Multiple lightguns in standard MAME? Maybe

[Lilwolf]

From the official mame forum

Finally! I've been trying to get my dual Act-Labs PC USB light guns working for months with no success. I was always able to get one gun to work, or to get both guns to control one mouse input, but was never able to get them working in parallel with any version or variant of MAME including MameAnalog+.

Over the weekend I found the following:

http://cpnmouse.sourceforge.net

This is a new mouse driver that supports multiple mice in WinXP/2000 and has a great set of documentation for how to install it. You basically open up control panel, find your lightguns under the "mouse" list, and update the driver with the CPN mouse driver.

After installing this driver, the dual guns work in MAME32 v0.89 using the standard MAME "Dual Lightguns" configuration setting. No buttons to remap, no configuration settings to muck with, just plug it in and it works. This was a great relief as I had tried about everything else including noname mame, mameanalogXP etc. to no avail.

I'm running WindowsXP Home SP2, works fine, didn't mess up anything else.

http://www.mame.net/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/showpost.pl?Board=mamegeneral&Number=165769&page=0&view=expanded&mode=threaded&sb=7#Post165769

Might be worth a shot.  He doesn't mention if hes running the TV version or the VGA version (like who can afford a two gun setup these days...

[krick]

I don't understand.  I thought that CPN mouse was a special driver that only worked with applications that are specifically written to take advantage of it.

AFAIK, MAME32 isn't one of those applications.


Jake Stookey has already done some work with CPNMouse and MAME...

http://link.mywwwserver.com/~jstookey/arcade/cpnmouse/

[Lilwolf]

I haven't played with it..  but thought outers might be interested.

but I believe it has to do with changes in .83+ that broke dual tv version... But it might be for the VGA version...

[jerryjanis]

What the @!#?@  It doesn't seem possible!  But here's a quote from the cpnmouse page:

Use multiple mice in ordinary Windows applications
Tue, 08 Jun 2004 15:45:37 GMT
It is now possible to use more than one mouse even in ordinary Windows applications, not specifically desinged with this purpose in mind.

Simply install the CPNMouse driver and run the application from the "ordinary" package.

PLEASE read the README file before submitting any bugs! (0 comments)

I'm sure impressed.  I'll have to see it to believe it, though (or at least hear of another person who gets it working).

[jerryjanis]

I tried installing the cpnmouse drivers for a few mice, then running regular Mame with the "Mouse" option turned on hoping that it would magically work, but it didn't.  I don't have two light guns to test (nor do I have to cash to afford a second one), but I'm dying to see how it works.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=13718&item=6142009339&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Man alive!

[dabone]

Tried it tonight, I've got a ps2 trackball and 2 usb lightguns on a WG 9200 monitor.

I've got both working under analogmame, but still no go with the cpn driver and standard mame .89

It saw one gun as lightgun 1 and the other as mouse 1 (same as the trackball)

Both triggers registered as mouse button 0.

Tried both lightgun 1 and dual_lightgun 1 in mame.ini with no effect.

And on my setup, if I try to add in a slikstik spinner (USB) the lightguns no longer work in analogmame. It appears that the lightguns have to be the second and third mice.


Later,
dabone

[Lilwolf]

Are you guys testing with the TV version or the VGA version?

[jerryjanis]

I tested out the "ordinary" package mention in the above cpnmouse quote:

Simply install the CPNMouse driver and run the application from the "ordinary" package.

The "ordinary" package gave you a mouse pointer for each mouse plugged in and let you move them around the windows desktop, but it seemed to take control of the actual drawing of the Windows screen which I'd imagine would be horrible for use with Mame, so it doesn't look as though that's what he used.

Good call, Dabone (on the thread in the Software forum) - I bet he is using the TV guns.

...  But then if that's the case, I don't know how the cpnmouse drivers would have made any difference for him at all.

[Chris]

I haven't been able to get my two Act-Labs PC USB guns working with either Analog MAME or regular MAME in the recent versions.  Both always show as the same system mouse as the trackball.

[clanggedin]

I've had dual lightguns working with Analog+ since Aug of this year. I have the TV out versions of the light guns. I am also running Windows XP.

I will write down tonight what my settings are in Analog+ and in XP, that may help others get their dual guns set up.

I also have never been able to set up dual guns in regular mame, but with analog working I don't worry about it.

[clanggedin]

OK Here are my setting for dual lightguns in analog+. I will only post the controls that are relevant to dual guns. This is what I have in the "general" settings.

P1 Button 1: Left Ctrl or Mouse Button 0 (Left Mouse Button)
P2 Button 1: A or Mouse Button 2 (Right Mouse Button)

Lightgun X: Up Arrow
Lightgun X: Down Arrow
Lightgun X 2: D
Lightgun X 2: G


Lightgun Y: Left Arrow
Lightgun Y: Right Arrow
Lightgun Y 2: R
Lightgun Y 2: F

As for mame.... If you can get the second mouse to be recognized in Windows then Mouse button 0 should be the trigger for Player 2 on it.

I hope this helps some of you guys out. Sorry for the thread hi-jack.

[Lilwolf]

btw, he added some more notes to his original post

http://www.mame.net/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/showpost.pl?Board=mamegeneral&Number=165840&page=0&view=expanded&mode=threaded&sb=7#Post165840

I'm not sure what those combinations are that you're referring to. Basically, it's going to work best if you only have two usb mouse devices connected -- the lightguns.

Here's my config exactly:

WinXP Home SP2

2 Act-Labs PC USB lightguns (Not TV version). You have to daisy chain the boxes together. i.e. Gun 1 VGA plugs into Gun 2, Gun 2 VGA plugs into the computer, both USB connectors plug into the computer.

Mame32 v.89

This is running on an Athlon 2400 computer. It has 2 USB keyboards plugged in (iPac and regular keyboard), and has an optipac plugged in via the serial port for a trackball as a mouse.

Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager

Under "Mice and Other Pointing Devices" I had four entries. One was the Optipac serial mouse, and three were generic entries for USB human interface devices. I couldn't tell which two of these three corresponded to the guns until I went into properties for each and saw that one had a "Power Management" tab in the properties dialog and the other two didn't. I assumed the other two were the guns, and installed the CPN mouse driver for those two devices by following the directions on their site. (Right click the mouse in device manager, properties, driver, update driver, etc.)

After installing the mouse driver for both guns, I fired up Mame32 v.89, went to the controller options dialog, checked lightgun, dual lightgun, and offscreen reload, then started up Area 51 and Police Trainer and everything was suddenly working!

Give me more specifics on your setup / symptoms and I'll see if I can help you figure it out.