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 )

[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  )

thanks

[Frobozz]

...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.

Yea, darn shame when that happens.    

[ACT_LABS_Brandon]

Yes sure we could assist anyone who wanted to transplant the electronics into a more realistic looking gun. It should be quite simple as the majority of the electronics themselves are in the adaptor box. The gun just has the small PCB's for the trigger, side buttons, and the optic sensor.

Check out this site for some cool replica gun models

http://www.3psa.com

Here also is an image of the hardware setup for reference:



I'd be happy to answer any more questions!

We're working on a video right now of the USB Gun in action with House of the Dead 2, would any of you be interested in viewing it?

Thanks,

Brandon Crick
ACT LABS
http://www.act-labs.com

[Xiaou2]

Yes sure we could assist anyone who wanted to transplant the electronics into a more realistic looking gun. It should be quite simple as the majority of the electronics themselves are in the adaptor box. The gun just has the small PCB's for the trigger, side buttons, and the optic sensor.

Check out this site for some cool replica gun models

http://www.3psa.com

Here also is an image of the hardware setup for reference:



I'd be happy to answer any more questions!

We're working on a video right now of the USB Gun in action with House of the Dead 2, would any of you be interested in viewing it?

Thanks,

Brandon Crick
ACT LABS
http://www.act-labs.com

 HI Brandon,


  You mentioned that the TV gun will have a composite line to the tv...   Well, a lot of us prefer the s-video out because of superior color and detail.   I definitely would not purchase a gun that took your beautiful svideo signal and downgraded it to composite signal : (

 Am I misinterpreting this?


Also, about dual guns...  You said that its not possible to track them if both are shot at the same time... but,  wouldnt it be possible to 'buffer' the second players shot for a split second until the check is finished on player ones gun?   You could extend the 'flash' time a tad longer... maybe that would help?  

 I realize that it may affect a bit of accuracy... but still should be decently acceptable.   Most pc's are pretty fast... and if the circuits and drivers are written optimmaly... maybe it would work ok?

 And finally... the feedback unit : )    Definitely hoping for that... even if a kit form.  Lot of us could install such a thing... but not all of us are circuit wizzards, and cant build that high power driver unit for the coil.

 Thanks Brandon,

 Steve

 


http://www.xiaou2.homestead.com/xiaou2s.html
http://www.xiaou2.homestead.com/turbo.html
http://www.xiaou2.homestead.com/hangon.html
http://www.xiaou2.homestead.com/dot.html

[Frobozz]

We're working on a video right now of the USB Gun in action with House of the Dead 2, would any of you be interested in viewing it?

Sure!  I love HotD2.  


Re:Xiaou2's comments.

That's what I love about these boards and a project like MAME in general.  When you have a large amount of people fanatically devoted to a hobby hooked together by a board / chat / web system, it's like having a dedicated think-tank.  Ideas just come from the walls, and sometimes hit suprising insights.  

Scarey thing is, especially for this particular hobby, how many of those people turn out to be programmers, carpenters, electrical and mechanical engineers,  etc...  (technical trades)  

Heh, so to expand upon the dual guns idea, if the control circuitry is synchronized to the screen refresh, and both guns are fired at close to the same interval of time (the time it takes to perform a screen read), and the second gun's trigger is delayed until X hz later and then triggered, it may work.  Question is, how fast is the screen read, how much accuracy is lost on screen update (how fast is the monster on the screen moving) and how many times a second can 'ol Billy the Kid pull that trigger?  

How do arcades do it?

Feedback system?  Just solder a small relay in line with the trigger PCB.  Then run whatever power, servos, etc you want from there.  

[Xiaou2]

Sure!

[Chris]

Yes sure we could assist anyone who wanted to transplant the electronics into a more realistic looking gun. It should be quite simple as the majority of the electronics themselves are in the adaptor box. The gun just has the small PCB's for the trigger, side buttons, and the optic sensor.

Brandon,

I don't mind the shape of the gun itself, but I wish the cable from the gun to the control box could be disconnected... to istall this in my cabinet, I'll have to cut a hole big enough for the control box to go through!

I'm considering cutting thecable where it connects to the control box and adding an RJ-45 jack that I can mount to the cabinet, and just plug the gun into that jack with the control box installed inside.  Is there any reason i shouldn't do that?  (Signal problems, voiding warranty, etc.)

--Chris

[Peeper]

Okay, this is probably a really dumb idea from someone not familiar with the inner workings of a light gun, BUT:

From what I understand, when you pull the trigger a white 'flash' is generated on the screen on the next vertical retrace. There is some timing done from the time the retrace starts until the sensor in the gun detects the 'flash' to calculate the guns position on screen.

My question is:

 Couldn't two separate guns be used if they were each sensite to a different color (wavelength) of 'flash'?  Say White and Red?

If the sensitivity overlapped enough, then on retraces where both guns fires, a ligh reddidsh flash wouldwork?

Probably a good reason why this wouldn't work, but I thought I's through it out there.

[Jakobud]

Umm is it just me, or are you guys replying to a thread that is 8 months old?

[Chris]

Umm is it just me, or are you guys replying to a thread that is 8 months old?

It's appropriate to this thread; plus, replying to an existing thread will send Brandon a notification where a new thread wouldn't.

--Chris

[medley]

Act Lab is selling the Light guns for $30 right now.
seems like a descent price. but i don't know if i want to spend that much, considering that you can only use one. I think shooting games are more fun with 2 people. It would be nice to have a gun though.
All the reviews i have found aren't that great.
Is it worth $30?
What are people's opinions on the gun?

[Chris]

I love the gun!  Most of the negative reviews seem to be from people expecing an arcade-quality and weight gun for $30 (note that a Happ gun assembly is $120).  Yes, it's made of plastic, and looks like a toy gun, not a 44 magnum.  Yes, it's only one player.  But it's rapidly become the most popular part of my cabinet!  

It doesn't have autofire, so those games like Operation Wolf and Maximum Force where you may at times have a machine gun will require you to pull the trigger for each shot.  In addition, the extra button doesn't aim, so for games like Operation Wolf where the extra button is a weapon, you have to pull the main trigger to aim then quickly press the second button to fire the extra weapon.

In addition, the stock version of MAME requires you to shoot the very last row ofpixels to reload in Area 51 and Maximum Force; there is a patch out to fix this, and it works great, allowing you to shoot offscreen to reload.

I just got House of the Dead 2 last night, and it plays just like the arcade!  (Note: It's buttons aren't remappable... make sure there's a button on your cab mapped to Enter, which it uses as P1 Start!)

Two guns would make this perfect, and u_rebelscum is working on it in MAME Analog+.  

--Chris

[Siris]

Heh, It's funny that this thread was brought back to life since it has a lot of talk about about transplanting the act-labs innards into a different gun shell.

I didn't see this thread previously but that is exactlt what I am doing! As mentioned in the other act-labs thread I have received the lip sang virtual gun from Dr. J and I am planning on putting the actlabs innards into in after a quick write up of it's performance.

I have already opened the virtual gun and it will be a fairly simple process and this gun looks SO much cooler and realistic than the act-labs gun.

I will be posting pics of everything very soon!

[Chris]

I'm not interested in cool and realistic, but I could see mysef transplanting the innards into a Happ shell for durability... and Happs does sell just the shells...

--Chris