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Author Topic: CRT Lightguns and game's native flashing  (Read 1856 times)

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phasermaniac

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CRT Lightguns and game's native flashing
« on: June 26, 2022, 08:15:35 am »
Hi there!
Nowadays, my config is 2x Namco Guncon 45 + EMS Dualshooter adapter + EMS driver in win10.

Years ago, I tested Wingun and Guncon2pc drivers, which added a flasher to track correctly in dark areas.
The problem with this is that flasher superpose to the game's native one, and makes it very annoying, especially when you play with two guns and lots of shots are fired.

Reading old forums from 2005, when these old drivers were developed, where people was asking to add the flasher to the driver, and Guncon2pc driver's author said it was not needed for games that had their own flashing.

Also, speaking with @sonik about his guncon45+Arduino solution, he said he can play perfectly Time crisis in Mame with the native flashing.

So, I thought I was having input lag, because I was never able to make native game's flashing working in any emulator, but using old Pcsx-r with Nuvee plugin, Time crisis project Titan and PointBlank 3 works perfect while the rest of games don't.
I couldn't reproduce this with other emulators, even messing up with graphics options. Only with Retroarch Psx cores using Framedelay 4 and Runahead 2 seems to have some effect but not perfect (most shots in dark areas places where should, but some goes offscreen).

Anyone have some explanation to this?
Thanks!

JayBee

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Re: CRT Lightguns and game's native flashing
« Reply #1 on: June 26, 2022, 08:39:20 am »
Hi there!
Nowadays, my config is 2x Namco Guncon 45 + EMS Dualshooter adapter + EMS driver in win10.

Years ago, I tested Wingun and Guncon2pc drivers, which added a flasher to track correctly in dark areas.
The problem with this is that flasher superpose to the game's native one, and makes it very annoying, especially when you play with two guns and lots of shots are fired.

Reading old forums from 2005, when these old drivers were developed, where people was asking to add the flasher to the driver, and Guncon2pc driver's author said it was not needed for games that had their own flashing.

Also, speaking with @sonik about his guncon45+Arduino solution, he said he can play perfectly Time crisis in Mame with the native flashing.

So, I thought I was having input lag, because I was never able to make native game's flashing working in any emulator, but using old Pcsx-r with Nuvee plugin, Time crisis project Titan and PointBlank 3 works perfect while the rest of games don't.
I couldn't reproduce this with other emulators, even messing up with graphics options. Only with Retroarch Psx cores using Framedelay 4 and Runahead 2 seems to have some effect but not perfect (most shots in dark areas places where should, but some goes offscreen).

Anyone have some explanation to this?
Thanks!
It's been discussed few times, but using the emulators screen flashing is impossible.
On real CRT hardware, the game gets the trigger pull, shows the flash and then request the position. The emulators all get button inputs and position at the same time, and only flash the screen afterwards.
It means no matter your input latency you'll never have the flash at the right timing.
The only reason it kind or "works" on some games is because those are bright enough to not actually need flashing for the gun to see the position.
The way gcon1 and 2 work is requesting the position on each frame, no matter flash or not. The flash is only used to make sure the aim is read correctly even on darker parts of the screen.

phasermaniac

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Re: CRT Lightguns and game's native flashing
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2022, 09:25:11 am »
Hi JayBee. Thanks for your answer!
Quote
The emulators all get button inputs and position at the same time, and only flash the screen afterwards.
That's what I ever thought.
Quote
The only reason it kind or "works" on some games is because those are bright enough to not actually need flashing for the gun to see the position.
Well, I don't think it's the case. In Pointblank3, I can choose the darkest minigames and works 100%. Even shooting to the big black boxes before the minigame that are meant to show your precision numbers the shots always go to the correct place, and it is solid black.

Also messing with Framedelay and Runahead in Retroarch pcsx core, shooting in the same place, it has an obvious possitive effect although not perfect.

I can't understand, but it's what I'm experiencing.

JayBee

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Re: CRT Lightguns and game's native flashing
« Reply #3 on: July 14, 2022, 04:14:40 am »
Hi JayBee. Thanks for your answer!
Quote
The emulators all get button inputs and position at the same time, and only flash the screen afterwards.
That's what I ever thought.
Quote
The only reason it kind or "works" on some games is because those are bright enough to not actually need flashing for the gun to see the position.
Well, I don't think it's the case. In Pointblank3, I can choose the darkest minigames and works 100%. Even shooting to the big black boxes before the minigame that are meant to show your precision numbers the shots always go to the correct place, and it is solid black.

Also messing with Framedelay and Runahead in Retroarch pcsx core, shooting in the same place, it has an obvious possitive effect although not perfect.

I can't understand, but it's what I'm experiencing.
Note that if you aim for darker areas, the gun will report the neighbor bright pixel it sees instead. If you put the gun few centimeters from the screen and aim at a black zone (trully black, not gray) you can see what I mean.
Also in that instance framedelay and runahead won't change a thing for the screen flash issue, if the emulator cannot request both position and buttons at the same time. No matter how fast the flash happens after pressing the button, if the aim was already requested white flashes won't matter.
Now maybe it depends on how the emulator was coded, but so far I haven't seen a single one that wait for the white flash to send the position info to the game, as it's technically very hard to achieve unless you hack the game itself to wait for the gun info after the screen flash.