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Part 2 - ACT LABS Gun Questions Answered
ACT_LABS_Brandon:
K-SPIFF - "and they were fairly accurate when you could get them to work, but still not as good as Sega and [esp.] Namco's offerings."
#### The accuracy of any light gun on a TV display is actually a bit misleading. You may think it's ultra accurate and in a way it technically is but remember that the TV out resolution is say 640x480@60Hz max (I estimate the PS2 is lower) and the onscreen pixel clusters are larger in size. I noticed that myself when I was testing our PCTV gun, it appears mega-accurate but the PC monitor I think just has the higher resolution so any slight change in gun location results in a few milimeters of shot offset. Which to be honest when you are playing in a game on the PC to Monitor is hard to truly notice.
1UP - "I still don't understand why it's such a problem these days. Guns are harder to get now more than ever, but kids are packing them everywhere. "
#### Man is this the issue we have been facing forever. As you mentioned 1UP, our original gameport based guns launched around the time of the Columbine school shooting incident plus the whole NRA gun-control issue and violence in video games debate was a hot topic. I always wondered why the console light guns never got such a bad rap but I guess the public thought that once you put a light gun on a PC all of a sudden we were entering a new level of 'realism'. I can't tell you how hard we have been trying to battle and fight this war, complete uphill battle. Software developers ran to the hills and ditched support of our original gameport guns. We had retailers saying they wouldn't carry the product because of the negative publicity or potential 'hot potato' syndrome they attributed to the PC light gun products. Of couse all of us at ACT LABS found the school shootings unfortunate and sad. The issue overall seemed to die down for awhile but even now with the recent school shooting in Germany I can see the issue popping up again. I just hope people can understand that we're talking about a toy light gun for entertainment use only and no one condones or encourages 'violence in reality'. :)
MKC2000 - "Also once you do switch to a game that runs a different resolution your setup is f...ed! Bad setup!! "
#### The USB Gun has a real-time calibration feature. Nature of the beast with PC monitors are that they can run in multiple resolutions and all kinds of refresh rates, therefore with the USB gun you just need to calibrate the gun real-time inside the gun you are playing for accuracy. The calibration process is real simple and we've got an animated image showing the process on our gun support page which can be found here:
http://www.act-labs.com/gun1_support.htm
Thanks all for your interest and I'd be happy to answer any more questions!
Brandon Crick
VP of Development
ACT LABS
http://www.act-labs.com
gnateye:
will you guys support mac soon,
nd how abut 2 guns simultaniously?
does that work for games like area 51, or police academy?
Frobozz:
Brandon, thank you very much for answering those questions. It's been a tremendous help. Rarely have I seen such support from a company.
As far as realistic looking guns are concerned, I fully expect several members on these boards to be tearing the Act-Labs guns apart the day they get them and figuring out how to transplant the electronics into another shell (If I'm wrong and nobody's thinking this, shame on you guys ;D )
Lilwolf:
here here on the great Customer support!
Heres another question. Will you help any of us out that want to hack our guns into more realistic cases?
And is it vaguely possible?
Are the optics very delicate?
Do you need to much stuff/electronics in the barrel?
Would you consider selling skins for them? (ie, have someone come up with a really cool/realistic looking shell and sell them as a 'your on your own if they look to realistic and you get shot by your wife when your playing T2 at 3 in the morning and she wakes up and thinks theres a burgler in the house.) (happens to me all the time ;D)
thanks
Frobozz:
--- Quote ---...and you get shot by your wife when your playing T2 at 3 in the morning and she wakes up and thinks theres a burgler in the house. Happens to me all the time.
--- End quote ---
Yea, darn shame when that happens. ;D