Act Labs Gun Questions

[Mike]

I've been thinking about getting an act-labs gun and I was wondering since it acts like a mouse device if it shows up under Control Panel/Mouse. The reason I was wonder is because I was thinking if it did you could hook up 2 of them. And set one to fire a left mouse click and the other to fire a right mouse click and then possibly modify the mame source to read the left mouse click as player 1 and the right mouse click as player 2. And it wouldn't make a difference if they shared the same axis because it would be the right vs left mouse click that determined which player fired. This was just a thought on how to get a two player version working. I'd be interested on any feedback of this being possible.

[hyiu]

but even if what you say works....
the 2 mouses (light guns) will be pointing to the exact same place all the time ?!?!...
I don't think that will work...

actually... if you search back... there are quite a few topics about lightgun.... (and guys here discussed a lot of details on what can be done to get 2 light guns up.... if I understand it correctly... so far.... no success....)

and since I'm lazy and stupid.... I'll wait until a package comes out... then save $$... buy it.. plug it in.. and play....
 

don't mean to pour cold water on you....

[rampy]

here's a thread of discussion that goes into lots of detail.. and dr j tested 2 usb actlab guns at the same time with not so hot performance...

summary: its not currently possible (unless someone did some serious hacking/custom driver/mame support that no one knows about)

rampy

[BASSOFeeSH]

p.s. Only 2 weeks left(2/28) to pre-order an the TV version!

[eightbit]

p.s. Only 2 weeks left(2/28) to pre-order an the TV version!

Anybody heard how many orders they got? Do they have enough for production?

[brandon]

well... You can easily use 2 different mice independantly with Mame Analog+ so why couldn't the same setup be used with the Actlabs guns?  I wish somebody would test this... I dont see any reason why it wouldn't work but I dont want to shell out the $$$ just to find out...  It would be OS dependant of course since the newer versions of Windows don't support multiple mice but if somebody could get this working it would be great.  Actlabs would sell a lot more guns too... I know I'd buy one... or two...

[SirPoonga]

well... You can easily use 2 different mice independantly with Mame Analog+ so why couldn't the same setup be used with the Actlabs guns?  I wish somebody would test this... I dont see any reason why it wouldn't work but I dont want to shell out the $$$ just to find out...  It would be OS dependant of course since the newer versions of Windows don't support multiple mice but if somebody could get this working it would be great.  Actlabs would sell a lot more guns too... I know I'd buy one... or two...

This is easy to answer.   Until act labs figures out how, you can only have one gun plugged into your video card.

[unclet]

I pre-ordered my TV light gun in early January and called them recently and it seems they are very close in meeting their pre-order limit and told me they would most likely go into production.

Also, I asked them whether they would be making a set of guns which could work together at the same time and they informed me they are currently thinking about doing this.....

Although ... .PLEASE PRE-ORDER YOUR GUN TODAY ......just to make sure I get mine.....:>)

[rampy]

well... You can easily use 2 different mice independantly with Mame Analog+ so why couldn't the same setup be used with the Actlabs guns?  I wish somebody would test this... I dont see any reason why it wouldn't work but I dont want to shell out the $$$ just to find out...  It would be OS dependant of course since the newer versions of Windows don't support multiple mice but if somebody could get this working it would be great.  Actlabs would sell a lot more guns too... I know I'd buy one... or two...

see SirP's answer.. and browse that thread I posted...

I thought the same thing but without some sort of uber modification to MAME/gun drivers it won't work (very well) because the gun appears as a windows system mouse which is a composite of all the mouses (meeses?) on the system.  I tried something simliar with Analog Mame with 2 different types of guns (one actlabs and the other PC auto mag) and it didn't work... I tried just getting Act Labs gun to work one player and my trackball to work independently as another player and no dice (ps/2 mouse hack trackball fYI)

I don't mean to discourage you if you do have a new idea please try it or share the idea... but *shrug* right now there doesn't seem to be a viable option out there.

good luck,

rampy

[brandon]

hey Rampy.. were both the guns USB?  It my understanding that Analog+ only sees the mice as independent if they are both USB and the OS is WIN95, 98, or ME...  I guess if you cant connect both to the video card then that would be a problem..  Its probably just looking for a sync signal which you could possibly split off to a 2nd gun... I dunno,  I just really want this to work!

[rampy]

Brandon, no... for me they weren't... one was ps/2 or serial (and part gameport)  and the other is of course act labs usb gun,,, I just ran the monitor blanker/passthru cables in series... that didn't seem to be an issue...

Dr.j is the guy who tried two usb act lab guns with mixed success and not really success...

*shrug*
rampy
PS yes we all very badly want 2 stupid guns to work at the same time too =P

[u_rebelscum]

Dr.j is the guy who tried two usb act lab guns with mixed success and not really success...

*shrug*
rampy
PS yes we all very badly want 2 stupid guns to work at the same time too =P

Yes guys, please read the thread rampy linked.  But here's a summary of the relevant parts of the thread, anyway.

Two actlab USB lightguns "work" in analog+ if both guns don't shot at the same time.  If they shot at the same time, they shot the same place.  Tested by Dr.J.

This is because mame (and mame:Analog+) use win32 api get the lightgun location, but directX for mouse/trackball location and lightgun/mouse/trackball buttons.  Analog+ can seperate USB data through directX but not win32 api.  Neither the original lightgun function writer nor I can find a directX way of accurately reading the lightgun screen location, thus the use of win32 api.  Win32 api doesn't seperate mouse data.  Thus why analog+ & 2 actlab lightguns don't work well.

Anything like trying to have different buttons for different players will run into the same problem as above unless a hardware delay is added to prevent same time trigger pulls from being seen as such in windows.

[mc-escher]

Does anyone have links to any specs that say exactly
how the USB joystick interface is different than the mouse
interface?  

I mean if it's just signaling headers, it might not
be to impossible to create a little passthrough circuit that changes the
device signature so that it is seen as a Joystick instead of mouse.

Just a theory, as two joysticks are easily supported independantly.

[1UP]

I think the answer is simple:  if the currently existing Act Labs guns could be used in tandem by such a simple trick, don't you think Act Labs would know about it and tell us how?  They'd sell twice as many guns that way...

Even if you got two hooked to the video card, they would still be fighting over control of the mouse.  Have you ever hooked up two mice, and had two people try to control where the arrow goes?  Neither person has complete control, and so neither one can click where they want to.  Just a big mess.

[u_rebelscum]

Does anyone have links to any specs that say exactly
how the USB joystick interface is different than the mouse
interface?  

I mean if it's just signaling headers, it might not
be to impossible to create a little passthrough circuit that changes the
device signature so that it is seen as a Joystick instead of mouse.

Just a theory, as two joysticks are easily supported independantly.

USB protocol goes something like this, simplified:

* The device is plugged and says "hey, computer here I am"
* windows says, "who are you"
* device says "I have manufacture ID # xyzabc123"
* windows looks for that ID first if it has drivers installed for in or in the inf files in it's INF folder.  
* If the windows driver is not installed:
--If it finds the ID, it uses whatever drivers the inf file tells it to.
--If it cannot find the ID, windows asks the user to install the floppy or CD with an inf file containtining that ID and the needed drivers (if non-standard windows drivers).
* windows sends the device an internal driver, and if needed installs the matching windows driver.

The actual data format sent once the drivers are setup depends on how the drivers tell the device to communicate.

If you a write a USB driver for the lightgun to use and edit the inf file so windows will use that driver instead of the mouse driver, you could use the lightgun as a joystick.

However, there are problems with joystick lightguns.  In a nutshell, there are a lot of settings that directX uses for joysticks that with totally screw up the calibration of a joystick lightgun.  Only with all the joystick settings perfectly setup will joystick lightguns be as accurate as mouse lightguns, AFAI can tell.  I can go into depth if you want.