Please delete thread

[Jayinem]

Mods please delete this. Thank you

[lightgungamer]

This looks great. It must have taken you ages to get them all working!

[Jayinem]

This looks great. It must have taken you ages to get them all working!

Yep several weeks. Its been my coronavirus stuck at home project.

[KenToad]

Cool! Got any favorites?

[Jayinem]

Cool! Got any favorites?

I've always been a huge Time Crisis fan back when they were in arcades that was probably the one series that made me a huge fan of the genre. I bought every Guncon for every Playstation. It's a shame that there's a Time Crisis 5 only in arcades hopefully it will be emulated on PC one day. Also a big fan of House of the Dead. The first lightgun game I ever played like many others probably was Duck Hunt on the NES when it was bundled with Super Mario Bros and a zapper.

[KenToad]

Did you get a chance to try the Gunfighter: Jesse James series on PS1 and PS2? They're basically wild west time crisis, but done decently well.

Time Crisis is my favorite light gun series, by a long mile. I made my own reload pedal out of a thrifted sewing machine pedal hacked into a ps1 pad and I recently got a Guncon 3 to play the Razing Storm Collection that has the arcade version of Time Crisis 4. Crossing fingers to eventually be able to play Time Crisis 5 at home.

I like House of the Dead series, especially Overkill, but I remember having more fun with the Resident Evil light shooter games on the Wii.

[Jayinem]

I know it's hard to tell every game that's on that video but both Gunfighters are on there.

That's awesome that you made a pedal for Time Crisis really cool.

[Jayinem]

This looks great. It must have taken you ages to get them all working!

BTW just hit me that you run the lightgungamer.com site. I used your site probably 10 days ago or so for a little bit of info to help setup a few games.

[LightFun]

This looks great. It must have taken you ages to get them all working!

BTW just hit me that you run the lightgungamer.com site. I used your site probably 10 days ago or so for a little bit of info to help setup a few games.

It's thanks to finding that site after googling "How can I play Time Crisis" last month, that led me towards buying an AimTrak, I've used it at least once a day since it arrived and earlier today I bought a Logic3 PL99 traditional CRT light gun (with pedal).

I am well and truly down the Light Gun rabbit hole thanks to lightgungamer's site.

[lightgungamer]

This looks great. It must have taken you ages to get them all working!

BTW just hit me that you run the lightgungamer.com site. I used your site probably 10 days ago or so for a little bit of info to help setup a few games.

It's thanks to finding that site after googling "How can I play Time Crisis" last month, that led me towards buying an AimTrak, I've used it at least once a day since it arrived and earlier today I bought a Logic3 PL99 traditional CRT light gun (with pedal).

I am well and truly down the Light Gun rabbit hole thanks to lightgungamer's site.

Hey, that’s fantastic! I’m really glad that it’s helped someone.
Thanks for letting me know!

[Jayinem]

I finally got a computer that can play all the Teknoparrot games good so now I have practically every good lightgun ever setup on Launchbox except for a few obscure old PC games that suck anyway.

[lightgungamer]

Nice! The teknoparrot games are really nice as they are newer and have better graphics generally.

I just wish they would release the had arcade version of point blank!

Have you got any favourites?

[Jayinem]

Time Crisis series is probably my favorite. I am hoping one day for a Time Crisis 5 arcade dump on Teknoparrot.

[lightgungamer]

Yeah, or even better Namco could just release it in the pc!
We can dream

[Jayinem]

 I think the only hope for that is the new Sinden gun. If it sells really really well then maybe Namco and others will say "hrmm, maybe there still is a market for lightgun games" But consoles have abandoned them there wasn't even  a lightgun made for PS4 and Sony always had the Time Crisis series and others. I guarantee this last gen the idea was that the lightgun genre is dead, but it would take something big to change those that are in charge of making these games minds.

As much as I am a fan of them I do sort of understand that these games are usually only a few hours long and it's just become a tough sale to say "buy this game for $60" when there are games that are 100 hours or more for the same price. I think a lot of younger gamers do not care about the genre like some of us that played them when we were younger in arcades. Money ultimately decides what happens with games so there has to be a solid market or they won't do it because these games cost too much to make these days. I am surprised arcade games are holding on this long to where we even get a Time Crisis 5 in arcades because there are no arcades to play in my city at all and there's a population of about 300,000 where I live.

[Podbod]

Only places that have arcades in london are bowling alleys. We have a few retro arcades (Heart of gaming, 4 quarters) and Namco world is still going but thats it.
They're full of those Thrill ride shooters but I find them all soulless personally. I've loaded them onto teknoparrot and I never play them.

[Jayinem]

I didn't even know until recently that Sega made a new House of the Dead in 2018 called Scarlet Dawn. That's another game I'm hoping to play one day.

[lightgungamer]

I think consoles are out because it seems so expensive to get games out now. Although there are quite a lot of indie titles making it into the big platforms.

I’ve never understood why they don’t just release them on steam though. As far as I know, these arcade machines are basically just pcs anyway so it should be an easy port.

[Podbod]

I think consoles are out because it seems so expensive to get games out now. Although there are quite a lot of indie titles making it into the big platforms.

I’ve never understood why they don’t just release them on steam though. As far as I know, these arcade machines are basically just pcs anyway so it should be an easy port.

There's just not the market for it and in most cases there's licensing issues I'd suspect. If not licence cost by itself to have it on more than one platform theres probably issues with other companies owning the pc/console rights.

[Howard_Casto]

Consoles have license issues with hardware as well.  If you want to release a controller for a platform I believe you have to require a license.  Sony might be more lenient with that but I know Microsoft stuff puts those security chips in all their gamepads and if you want to get something to work you've gotta have that chip.  This is just intuition but I don't think the Sinden gun is the solution... it's going to be a stop-gap.  Tv refresh rates are getting better every day.  We might get to the point to where an old-fashioned dot crawl can be simulated on screen and then with the appropriate sensor light guns would work the traditional way again.  Either that or laser tech is going to take off.  I wonder what happened to that  Mars gun?

[Podbod]

Consoles have license issues with hardware as well.  If you want to release a controller for a platform I believe you have to require a license.  Sony might be more lenient with that but I know Microsoft stuff puts those security chips in all their gamepads and if you want to get something to work you've gotta have that chip.  This is just intuition but I don't think the Sinden gun is the solution... it's going to be a stop-gap.  Tv refresh rates are getting better every day.  We might get to the point to where an old-fashioned dot crawl can be simulated on screen and then with the appropriate sensor light guns would work the traditional way again.  Either that or laser tech is going to take off.  I wonder what happened to that  Mars gun?

Sony do the same thing.
Unless you know something I dont we're never going back to dot crawl light guns. Take a 320x240 image. Thats 76800 dots. My gaming monitor does 165hz at a push. Some go upto 240hz. To dot crawl the screen would take over 5 mins.

As for the mars gun, I cant see that taking off personally. They've tied it to consoles and 1st party games. Whos going to want to develop more games for such a niche product? They'd never make their money back.
Whos going to want to use it on pc if it gets pc support or is reverse engineered given you've got to have that sensor a decent distance from the tv (rules out using it in a cab)? Also it looks like a toddlers toy so you'd have to move it into a new shell

Pod

[Howard_Casto]

The render resolution doesn't have to match the targeting resolution.  Also refresh rates are going up by a significant amount every few years.  We'll get there eventually.  I think you are mixing up the mars gun with the sinden and other camera in gun solutions.   Yes you have to have the stationary, and therefore ceiling/wall mountable camera a decent distance back but the guns can be really close, which is good for a cab.  Sinden and the other camera in gun solutions are the ones that require your gun to be a ways back from the cab, which is not preferable.  I don't think their release strategy is great, but the important thing is they are trying to keep the cost to a bare minimum which is what we want, as nobody will develop for a +$200 per player accessory.    The main problem with the sinden (other than cost) is the fact that there aren't any games being developed for it.  That means it'll only be around as long as there is demand for the hardware, which can be a gamble in our niche hobby.  Not that the mars gun has much of a leg up mind you, but they are trying. 

[Jayinem]

I don't see a resurrection of the lightgun genre happening unfortunately. Best we can probably hope for is arcade dumps, and of course they have to keep actually making arcades which I question if they will do that either. (Time Crisis 6? etc....)

[Howard_Casto]

Here's the thing.... the Wii and PS3 got a lot of light gun titles, because they had an inexpensive accessory for game developers to take a risk on.  You also see this to a lesser degree in psvr.  The point is if either there is a default accessory available that has a large install base and/or an interface method that isn't that difficult to code for some developers are willing to take the risk. 

[Jayinem]

I think in someways Wii killed the lightgun genre. I mean the Wiimote and nunchuk basically were a lightgun unless you were using it as a sword or something. While it was very popular (I think mainly because families bought it) it turned a lot of people off. I mean even Nintendo hasn't tried to do anything similar since. You would think a console that sold over 100 million they would but their next console was just a big gamepad and then Switch is a console/handheld hybrid. Sony (and Microsoft with Kinect) were trying to copy the Wiis success with Move but again they pretty much abandoned Move on PS4.

I am not a Wii hater I still have a wiimote sitting right next to me, but I do feel it contributed to the end of the lightgun genre on consoles. Or maybe even if Wii didn't exist developers would realize that spending millions on games that last 3 hours just isn't financially smart. I think if you try to convince the average millennial about the lightgun genre most of them would just look at you funny. I would like to think if I was younger I would still be in to them because I'm just looking for fun regardless if it came out yesterday or 20 years ago.

[Howard_Casto]

Their next console was a big gamepad with gyro sensors and an ir sensor with support for wiimotes and the switch is a wiiu with what is essentially a  wiimote on each side of the tablet.  Sony has had some iteration of gyro and touch sensors on every gamepad since that generation and I'm sure they still will on the ps5.  So I think to say they haven't tried anything since would be a bit of revisionist history.  The Wii did attract a lot of non-gamers... but that's just it, you aren't going to keep non-gamers interested in anything truly gaming related for very long.  The wii didn't kill anything, it's extreme popularity allowed genres that previously didn't get much love to flourish is all.  When a game publisher is desperate to get content on a system and they know even if it's crap they'll probably turn a bit of a profit they are more willing to take a risk.  It worked on a wii because even though the wiimote was 60 bucks, it came with the system.  Optional controllers of any kind always have a hard time getting adopted by developers because that cuts the install base down to anyone that has said controller, or is willing to purchase it just to play said game.  Going back to my original point that is why cost matters.  By my logic local multiplayer games should be a dead genre then, but they still hang around in a minority because every console has a company that makes cheap, $20 wired gamepads..... they may suck, but little Timmy is far more likely to get mom to buy him $40 worth of gamepads so his friends can play instead of $120.  Millennials don't really come into the equation... they need to hook 8 and 10 year olds to get the tech adopted, and then the inevitable "mature" games that take advantage of the tech will hopefully follow.  In that respect the Mars guns' design makes a lot more sense..... try selling a system with realistic looking guns to kids these days. 

[Jayinem]

.

[KenToad]

Lightgun games aren't nearly as fun when you drag a crosshair around, which is basically what you have to do with the Wiimotes. Still, I regularly play lightgun-style games with the Wiimotes and I definitely don't agree with your assertion that the Wii killed the lightgun genre. If the Sinden gun lives up to the hype and the technology is utilized by a bigger company, perhaps even the big N themselves, we will see lightgun style shooting return in a big way. You just can't make really amazing shooting games without pinpoint accurate light guns. IMO, the Time Crisis series on the PS2 was the pinnacle of the genre. If we could have that kind of accuracy with no crosshairs, no screen flash and latest-gen graphics, then we would see a flurry of development and innovation in the genre.

[destial]

If one of the console manufacturers buy into any lightgun tech and produce an SDK like sony did with the PS2 you're more likely to see the genre pick up again. Generally the big name publishers deal with the licensing and they don't like to take risks, but if they see an opportunity to be one of the first to use an officially licensed peripheal they can squeak out some deals from the console manufacturers and jump all over it, while guaranteeing a minimal number of units. Then it just depends on if any are done well enough to be hits. Think of the kinect, publishers jumped on it at first and it had some promise as a new model but most of the games were... well gimmicky at best, but there could have been some really immersive experiences built with it that never happened because it became a risk.

The current price points for light guns are beyond what most consumers would pay though if they aren't already a fan of the genre. They look at it as an accessory to the system that on a new console is a quarter of the price of the console itself. Your average FPS player for example won't just naturally get the value of the lightgun over playing with their 10 button dual joystick controller. Other than a major platform manufacturer supporting it because of a new tech about the only other way we'll see a large resurgence is if an indie game dev makes one killer light gun game and gets the right marketing behind it.

And I really wish Namco would, but I won't hold my breath. When was the last time they did a PC only game or even PC first 

[Podbod]

The render resolution doesn't have to match the targeting resolution.  Also refresh rates are going up by a significant amount every few years.  We'll get there eventually.  I think you are mixing up the mars gun with the sinden and other camera in gun solutions.   Yes you have to have the stationary, and therefore ceiling/wall mountable camera a decent distance back but the guns can be really close, which is good for a cab.  Sinden and the other camera in gun solutions are the ones that require your gun to be a ways back from the cab, which is not preferable.  I don't think their release strategy is great, but the important thing is they are trying to keep the cost to a bare minimum which is what we want, as nobody will develop for a +$200 per player accessory.    The main problem with the sinden (other than cost) is the fact that there aren't any games being developed for it.  That means it'll only be around as long as there is demand for the hardware, which can be a gamble in our niche hobby.  Not that the mars gun has much of a leg up mind you, but they are trying.

Yeah, I'm aware you don't have to have the same scan res as the screen res. That's why I picked 320x240 as my example. But again. There's just no way we're going to get mainstream monitors anywhere near the refresh needed for that. We'd need a whole new monitor tech to emerge to replace lcd/led
As for your mars observation. Yeah you're right. You could mount it on the ceiling but a lot of setups are going to find that people or the marquee area of the cab are going to block Los for it. I just can't see that being a decent solution over the small border from sinden.

As others have said. I think if light guns are ever going to come back they need to be pushed by 1st party and have decent backing. I just can't see it.

[Howard_Casto]

I don't have anything more to say to you. When everything I say is wrong and the other person is just smarter knows everything and everything I say is wrong, I am done with that person. Not saying you aren't smart because I know you have made gun support for things like Model 2. But I think you're just fishing to try to look smarter if I said the sun was yellow next you'd say it's not.

Maybe you could learn to relate to people and not try to look smarter than them on every point they make but that's your own issue.  We're talking about relative opinions about things such as why there isn't support for lightguns anymore, not proven facts.

You say you don't have anything more to say to me and then continue to type.     I don't know what crawled up your butt man but I was just trying to have an intelligent conversation with you.  I guess that's just not possible.  The things I brought up aren't opinions btw...   sure some of it is, but stuff like accessories needing to keep their cost down to be adopted on consoles... that's a stone cold fact. 

[Mike A]

I don't have anything more to say to you. When everything I say is wrong and the other person is just smarter knows everything and everything I say is wrong, I am done with that person. Not saying you aren't smart because I know you have made gun support for things like Model 2. But I think you're just fishing to try to look smarter if I said the sun was yellow next you'd say it's not.

Maybe you could learn to relate to people and not try to look smarter than them on every point they make but that's your own issue.  We're talking about relative opinions about things such as why there isn't support for lightguns anymore, not proven facts.

The sun is not yellow. Maybe you should listen to Howard.

[Jayinem]

,

[Jayinem]

,

[Howard_Casto]

Eh it is in the crayola box so I'll count it. 

As for dot crawl simulation, you are right, we aren't there yet but, there are more intelligent ways to do it thanks to modern technology that can speed things up.  One way of doing that is with "poly crawl".  We've got to assume that all modern light gun games are going to be 3d and assuming they are in the traditional style you really don't have to check a whole lot of areas.  Let's say you have three zombies on the screen and the damage animation really only is divided into the arms, the torso and the head.  So you've got three torsos + six arms + three heads.  That's only 12 targets, so you light up the target area for those 12 zones by turning the corresponding polys a bright white, one zone after the next, top to bottom.  Even the slowest modern monitor can handle that.  Yeah you might have several more targets on the screen depending upon the game, but it's still doable.  I mean the NES zapper basically does a more primitive version of this and they got it working on lcds buy slowing down the flashing routine slightly.  There's also the option of a color sensor.... turn every viable target on the screen a specific color from a pre-defined palette all at once and all the non targets a shade of gray.  If the system is fine tuned enough you could scan the whole screen with one frame.  The benefit of either of these methods is that distance from the screen is no longer an issue as the whole screen doesn't have to be seen to process the results.  Of course the major drawback is complication of coding.  It's not that terrible though as poly picking is 3d programming 101.  Hell that's another way, with old fashioned poly picking.... use the cursor to pick a target, if it's valid light it up for the light sensor to find.  Shoot you might not even have to do poly picking.... having a skin with the appropriate colors on it ready to swap out on the model along with a shader to remove all lighting effects might do it.  My 3d programming knowledge ends in the early 2000's though so I'm not sure. 

Regardless of that in my middle age I think more in decades than years and I do think that eventually simulating a straight up dot drawl is going to be possible..... tv manufactures have hit a wall since 4k chokes bandwidth and they want to sell you a new tv/monitor every few years so I think refresh rates might be what they focus on for a while based on current trends.  Why I don't know as most cinema nuts prefer 24fps films and they buy the big expensive tvs, but I guess they know better than I do. 

[Podbod]

Hey.

So I'm sure this has probably been answered before. But if sinden is detecting a border correctly. Why can't it detect a square flash. That seems to be people's gripe after all and we were all happy with shot flashes in the past. Most games have it as a toggle and even if he can't draw a full screen flash himself he could flash the border instead.
Only reason I can think of that he doesn't is because its using multiple frames to be more accurate?

[Jayinem]

Hey.

So I'm sure this has probably been answered before. But if sinden is detecting a border correctly. Why can't it detect a square flash. That seems to be people's gripe after all and we were all happy with shot flashes in the past. Most games have it as a toggle and even if he can't draw a full screen flash himself he could flash the border instead.
Only reason I can think of that he doesn't is because its using multiple frames to be more accurate?

I would recommend making a seperate thread. I don't have a Sinden gun nor is this thread about that gun.

[Jayinem]

,

[Podbod]

So now I've got my gun working I want to do something like this.
Is there anything you could zip up to help people like me get started (not the roms obviously).

What frontend are you using?

Cheers

Pod

Ah nm seen your latest youtube video comment.

[Jayinem]

So now I've got my gun working I want to do something like this.
Is there anything you could zip up to help people like me get started (not the roms obviously).

What frontend are you using?

Cheers

Pod

Ah nm seen your latest youtube video comment.

I have no problem answering questions but people want me to do a tutorial over every single game and there is a ton of scripts involved and that would take me a long time. I use Launchbox. I never said don't ask questions, just don't ask me to set the ENTIRE THING up for you at once. Because you have no idea how much that would involve it's taken me months to set this up. I never made the scripts with the intention of sharing them with everybody so they have my computer paths.

I don't understand why everyone either wants me to tell them everything immediately or they don't want to know anything. Just ask questions about individual games take it one step at a time.

And to your answer about zipping something together no I can't do that. But I can help you do it yourself. Everyone wants its all done for them why not try it yourself if I can do it you can do it. There's nothing to zip these are my personal files in my computer paths zipping something wouldn't work on your computer unless you have the same username on your C: drive, obviously you don't. But if you really want to do it you would it yourself and ask me questions when you need help.

Since I can't upload the roms that would make "zipping" dead or arrival it wouldn't help you AT ALL.  Since I can't and won't upload the roms for you because it's not allowed and illegal the roms in the scripts have to have the same name as the ones in my scripts too. So it's just impossible.

You want a setup like mine you will have to do it yourself but I will help you. I don't see how that's not a kind gesture on my part. I don't have to help anybody but I'm willing to help in any way I can other than uploading illegal roms or my scripts that are only meant for my computer that wouldn't help you.