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| 1st Gen ActLab lightgun - swap to more recent ones? |
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| JayBee:
Interesting post! I wonder, does that gun have a screen flashing generator for darker games/screen? |
| Marsupial:
Salut JayBee. This was I believe the first usb lightgun available back then. It was released around 2003. ActLab I think had gameport lightguns before that, and this was a step up at the time. The way this device works, it installs between the computer and the monitor, plus USB. If you disconnect USB, no image is sent to the monitor (which may cause no booting picture if usb power is only applied late in the game) The device detects as HID mouse. (no drivers needed) The calibration is done with a full white screen, and you pass the gun in front of it up/down left/right to let it discover the limits. Sometimes it is wrong (always I'd say) and calibration is off by an amount of pixels. Their website actually suggest to use the monitor settings to move the frame in order to calibrate differently!!!! Besides the calibration switch, there are 2 buttons, one for reload which Right-click, and the trigger (which we saw had 2 signal pins) When you press the trigger, the whole screen flashes, then the mouse is moved to the detected position and a left click is made. If no position is detected, it right-clicks instead, which is what the 2nd button does; so it automagically handles off screen reload. There is no "passive detection" (without trigger) and it is impossible to click-n-drag with this device. There is no other modes, the screen flashes always regardless of what's being displayed. If resolution changes, calibration is lost. You could have 2 of them in series for a two gun setup. I think this covers the whole function. The blinking screen isn't much of a problem in my opinion, you get used to it. If there's more you'd like to know, don't be shy. I can even make you a few vids. |
| ElisabethKentsar:
Once connected, does everything work fine? Great experimental post! |
| Marsupial:
--- Quote from: ElisabethKentsar on May 16, 2021, 06:12:37 am ---Great experimental post! --- End quote --- Thanks! --- Quote from: ElisabethKentsar on May 16, 2021, 06:12:37 am ---Once connected, does everything work fine? --- End quote --- Yes, it works great. Only issue is the constant calibration, which was already the case before alterations. I can swap guns and they both behave the same. Once calibrated, it is awesome. But, as already mentioned, it loses calibration when we change resolution, and tends to calibrate a bit off, so I spend too much time calibrating, not enough time playing. When you miss, because of bad calibration, the fun just isn't there. |
| BadMouth:
--- Quote from: Marsupial on May 03, 2021, 01:05:40 pm ---@BadMouth What guns did you have? --- End quote --- I had two USB ray guns. S-video version. I also had the smaller silver pistol from the same generation as the red and blue guns. The calibration on it was always off, but was always off by the same amount in the same direction so could be corrected the in game calibration if available. The thing was also very uncomfortable to hold. Never had an issue with the usb ray guns. Never calibrated after the intial setup where I made sure the resolution and refresh rate were the same on every game in the gun list. Myself and guests used them for years without ever recalibrating. They worked flawlessly until I sold them. I regret selling them. |
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