| Main > Lightguns |
| Act Labs light gun just went for 208.55 on ebay. |
| << < (4/9) > >> |
| Silver:
--- Quote from: Fat_Trucker on February 28, 2005, 05:24:49 am ---Is there a reason why only act labs guns are suitable for MAME?. How do lightguns have to work to be MAME compatable? --- End quote --- There are several lightguns around that "work" on a Pc (and Mame). There are the older actlabs systems (GS I think they are called), the actlabs TV gun, actlabs VGA gun, the 'PC Super Bio Gun' and the 'PC Virtual Gun'. All work in mame, but the problem is accuracy - PC guns are notoriously compared to console guns. Some are reviewed here: http://www.retroblast.com/hardware.html To cut to the chase, Act-labs are currently the best (un)available gun for a PC. Console guns DO NOT work on a PC. No console->PC adapter makes them work either (apart from the trigger button). NB Other future options: (you could be waiting a LONG time) Happs re-sell an interface that lets you use standard arcade optical guns on a PC. This actually looks pretty good, costs $160 - but no one has tried it at all. It looks like there are some issues that would involve someone coding a driver for it perhaps - there was interest but I have not heard anything for a while. A company called http://www.erealgames.com/ make a lightgun based on a camera mounted on top of your camera. This has potentially HUGE advantages over all the above guns, as they do not mess with the video of the system at all - no white-blanking of the screen on every shot. It is not avaiable for the PC although a guy from the company posted on these boards saying they were looking into making a PC version. Another option is a conversion/copy of the 'Gun Sense' system used on more recent Sega arcade games (Lost World, Vcop3, HOTD3 I think). This basically sticks 10 infra-red LEDs around the monitor, and has a detector in the tip of the gun. It works extremely well - its basically a pro version of the erealgames 1camera option. Ultimarc - makers of Ipac/Optipac - plan to look at this idea. The catch is that they will basically be designing it from scratch. |
| Fat_Trucker:
Thanks. |
| Layer01:
whoah! thats a lot of moolah....well lucky for me they still have some of their TV guns in stock and i just bout 2 (seeing as i will be using a tv in my cab, i'd say the situation couldn't have worked out any better lol) i wonder how long it is before the TV guns start fetching insane prices....*sneeky eyes* ::) hehehe oh one thing though....seriously why the hell does act labs ship air mail almost everywhere but not to places like...say...Australia!!! man 6-10 weeks is a long time to wait...sheesh its not like they're that big either.. :'( |
| Lilwolf:
btw, I looked at building a solution a while ago. I just started to find out the hardware needed to do it. But didn't even look at the software side. I've never written a driver for 98 or XP in the normal sense and that would probably be as much work as creating an interface that allowed for the sensors. I was hoping to have multiple sensors around the monitor and shooting a led back. This would have been more expensive but would have allowed for a wireless gun. And then have more then one model. Have 1 or 2+ led frequency ranges per gun. One for real time tracking and one for a gun shot. Or the tracking frequency in a pulse when a trigger is pressed. The trouble was knowing the range of the sensors... The wide areas that could be used where expensive. You needed a code that allowed for an acceptable range based on how direct the led was too it.. The ones for the buttons (because they where near infanite ranges) where pretty cheap though. These couldn't tell how string the signal is... but just that there was one. But I was looking at 3 or 4 sensors per joystick tracking... There is a chance that 10 sensors around the edges might be cheaper (since you can use smaller more directed sensors). But you need to have the range from the edges for max to a bit above the minimum at the center. Each producing a circle... Then you calculate the location based on that. Now, having the leds pointing back at the peoples faces. I was worried about damaging people visions. Your shooting ultraviolet lasers at peoples faces.. It seemed like a bad thing. Plus you would need to have the sensors in the gun (where ever it plugs into) differentiating between the 10 lights being shot at it... (ie, you need to know that you are closest to X1, then X2, then X0, then X10... So you must be in this area.... The other idea I had... But was a little far fetched... but might have been a LOT cheaper... if you could do it... Is get a laser splitter like you get with a digital level. This will shoot off a big X (or +) with laser.... Then have a BUNCH of super cheap led sensors around the screen.. And basically try and find the 4 places it crosses... Then figure it out from there. But I don't know how to make the big X... And you would probably get a bunch of reflective laser light coming back at you from the monitor (if the monitor is at a 90*).... Anyway... I think if someone had the knowhow... it wouldn't be all that hard... but the people that know the hardware usually doesn't know the software that well... Maybe we can get a few people together to make the perfect solution. Heck... you could probably make a ton of cash. |
| Silver:
Interesting thoughts.... I would not worry about extra frequencies for triggers, or sending the info back wirelessy. Gunshot is just a switch down a wire - If you really need wireless then use RF to send the info or something... Also the driver - the easiest way is to get a PIC or IC to process the data from the LEDS for you and just send the relative X/Y info to the PC - ie it just looks like a HID input device with 2 axis, that way you can use a basic/inbuilt driver. You'd have to program the microprocessor though.... You can just use infra-red LEDs round the monitor - which should be completely harmless to anyone using it. The akward part is writing a program for the chip to calculate the position off the LED data. I know the Sega system (10 LEDs round monitor - 1 detector in the gun) has all the LED boards daisy chained together from a wiring point of view so its possible that it just pulses all the LED boards on 1 by 1, and takes a reading from the gun each time. This would give you 10 readings to calculate the position every cycle - presumably by comparing the readings to the defaults generated at calibration. This would also make it nice and easy to add a 2nd gun - use the same pulses and just calculate P2 postion with the seperate readings. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |
| Previous page |