PC Virtual Gun in Mame

[EnglandFC]

I just got one of these guns and it's working fine in House of the Dead 2 (PC), but in Mame, it seems to shoot waaaay off (low and to the right).  I'm running at 640x480@60Hz as recommended.

Anyone else had a problem with these or knows how to sort it out.  I did a search but didn't find anything previously on the forums.

TIA

[hulkster]

well ive seen several posts on this, and the general consensus about this gun is.....it sucks.  im sure it works great for pc games, but for mame, you need a gun that properly emulates the mouse movements, and apparently this gun looks cool, but thats about it.  most people go with the act labs gun although it looks like something marvin the martian would use.  there are several reviews for this gun dude.  what did you search for?  do a search for "light guns" or something like that.

[EnglandFC]

well ive seen several posts on this, and the general consensus about this gun is.....it sucks.  im sure it works great for pc games, but for mame, you need a gun that properly emulates the mouse movements, and apparently this gun looks cool, but thats about it.  most people go with the act labs gun although it looks like something marvin the martian would use.  there are several reviews for this gun dude.  what did you search for?  do a search for "light guns" or something like that.

Yeh, I knew about the Act-Labs one, but I was trying to save some money (yep...you get what you pay for).  I just had it working though...I had to turn off mouse and turn on lightgun, but it's still highly inaccurate and only works at all some of the time.  It seemed like I needed to delete my cfg for the game every now and then but it's actually just stopped working and I can't seem to get back to where I was when it was working.  Oh well...think I'll be investing in another one soon!

[hulkster]

well i would only get the virutal gun if you are going to be playing a lot of pc shooters....but when you think about it, there arent that many!  only other thing i would suggest would be to hack a console with shooters on it, and use its lightgun.  its up to you though.  just depends on what you really want.  me personally, im going to wait till act labs comes out with a better looking gun.  im sure they will, because i know a lot of people complain about its appearance.  ill wait a year or so, and they will come out with a good looking one that will work on tvs.  

[EnglandFC]

I don't like the look of it either.  If I get one, I'm going to rip out the innards and put them in a modified airsoft gun.  Btw...I thought that they already had one that had both VGA and S-Video out?

As for console guns...do you know if it's possible to get a PSX/PS2 gun and use it through a PSX->USB convertor?  I've got an old G-Con, which was pretty good for Time Crisis.

[hulkster]

well i know that a lot of people, including myself, have asked questions regarding making a console gun work in mame...and basically, it doesnt work.  see in mame, (to my knowledge...could be wrong here) the gun is treated as a mouse or something like that.  however, the light guns with consoles are not, so theres the problem trying to use it with your pc/mame cab.  i dont know of any usb converters for the gun and thats probably because it wouldnt work in the first place.  again, your best bet would be to put a console in your cab, like a playstation or dreamcast or something (dont have either one, so whatever one has the most gun games) and use that for your light gun needs.

[EnglandFC]

Ok, thanks for the help.  Have fun!

[GGKoul]

This came up in another post yesterday:

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=17680

-GGKoul

[fredster]

The guns require some software / hardware to interface to the PC.  I don't think you can do it without the screen blanking.

[Dartful Dodger]

I don't like the look of it either.  If I get one, I'm going to rip out the innards and put them in a modified airsoft gun.

There have been a couple of posts about light guns lately, and it got me thinking I should get one.  But they all look like toys I wasn't sure if it could be done but thinking the same thing, I spent yesterday looking up cheap airsoft Glocks.

Let us know if you end up doing it and how it works.

Thanks

[EnglandFC]

There have been a couple of posts about light guns lately, and it got me thinking I should get one.  But they all look like toys I wasn't sure if it could be done but thinking the same thing, I spent yesterday looking up cheap airsoft Glocks.

Let us know if you end up doing it and how it works.

Thanks

Will do.  It'll probably be a while though since I can't afford another gun right now.  I'll definitely do it at some point though.  I'm guessing it should be pretty simple....I've got a cheap airsoft spring pistol now and if you took the barrel out there would be a lot of room.  The plastic is fairly solid too, so if you took care drilling, it should all be good.

If you decide to have a go before I do, bear this in mind when getting the airsoft pistol...you need to be able to 'field strip' it.  The one I have now can be taken apart like this easy enough, but I don't think you'd want one where you needed to cut it open.

[jerryjanis]

http://www.retroblast.com/reviews/lightgun4.html

KevSteele didn't seem to have a problem getting the PC Virtual Light gun working in Mame.

Have you tried going into Mame's analog settings and adjusting the "mouse sensitivity" for the lightgun games?  That might help if you are getting consistently off-target results.

[EnglandFC]

I don't see the mouse sensitivity settings...just the lightgun sensitivity.  This seems to adjust it ok, but as soon as you start firing, it makes it's way back to where it was.  I've tried all combos of mouse on/off and lightgun on/off and nothing seems to work reliably.

The accuracy of this gun sucks, even under windows games, so I've basically resigned myself to getting an Act-Labs gun and modding it to look better.

Thanks for the hints though.