Act-Labs Dual TV Guns problem

[Popcorrin]

I recently purchased the act-labs tv guns and when I went to set them up over the w/e it went pretty smoothly for the most part. The only problem I haven't been able to iron out is with the player 2 gun.  When playing area51 all shots for player 2 register at the center of the screen even though the cursor moves to where the gun is aimed.  I have tried using the standard version of windows mame .80 and I have also tried noname .80.  

Is there some change I need to make in the ini files?
Thanks is advance

[jerryjanis]

Did you remap player 2's trigger to that player's fire button?

(I don't actually own the TV lightguns, but I THINK that might be one thing that could cause your problem)

[Popcorrin]

Yes I remapped the player 2 fire button to the 2nd gun's trigger which is actually mouse button 2.  It fires a shot but the shot always hits dead center of the game screen no matter where you aim even though the crosshairs move to where the gun was aimed. It has me somewhat baffled.  

[Doc-]

   I was looking at buying a second myself...but do you have the PC or TV version?  According to the act-labs web site you need to have Analog MAME to run two PC guns - so you might need Analog MAME to run it.

  A second - related question - can you get two PC guns to work under Windows XP?  Their web site seems to indicate no, but I'm very interested in adding a second.

[jerryjanis]

I was looking at buying a second myself...but do you have the PC or TV version?  According to the act-labs web site you need to have Analog MAME to run two PC guns - so you might need Analog MAME to run it.

The TV guns should work using the regular Mame.  You should find out why it's not working and fix it.  If, however, you can't get it working, you should be able to switch them both to player 1 mode and use Mame: Analog+ to handle the 2 lightguns.

A second - related question - can you get two PC guns to work under Windows XP?  Their web site seems to indicate no, but I'm very interested in adding a second.

Yes.  Two PC lightguns will work in Windows XP using Mame Analog+.  There are two separate builds of Mame available from the Mame Analog+ site, one for Windows 9x and one for Windows XP.  Both will support multiple lightguns for the corresponding version of Windows.

[Doc-]

Thanks!  I see a second light gun purchase coming soon...  

[JesterDEV]

I only have one (tv version) but I know in Mame32 you have to enable Dual lightgun support in the default game settings (I think under controls).

Hope this helps.

[Popcorrin]

Thanks, I will try a couple of the suggestions and let you know how it turns out.

[Popcorrin]

 Is there a command line switch for enabling dual lightguns as compared to a single light gun.  Or           is -lightgun sufficient for enabling both guns?

[jerryjanis]

Is there a command line switch for enabling dual lightguns as compared to a single light gun.  Or           is -lightgun sufficient for enabling both guns?

Yeah, it looks like -dual_lightgun (or just "-dual") are the switches for dual lightguns.

[Popcorrin]

Is there a command line switch for enabling dual lightguns as compared to a single light gun.  Or           is -lightgun sufficient for enabling both guns?

Yeah, it looks like -dual_lightgun (or just "-dual") are the switches for dual lightguns.

Thanks

[Popcorrin]

I tried -dual and -dual_lightgun and had no success.  When using these command line switches neither gun would work.  So I am back to square one.

Is there anyone that has had dual tv guns working that could help me out?

[Lilwolf]

I'm assuming that you have both guns running as mouse 1 buttons right?  (I thought it was button 1 & 2 for player 1... and 3 & 4 for player 2... but I don't own them)

Anyway.  Did you have to make a special purchase for gun 2?  Or is it a  normal gun setup special?

If its normal.  Make sure that they both work normal by themselfs..  Then try it with dual gun.  Might be that the second gun is down right dead.

[drunkatuw]

I have two ACT-Labs TV guns working.  I enabled lightguns and dual_lightguns in my mame.ini file and everything worked.  Make sure you have the slider on the side of the gun on different settings for each gun.  I believe the middle slot is player 1 and the slot closest to the barrel is player 2.  I'd try it in windows first.  Just shoot the desktop and see if the cursor moves.  If the cursor moves with both guns, then the guns are working properly and it just a matter of setting up mame.

Just to let you know though, I had to return one of my guns.  Whenever I shot one gun, it always registered in the upper left corner.  I got an RMA and I had a new gun in less than a week and now both work perfectly.

[Popcorrin]

The guns are identical.  There is just a switch on the side of the gun where you choose which player you want that gun to be.  The tv guns are seen as a 4 button mouse.  Player 1 being buttons 0 and 1 and player 2 being buttons 2 and 3.  Buttons 0 and 2 are the fire buttons respectively.  I can use either gun as player 1 and they both work perfect.

Where I run into a problem is when I try to use the guns in 2 player mode, specifically on area51mx.  Player one works fine, but every shot taken with the player 2 gun registers dead center on the screen no matter where you aim on the screen?

[jerryjanis]

If you haven't already, try a different game.  (I apologize if I'm stating the obvious).  I haven't personally tried the Area51 games because my computer isn't fast enough, so as far as I know it's possible that that game in particular doesn't work properly with 2 players.  I know that Police Trainer should work with 2 players.

[Popcorrin]

Yea, I tried it with zero point also.  I will try police trainer when I get home but I'm not feeling too optimistic.  I think I might be best off using them both in player 1 mode.  The problem is I will have to switch my os since I currently have W2K and I don't believe the XP fix works for W2K.

[Stormy151]

I don't think you can use multiple mice in Win2k.   That's why I switched to XP.