WOW New LightGUN Info !!! Woot!!! :)

[Silver]

  On my system the EMS driver did seem to have less jitter than Wingun.

Thats interesting, I've not used the EMS drivers. The light-based Guncon's I would expect to have a fair amount of jitter. So it could be some of the jittering we are seeing is the drivers trying to reduce jitter. Although I could be wrong here....

[Minwah]

Silver: nice page, thanks   A few comments:

mouse 1
joystick 0
lightgun 1
dual_lightgun 0
lightgun_device lightgun

This section need only read:

mouse 0
joystick 0
lightgun 0
dual_lightgun 0
lightgun_device lightgun

This will enable lightgun only for games with lightgun controller type, which I believe is all gun games (even ones which actually used a positional pot-based gun).

Alternatively setting 'lightgun 1' will enable lightgun input for all games, which is not the preferred method since the '_device' options were added.


Also, you might add my problem with the recoil in the known problems sections.  While I believe this problem could be due to my specific hardware (USB hub or whatever) I bet there is a good chance other people might run into this.  That said, I need to try a few things so I can advise if it is possible to fix and retain the recoil.

Edit: sp

[Minwah]

Also, is it true winggun does not work when a mame game is launched through mame32?

That sounds false to me.  MAME32 is just MAME with a GUI chucked on.

I bet a configuration issue is to blame if someone had this problem.

[darthbane2k]

Also, is it true winggun does not work when a mame game is launched through mame32?

That sounds false to me.  MAME32 is just MAME with a GUI chucked on.

I bet a configuration issue is to blame if someone had this problem.

From the wingun website http://www.guncon2driver.com/faq.php?language=english

MAME32 doesn't work?
This is the first MAME question as it is the most frequently ask. MAME32 does not work. The cause of this is, when MAME32 is open the gun stops sending button press data. When I can figure out why, I will fix this. In the meantime, MAME32Plus and every other mame that has been tested works fine.

[Minwah]

Thats interesting, I've not used the EMS drivers. The light-based Guncon's I would expect to have a fair amount of jitter. So it could be some of the jittering we are seeing is the drivers trying to reduce jitter. Although I could be wrong here....

One thing I noticed is that when I played Op Wolf in 321x240 (after previously playing it in 640x480, no re-calibration), it seem to jitter less...the only jitter seemed to be genuinely due to my arm shaking.  I suppose it makes sense that converting the guns position into a lower resolution could mean less of an error factor is involved.

[RandyT]

On the subject of LED longevity:

It's probable that this is indeed the case with IR LEDs.  If you think about what they are normally used for (remote control and sensing), they don't need crazy longevity.  But they do need to be bright.  Manufacturers knowing that the output would be pulsed, and infrequently at that, probably decided to focus on high output.

On the other hand, they may be overdriving them because no IR LEDs in production are bright enough for this application.  The way these are built would suggest this possibility, as they placed 3 LEDs next to each other in groups, presumably to triple the light output.  Overdriving an LED makes for brighter light, but drastically reduced longevity..

FWIW,
RandyT

[Minwah]

MAME32 doesn't work?
This is the first MAME question as it is the most frequently ask. MAME32 does not work. The cause of this is, when MAME32 is open the gun stops sending button press data. When I can figure out why, I will fix this. In the meantime, MAME32Plus and every other mame that has been tested works fine.

Well as it's from the WinGun site it must be correct.  I wonder though whether it means MAME32 itself (as in the GUI) doesn't work or a game launched from MAME32 doesn't work...the wording isn't very clear.

It's certainly odd that MAME32 Plus works and MAME32 doesn't tho.  Then again, MAME32 is not recommended generally speaking for the BYOAC crowd anyway.

[darthbane2k]

dont worry...

[darthbane2k]

MAME32 doesn't work?
This is the first MAME question as it is the most frequently ask. MAME32 does not work. The cause of this is, when MAME32 is open the gun stops sending button press data. When I can figure out why, I will fix this. In the meantime, MAME32Plus and every other mame that has been tested works fine.

Well as it's from the WinGun site it must be correct.  I wonder though whether it means MAME32 itself (as in the GUI) doesn't work or a game launched from MAME32 doesn't work...the wording isn't very clear.

It's certainly odd that MAME32 Plus works and MAME32 doesn't tho.  Then again, MAME32 is not recommended generally speaking for the BYOAC crowd anyway.

we've been through this arguement before about how mame32 isnt reccomended. I cant see why not, its so  much easier (by that, I mean quicker)to use when changing the settings for individual files or an individual set of files (eg lightgun games). Im not going to change to command line mame now.

Which brings me back to my original dialemma. Just what in the hell can I use as a driver for a single gun that will allow me to reload by shooting outside of the screen?

[ErikRuud]

  On my system the EMS driver did seem to have less jitter than Wingun.

Thats interesting, I've not used the EMS drivers. The light-based Guncon's I would expect to have a fair amount of jitter. So it could be some of the jittering we are seeing is the drivers trying to reduce jitter. Although I could be wrong here....

It's just my impression, but it did seem to be a little steadier.  It did still Jitter.  One test I wnt to do is to clamp the gun to my camera tripod and see how much of the jitter is actually caused by the software and how much is unsteadyness on my part.

[darthbane2k]

sorry to bug you all with the SAME questions, but can we get some confirmation as to what drivers allow you to shoot OUTSIDE of the screen to reload. Im sure MANY of us will be putting HOTD and Virtua Squad (Cop) games onto our cabs, and to replicate the arcade experience in any way at all, we need to be able to reload in this way.

I wont get started with Time Crisis (is this even PLAYABLE in MAME anyway??!)

[Silver]

Silver: nice page, thanks   A few comments:

mouse 1
joystick 0
lightgun 1
dual_lightgun 0
lightgun_device lightgun

This section need only read:

mouse 0
joystick 0
lightgun 0
dual_lightgun 0
lightgun_device lightgun

This will enable lightgun only for games with lightgun controller type, which I believe is all gun games (even ones which actually used a positional pot-based gun).

Alternatively setting 'lightgun 1' will enable lightgun input for all games, which is not the preferred method since the '_device' options were added.

AHa! finally i understand the newer _device options! Thanks....

@darthbane2k:

I've not tested this properly. You may be able to map it yourself, but I seem to recall some games in mame having issues with this before these guns anyway. There is an 'offscreen_reload' option in mame.ini as well, so need to find out how that operates....

[Farmboy90]

Still waiting for my gun - I have a feeling it could show up today.

However, the longer this thread goes on, the more confused I get.

I was under the impression that the winggun (Acorns) was the best and most flawless for one gun only. I will only have the one gun, and will be using in PC Games (HOTD ,virtua cop etc), MAME (Jurassic Park, Operation wolf, T2 etc) and FCEUltra (Duckhunt, wild gunman etc)
Can you guys clearly confrim that this is the BEST driver to use for a single gun, because now some of you are reccomending Guncon, thus leaving me totally confused.
I dont wanna clog my system up with non-working drivers, I would like to 'get it right' from the offset!

Many Thanks

I think I am the one confusing you.  Sorry about that.  When I mention guncon above I mean Acorn's.  Acorn and Smog use similar names.  I didn't realize that until just now.  Here is what they are called:

"Acorn's WinGun GunCon2 PC Driver"
"Smog's GunCon2 PC Driver Suite"

Both say GunCon in them.  At any rate, I am using Acorn's.  Works great.

[Farmboy90]

By the way, I am not changing resolutions at all.  My desktop is 800x600.  I use the default mame.ini settings, so however that is launching the games I don't know.

But I don't have much of an issue with accuracy in the games.  Everythin seems great.

If the cursor is off (like it was when I jumped over to FCE Ultra for some duck hunt) I simply adjusted the laser pointer.  So the cursor was a couple inches off from my laser pointer, so I just turned the little laser wheel and aligned the two.  Takes 1 second and then everything is fine, and there is no need to recalibrate or change resolutions.

[darthbane2k]

By the way, I am not changing resolutions at all.  My desktop is 800x600.  I use the default mame.ini settings, so however that is launching the games I don't know.

But I don't have much of an issue with accuracy in the games.  Everythin seems great.

Im not sure I am understanding what you are saying.
Are you implying that you are playing games on different emulators (eg fce ultra and mame) at (presumably) different resolutions, and it is having no affect on your caliberation? - If that is the case, then great!

[Farmboy90]

Pretty much yes that is what I am saying.  I don't know if by default Mame is matching resolutions or not.  All I am saying is, I haven't modified any of that in the ini, and I can bounce back and forth between Operation Wolf and Police Trainer and everything works fine.  Perhaps those two games run at the same resolution though?

I am also saying that when I switch to Duck Hunt (via FCE Ultra) that my on-screen target is a couple of inches off from my laser pointer.  Clearly I can see a resolution change here though, so I assume that is the reason why.

My point was that, instead of forcing resolution changes I simply adjust the laser pointer wheel to align with the on screen target.  Then I use the laser pointer as my guide (and not the sights on the gun).

I need to try more games though I think to see how this holds up.

** edit **
spelling

[Minwah]

My point was that, instead of forcing resolution changes I simply adjust the laser pointer wheel to align with the on screen target.  Then I use the laser pointer as my guide (and not the sights on the gun).

This is OK (I agree it works) but to me using the laser sight is cheating.  It's pretty easy to just hit fire when a red dot is over what you want to shoot.  For the true experience the laser sight needs to be off IMHO, and use the sight!

[Minwah]

I am also saying that when I switch to Duck Hunt (via FCE Ultra) that my on-screen target is a couple of inches off from my laser pointer.  Clearly I can see a resolution change here though, so I assume that is the reason why.

I'm not sure about this yet, but I don't think resolution changes should be a problem.  This is only based on what I've tried in MAME tho, but if it isn't a problem in MAME I don't see why it should be in other emu's / apps.

Only time & testing will tell for sure tho...

[mark6437]

Erik: I appreciate your directions and any help you can give me but I have done this calibration countless times now. It all seems like it works but then I go into a game and nada. Or the gun fires but stays in the top left part of the screen.

Two questions noone has addressed:

Are your monitors at an angle therefore your LED stands are at the same angel? Will this affect the gun?

And, once you calibrate the thing, standing a good distance from the cabinet, you have to walk to the cabinet to launch the game. So now when you walk back to play the place you were standing is diffrent than where you calibrated it from. Wouldnt that affect the gun? This make sense??

Mark

Mark,

It sounds like your guns are NOT calibrated correctly.  During the target shooting portion of Winguns calibration, an off screen shot will cancel the calibration.  The fact that the calibration exits on the first shot tells me that your guns are not calibrated.

You HAVE to do the gun's built in calibration before you do the calibration in WinGun.

1.  Install Wingun.
2.  Start Wingun.
3.  Plugin gun and LED stands.
4.  Point gun away from screen, the laser should go out.
5.  Hold  A & B buttons until the laser turns on, it should now stay on no matter where you point the gun.
6.  Aim at the top left LED and pull the trigger. The laser should blink off then on again.
7. Aim at the center of your screen.  The laser should blink off/on again.
8. Aim at the Top Left corner of your screen.  The laser should blink off/on again.
9. Aim at the Top Right of your screen.  The laser should blink off/on again.
10. Aim at the Bottom Right of your screen.  The laser should blink off/on again.
11. Aim at the Bottom Left of your screen.  The laser should blink off/on again.
12.  The calibration should be complete.  If you point the gun away from the screen the laser should turn off.  If at any point the laser did not blink, then the gun could not see the leds properly.  If the calibration is not complete , you need to go back to step 5.

Once you get to step 12 successfully, you can go onto the Wingun Calibration.

[Farmboy90]

Are your monitors at an angle therefore your LED stands are at the same angel? Will this affect the gun?

My TV is at a 10 degree angle.   I would expect that to play somewhat in the accuracy, but that amount of degrees is very slight.  And I can guarantee my LED stands are a different angle since I did not measure the angle when mounting them.  I just "eye-balled" it.

And, once you calibrate the thing, standing a good distance from the cabinet, you have to walk to the cabinet to launch the game. So now when you walk back to play the place you were standing is diffrent than where you calibrated it from. Wouldnt that affect the gun? This make sense??

Mark

Correct.  Unless you map a button on the gun to be the start button.  Mostly I do just as you say though, walk over, hit the button, and walkback.  It really doesn't affect things to where I have noticed them.  You could stand in a spot far away (a few feet) from your calibration point, but that would mess things up.  So just try to get back to the spot close to where you calibrated. 

This doesn't have to be exact.  Things work fine if you just simply make an effort to get things close enough.

What are you mame.ini settings for the device section?
What game are you trying to play right now that is giving you this problem?
What are the in game settings for your inputs for that game?

[ErikRuud]

Mark,

Something is not calibrated correctly.  Can you get the mouse pointer to follow the gun in windows?

My monitor is titled back at a slight angle.  When I first started testing, the LEDS were attached to the sides of the monitor and paralell to the screen.  I later moved the LEDS to the inside edges of my cabinet and they are now straight up and down so that they are not at the same angle as the monitor.  It seems to work a little better this way.  The LEDs are pointed more toqards the gun, so they should appear brighter.  The reflection of the ceiling lights doesn't seem to bother the gun anymore.

Changing the distance between the gun and the screen does affect the calibration, but not to the extreme of the pointer staying up in the corner.  I have stepped to the left or right and the gun still seems to track very well.  If I step closer you can see that the calibrations starts to get messed up.  It seems like the relation ship between gun movement and mouse movemnet is not linear any more.

[mark6437]

Well I have tried HOTD3. It shoots but stays in the top left corner.
I tried Area51. I finally got MAME to see the gun by using Silvers config, everything set to zero then lightgun_device lightgun.  However everytime I shoot it reloads.
Inside of WinGun now I cannot get past the first calibration screen, where it attempts to detect rolling x. The mouse pointer just barely moves 1 or 2 inches and when it does it skips.
I totally agree this is a calibration issuse. BUT. If my stands are the problem, because they are at a slight angle just like my monitor, then it would seem to me that the laser pointer would turn off when it cant see the stands properly. Now it does do this but only if I stand too close. If I get far enough back the laser pointer stays on while I am pointing it at the screen.

I guess what I will do next is stand my stands upright somehow and see if that fixes something.
I really appreciate all the help in here!

Mark

Will let you know soon what happens.

[ErikRuud]

Mark,

If the game is reloading when you shoot, then the button gonfig needs to be changed somewhere.

You must complete the first two parts of the Wingun calibration.  I'm not sure how important the third part is.

In the first part, it attemptin to check for the "Rolling X" problem.  These guns don't have that problem.  The second part is the real calibration.  As you move the gun left and right and up and down, the mouse ponter should start following the gun fairly closely.

Also, I'm pretty sure that the HOTD PC games require the use of the Trouble Shooter as well as Wingun.

[Warborg]

Mark,

If the game is reloading when you shoot, then the button gonfig needs to be changed somewhere.

If it's set up to reload by shooting offscreen, then wouldn't this also happen if the gun just "thinks" it's not pointed at the screen, and not a button config issue?

[Farmboy90]

Yup. 

Mark, you have to get the calibration working.  Don't worry about that third screen.  I don't think it is relevant anyway since it is specific to light guns, not the LED/camera based ones.

[ErikRuud]

Mark,

If the game is reloading when you shoot, then the button gonfig needs to be changed somewhere.

If it's set up to reload by shooting offscreen, then wouldn't this also happen if the gun just "thinks" it's not pointed at the screen, and not a button config issue?

Yes, that could also be the problem.

[mark6437]

Ok I changed the angle of the stands. I hung both of them vertical from my speaker holes. Did not fix any of the problems at all. Still same issues. Mainly calibrating in WinGun does not work. When I can get past the first screen it takes me too the screen where you move the gun between the red lines on the top and bottom. I do this and I assume the mouse pointer should follow the gun, it does not with any percision at all. Very very jumpy when it does move.

I attached 3 pics. The first one is how the LED stands are now, hung from the speaker holes perfectly vertical.

The second one is a comparison of the way I had them, which is represented by the LED stand on the right.

The third pic is just a shot from about where I am trying all this bull%^$#............Sorry. I am very frustrated. I am feeling like I should have kept the act labs guns.

Mark

[Silver]

Mainly calibrating in WinGun does not work. When I can get past the first screen it takes me too the screen where you move the gun between the red lines on the top and bottom. I do this and I assume the mouse pointer should follow the gun, it does not with any percision at all. Very very jumpy when it does move.

This is the key to all your problems. Yes the mouse should follow the gun - it will "learn" where the edges are as you move, so by the time you have moved across all 4 edges of the screen it should be following the gun extremely well. It should not be jumpy at all.

I am thinking:

The gun has intereference: Get the calibration screen up and try a few things:

turn off your room lights.
Move your position.
make sure the camera in the gun/LED's are not dirty/obscured by anything.
try shielding above/below the gun path in case the infra red is reflecting off anything (eg floor).
adjust you position all over the place.

If that fails, can you try on a pc in another room? just stick the stands up, install wingun, plug it and see if it tracks ok. If it doesn't it's possible there may be something wrong with the gun.

[brian23]

Question: How well do these stands work in cabs with monitors/TVs that are angled back in the cable? What is the maximum acceptable angle?

[mark6437]

Silver:
Do you think the angle at which I had the stands is a problem? I would like to put them back the way they were, not hanging from the speaker holes.

I will try and calibrate more. But I gotta tell you I have done the move all around to the best possible position thing. I think I get to a point where the gun works the best and it does not really help. If I am getting reflection off of my wood floor then I am sending these things back. I am not gunna stand on a sheet when I wanna play a gun game.

Also it seems to me this gun, as far as my setup, is VERY dependent on where you stand. I don't like that. I mainly have these guns for when friends come over. I don't wanna have to tell them, move back move forward move right move left. Know what I mean?

The act labs guns worked really good in HOTD, although I could not get them to shoot very low. But at least they worked wherever I stood. I don't see these guns, at this point, as a viable/good solution to the MAME gun issue. Just too many variables. I dont wanna have to stand there like a statue in order to play a game. With the act labs guns you could move around while shooting. That seems to be a serious problem with these guns.

Correct me if I am wrong please.

Mark

Mainly calibrating in WinGun does not work. When I can get past the first screen it takes me too the screen where you move the gun between the red lines on the top and bottom. I do this and I assume the mouse pointer should follow the gun, it does not with any precision at all. Very very jumpy when it does move.

This is the key to all your problems. Yes the mouse should follow the gun - it will "learn" where the edges are as you move, so by the time you have moved across all 4 edges of the screen it should be following the gun extremely well. It should not be jumpy at all.

I am thinking:

The gun has interference: Get the calibration screen up and try a few things:

turn off your room lights.
Move your position.
make sure the camera in the gun/LED's are not dirty/obscured by anything.
try shielding above/below the gun path in case the infra red is reflecting off anything (eg floor).
adjust you position all over the place.

If that fails, can you try on a pc in another room? just stick the stands up, install wingun, plug it and see if it tracks ok. If it doesn't it's possible there may be something wrong with the gun.

[Smog]

CPN mouse - No. I hacked the inf to include the correct ID's so that XP recognised the gun as a device that should use the CPN mouse driver, but it refused to work (yellow exclamation points in device manager).

Smog might be able to comment here, as his driver presents as a HID-mouse.

The problem is, that neither wingun or gun2mouse is a mouse driver. What you install using those setup is a fake .ini file to quiet windows asking for drivers that just install a library to take out to the "user level" functions to read USB data (normally accessible only from kernel mode).
After that, those data are read from an application that uses a fuction to move the mouse cursor accordingly to the data read from USB.
This is very easy to implement and to configure but in fact it is not a mouse.  Anything has down and upsides ... the speed/compatibility you can get from a real mousedriver (like mine) is paid with an HUGE work to implement any little thing / bug fix.

[Minwah]

The second one is a comparison of the way I had them, which is represented by the LED stand on the right.

This looks fine to me...my monitor has a similar angle to yours and my LED stands are similarly placed.  The only thing I found improved mine slightly was to move the stands outwards away from the screen by about 2 inches.

Also...a long shot but try turning your marquee light off to see if that is interfering somehow.

[Minwah]

Another nights tinkering...

First problem I had was WinGun would now not recognise my gun.  I unplugged it and plugged it back in and it blue screened   So I decided to uninstall it, and try Smog's once again.  Now I have it working absolutely fine - the problem I had before (would stop working after a while) must be caused by the recoil problem I described in an earlier post.  With recoil turned off (or not plugged in) it now works perfectly.

I figured out a couple of problems I'd had earlier, basically they were my fault (I've edited previous posts to explain).

So now I decided to go through and have a play   Note that all the following is based on MAME v0.99!  Some of these things are probably MAME bugs and may have been fixed since!  (Sorry I'm a bit behind).  Here's what I found:

The vast majority of games work perfectly, regardless of resolution (I am using an ArcadeVGA using the best modes possible for each game, so I have tried several resolutions), and without re-calibration.  None of the following problems are due to resolution changes, I've checked.

Off-screen reload works (even with 'offscreen_reload 0' set in mame.ini) - see 'Lethal Justice', 'Under Fire' etc.

Beast Busters works and tracks the cursor fine...but when firing it is way off - seems to happen with a mouse too so just MAME bug I think.

In a few games the gun works but the crosshair is offset by a large margin - see 'Lethal Enforcers/2', 'Operation Wolf 3'.

Jurassic Park: the known strange behaviour, but I also see the same offset as described above.

Zombie Raid: calibrated in the centre of the screen, but gradually goes out the further away from the centre you aim.

I recall a problem with a vertical screen game, but I forget the name.


Many of the above issues are with games with problems with the emulation, so this may be to blame.  Also as I said above this is with MAME v0.99, so I expect some of the issues have been fixed.

The only remaining problem I have is the one that occurs when the recoil is plugged in...I'm going to be unable to try anything for that for a while but I'm quite confident a power transformer or seperate USB hub will do the trick.

[Fozzy The Bear]

Another nights tinkering...

Good work Minwah.....  I suspect you're 100% correct here about the issues that are mame driver and emulation related.

Like everyone else I've found the supplied drivers just don't work even on Win98se. I've found both of the third party (freeware) drivers work on my setup. Thought I'd better try them both to make sure. Wingun seems to be the easiest of them to set up so far (at least for me).

So far all the single gun games I've tried in Mame seem to work perfectly, with the noted Jurrasic Park exception.... I think that's one we just have to wait for the Mame Devs to sort out.

Other than Mame.....

So far I can sucessfully run windows games.... and DOS games that are running under windows....

The following non Mame games tested and working:

Moorhun Jahgd  (AKA Chicken Hunter) Works like a dream!! I just love shooting those cute cartoon chickens.

Mad Dog Mcree... Working! no issues or problems.

Space Pirates... Working! no issues or problems.

Who Shot Johnny Rock... Working! no issues or problems.

Given the above three work, I suspect that the rest of the Digital Leisure/American Laser Games will work as well.

I've not had an issue with the recoil.... It's a bit on the weedy side when it is working, but it's not caused me any problems. Maybe my Mobo is outputting more juice through the ports than yours is. I'd suspect that you're right, that a powered USB hub would cure the problem.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Dartful Dodger]

I just ordered my gun

my gun has just been shipped

I hope my gun comes today

my gun didn't come today maybe tomorrow

My gun came today I can't wait to try it

I didn't have a chance to try it today, maybe this weekend

There is a lot of useful info in this thread but there is also a lot of nonsense.
Can somebody who has the gun and has gotten it to work please create a thread that makes sense.

I'm sorry if someone posted a link to a review, but there is usually 4 new pages to this thread every day, and I'm trying to stop at any links or normal looking posts, and copy and paste it into a word doc. Now I think the cheat sheet I've created has misinformation on it or has been out dated.

This is a great looking product, and I understand your enthusiasm, but I'm going blind trying to read through the garbage.

[Santoro]

It wasn't meant to be a one-stop shopping thread, people have just been posting their experiences.  I am sure when someone gets the perfect mix of drivers and Mame settings they will summarize it nicely for us.

Until then I am watching with interest.

[Smog]

Note that all the following is based on MAME v0.99!  Some of these things are probably MAME bugs and may have been fixed since

Don't know some games work just fine with the mouse but not with the lightgun (lethal enforcer is reported not to work i.e.) I guess there is something related to relative/absolute device coordinates ... sad to say it cannot be fixed by my side.
MinWah, does lethal enforcer workk well to you (I've only read about offscreen reload in your post) ?

[mark6437]

Ok I am done. Tried for 4 hours to get these things to work.

If anyone wants them, one open one not open, you can have them for what I paid plus shipping. That comes to 2 LCD TopGun
Compatible with PlayStation2, Xbox, Windows PC  59.80
 
Sub-Total 59.80
 Shipping (UPS) 34.40
 
Total 94.20
All values USD

Plus what I have to pay to ship them to you. If noone wants them I will return them to playasia.

Thx for all the help but these things are just not what I thought they would be.

Mark

[Silver]

Minwah, I think I verify that all the "bugs" you spotted are present in mame 0.103.

I've been eyeballing the source code to see if there is an easy 'fix' to the games which track well but are offset. The earlier linked to post about offset analogue joys got me thinking..... No joy so far, although I did read this in lethal.c, driver for lethal enforcers:

"
guns not set up correctly

guns might be slightly off center"

Which might explain that one. Also there appears to be no correlation between working/nonworking in the lines:

PORT_BIT( 0xff, 0x80, IPT_LIGHTGUN_X ) PORT_MINMAX(0,255) PORT_SENSITIVITY(50) PORT_KEYDELTA(10)

which seem to be present for every lightgun game. The 2nd entry, 0x80, is the one (I think) that gives mame the starting position of the cursor (this is what needed changing for analogue joys when the game started with the cursor offscreen, but the joysticks were centered. However, it is the same for both opwolf3 and term2, so I don't think its relevant here.

I also noticed that Alien3 (that seems to work) has the same driver as jpark, but there is extra code for alien3 that appears to set up one of the eeproms: "/* alien 3 with the gun calibrated, it doesn't prompt you if its not */".

My C is not up to much I'm afraid. I also noticed undrfire (which seems to work well) has more legible code (to me) on the gun inputs and is also partially documented in the source about what its doing, which may help someone....

[edge]

Ok I am done. Tried for 4 hours to get these things to work.

If anyone wants them, one open one not open, you can have them for what I paid plus shipping. That comes to 2 LCD TopGun
Compatible with PlayStation2, Xbox, Windows PC  59.80
 
Sub-Total 59.80
 Shipping (UPS) 34.40
 
Total 94.20
All values USD

Plus what I have to pay to ship them to you. If noone wants them I will return them to playasia.

Thx for all the help but these things are just not what I thought they would be.

Mark

Mark - no offense - but be patient.  These guns have been out for 7 days or so.  People are continually working out the issues.  Some of the driver authors are already  involved (ie, Smog).  Even the LCD Top Gun company seems responsive and eager to help hammer out driver issues. 

It will take some time, but I think most of these issues will be resolved.  Just look at all the interest in this thread thus far.

Hang in there.