IR guns work with mame and other emulators (with the 10 sensor boards around the screen bezel).
Care to share?!
I did in the thread about using my Sega type 2 arcade guns with mame using a UHID.
Sega type 2 guns are their arcade IR guns with the 10 (or 12) IR LED boards around the screen. It's what they used in all their light gun cabs since House of the Dead 2 (excluding positional gun games). It's also what Namco use in all their shooters since Time Crisis 4. The latest Taito cabs use them too.
The tech is all made by the same company and it's universally compatible. I.e. You buy one arcade IR gun set up and use it on Naomi, Lindberg, Chihiro, Namco 256, Ringedge pcbs etc. You can also use it on a PC using a UHID or Arduino (or any device that allows you to connect analog controls). The gun sense I/O board outputs a regular 0-5v analog signal for each axis.
I connected this House of the Dead 4 arcade gun to my PC using a UHID Nano to make it work like an analog controller:
I also connected it with an Arduino Leonardo to work as a mouse:
You can do the same with a Time Crisis 4 arcade gun or a Ghost Squad rifle etc. I plan to use mine for later HD games in Teknoparrot, Dolphin and Demul emulators so I can play games using the correct gun tech. They can also be used to play old light gun games in mame on an HD flat screen (without crosshairs on screen).