More Act-Labs Lightgun / ArcadeVGA woes

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GamingGreg:
My pair of Act-Labs PC USB lightguns arrived the other day, and I been having a problem getting them to work with my standard resolution monitor (old Wells Gardner K4600). When I hook up my lightgun the display goes "screwy", as if the horizontal hold went crazy. However I can't adjust the horizontal hold far enough to correct this, and it was adjusted fine before I hooked a lightgun up. When I flip the calibration switch, the screen does go mostly white (still flickering wildly, and I am seeing flashes somewhat when I pull the trigger. So it appears I'm getting close to getting this working. (I'm using Windows XP, with my desktop being 640x480 16bit color at 60Hz refresh rate).

First I hooked the lightguns up to my standard Pc with a standard PC monitor, just to make sure they worked. And they did. I also separated the H sync and V sync signals on the video amp, as Andy (of Ultimarc) stated in this thread, that they need to be separate to function.

Also, I saw a note on the act-labs support site that said the monitor needed to be in non-interlaced mode in order to function. Does anyone know if this is true, as I believe 640x480 via the Arcade VGA is a interlaced mode.

Anyone have any Ideas on how to make this combination work? It seems that some of you might have.

Lilwolf:
Try getting frontend and mame to work in a noninterlace refresh... MultiRes is a good program to switch resolutions in XP... I don't know if it working on the arcadeVGA but worth a try. Then let it stretch for you. Then you don't change refreshes that is a little faster... Later you can try to optimize the settings when you get everyting working. I think that 640x288 or something is non-interlaced highest resolution for that card.

Next... (take this with a BIG grain of salt... because I am going by old hearsay)... I believe that it is a vertical and horizontal sync issue. Having them both connected to sync compared to only one. Search and see if you can find it on the board somewhere.

AndyWarne:
Have you definitely connected both sync signals to the negative inputs on the monitor? If so..
You could try removing the amp. The W-G monitors don't generally need it. Just wire the signals from the card through to the monitor, with H and V sync separate, connected to the negative sync inputs on the monitor. Then try connecting up the gun.

Andy

GamingGreg:
None of this thus far has involved MAME or MameWah (my front end). It's all been just the desktop. I'll might run into some issues with Analog+ MAME and two lightguns, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

I also did try setting my desktop to 640x288 last night, and it was somewhat better. Instead of "wild horizontal scrolling" it would scroll slowly, but I still couldn't get to "hold still". In both cases (640x480 interlaced and 640x288 non-interlaced), I could get a still picture without the gun connected, but never with the gun connected.

Also, I'm 99.9% sure that I've separated the H and V syncs to the monitor. I cut the little connection on Ultimarc's video amp board (as per Andy's instructions) and now have two sync wires going to the arcade monitor. I used a voltmeter (or rather ohmeter) to check the two syncs on the screw block, and it doesn't read zero (I didn't read infinity either; it read 800 something ohms witch it probably some resistance in the circuitry)

I thought there were some people who had this kind of setup (act-labs gun, ArcadeVGA card, and standard resolution monitor) and had gotten it working. Is that true? Any more ideas as to what I might be missing?

Do these guns not work with the 15Hz refresh of the monitor?

GamingGreg:

--- Quote from: AndyWarne on February 25, 2004, 07:08:20 pm ---Have you definitely connected both sync signals to the negative inputs on the monitor? If so..
You could try removing the amp. The W-G monitors don't generally need it. Just wire the signals from the card through to the monitor, with H and V sync separate, connected to the negative sync inputs on the monitor. Then try connecting up the gun.

Andy

--- End quote ---

I've connected the vertical sync (one marked "sync" on the amp) to the negative vsync on the monitor, and I've connected the horizontal sync (unmarked on the amp) to the negative hsync on the monitor. Nothing is connected to the possitive H or V syncs on the monitor. I suppose I could try removing the Vsync temporarily, just to see if they are indeed separated. I'll also try looking for an old monitor cable that I can cut up and then bypass the amp.

So Andy, I take it you've gotten a similar setup working on your end? Did it work in 640x480 or just 640x288? Is there something with the refresh rates that I need to tweek with?

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