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MAME 0104u7 -- EMS TOPGUN
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Cananas:

--- Quote from: Derrick Renaud on March 24, 2006, 09:48:41 pm ---Have you tried your 3 guns yet?  Do all 3 cursors move in real time with smog's driver?  They should but I can't test it.  Just want to be sure.

D.

--- End quote ---

After some test, here are the results:

MAME
====

- Mame tracks perfectly 3 LCDTopguns. Even tracks a LCDTopGun and ActLabs gun combination. Only problems with the remap of button, but I think this is because a bad configuration of Smog driver.

- LCDTopGun is able to do a real shootoffscreen reload. No needed the Offscreen reload activated. Even more, it must not be used with that guns. This flag is an ActLabs guns legacy. If you enable it, you cannot fire a grenade in UnderFire, for example.

- Any ActLabs gun user must decide between a reload or to throw a grenade enabling or not the Offscreen reload flag... It is a horrible ActLabs gun limitation. :'(

Conclusion: The LCDTopGun is far better than ActLabs gun for MAME. Only one consideration. We don't have working official drivers. The new version 3.2 doesn't work at all with Mame. Smog is the only person that can help us!!

Others PC games, like Hod series, VirtuaCop series, etc.
========================================
Here, the ActLabs win the match, because the LCDTopGun+Smog drivers can't reload shooting offscreen. This games use the second button to reload. ActLabs register a button2 press when you shoot offscreen. We need that Smog make an option that permit a button2 registration when you shoot offscreen in this games.

LCDTopGun+Wingun drivers works well with this games, because the shoot offscreen can be remaped to a button2. But this driver doesn't work in mame.

mccoy178:
Derrick, keep the updates!  Thanks for all the work.  I wouldn't sweat you know who too much.  Opinions are like  :censored:'s, everyone has one.  Some bigger than others.  Thanks again and please know that there are many, many users out there that will benefit from this.  The drivers will come.  They always find a way.
Derrick Renaud:

--- Quote from: Cananas on March 25, 2006, 05:07:23 am ---- Mame tracks perfectly 3 LCDTopguns. Even tracks a LCDTopGun and ActLabs gun combination. Only problems with the remap of button, but I think this is because a bad configuration of Smog driver.

--- End quote ---

That's great.  I'm glad it works.

The re-mapping of the button's has nothing to do with MAME.  EMS needs a proper driver.  So that leaves poor Smog left to fix things.  And I don't think he got any more support then me from EMS.


--- Quote from: Cananas on March 25, 2006, 05:07:23 am ---- LCDTopGun is able to do a real shootoffscreen reload. No needed the Offscreen reload activated. Even more, it must not be used with that guns. This flag is an ActLabs guns legacy. If you enable it, you cannot fire a grenade in UnderFire, for example.

--- End quote ---

You can still use -offscreen_reload, if the person likes having button 2 used to re-load instead of shooting off-screen.  Just map another button in MAME to be used for the grenade, such as button 3.


--- Quote from: Cananas link=topic=51888.msg508925#msg508925
date=1143281243 ---- Any ActLabs gun user must decide between a reload or to throw a grenade enabling or not the Offscreen reload flag... It is a horrible ActLabs gun limitation. :'(

--- End quote ---

If you have the 2-player version of their gun, the 1/2 player switch is no longer needed for player selection.  That means that gun now can use all 4 buttons in game for that player.  So per info here:

http://derrick.mameworld.info/lightgun/Act_Labs_Light_Guns_on_XP.html

If you have the 2-Player light gun, you can leave the mode switch on position 1 for normal shooting.  You can then use position 2 to change the 2 buttons from buttons 1 & 2, to buttons 3 & 4.  Giving you the ability to control extra functions.  When in position 2, the trigger button is now button 3 and it also updates the cursor position when pressed.  This allows you to map button 3 as a grenade button for games that use it.  So with a 2-Player gun you can set the mode switch to position 1 for regular shooting.  Then flip it up to position 2 with your thumb, and fire off a couple grenades.  Then flip the switch back to position 1 and continue shooting.

That means you need to remap button 3 to launch the grenade in your MAME controls setting.


--- Quote from: Cananas on March 25, 2006, 05:07:23 am ---Conclusion: The LCDTopGun is far better than ActLabs gun for MAME. Only one consideration. We don't have working official drivers. The new version 3.2 doesn't work at all with Mame. Smog is the only person that can help us!!

Others PC games, like Hod series, VirtuaCop series, etc.
========================================
Here, the ActLabs win the match, because the LCDTopGun+Smog drivers can't reload shooting offscreen. This games use the second button to reload. ActLabs register a button2 press when you shoot offscreen. We need that Smog make an option that permit a button2 registration when you shoot offscreen in this games.

LCDTopGun+Wingun drivers works well with this games, because the shoot offscreen can be remaped to a button2. But this driver doesn't work in mame.

--- End quote ---

I think that the Act Labs guns may have a faster response time.  Meaning when you point the gun at a target and fire, the position is updated instantly.  With the TopGun, I imagine there might be a small lag in the cursor actually following the gun position.  Due to the way the camera tracks the LEDs and then calculates a position.  So they each seem to have their benefits and drawbacks.  Plus Act-Labs is the only gun that currently works with MAME in a multi-gun setup, out of the box.

It seems that Smog way want to add an option to re-map an off-screen shot as button 2 for non-MAME games.  Or you can just press button 2 to reload.

Does his driver allow you to save settings per game?  I'm thinking something along the lines of my Gravis Exterminator.  That automatically applies individual game settings for my joystick when a game is run.

D.
Derrick Renaud:
I know the way that 104u7 reports lightguns on XP may seem confusing.  But this is due to the fact that I can not find out what a gun is at control initialization.  Only when the position data is received.  So I create a mouse and a lightgun for each mouse found.  Then the position data automatically uses the proper one.

And I better state one last time that this is all my fault that it works this way.  And not Microsoft's fault for not making a better set of routines to access the data/info.     :banghead:   ;D

Would it be better if I changed the name to: "Lightgun on Mouse"?  So this would be reported instead:
Lightgun on Mouse 4 X
Lightgun on Mouse 4 Y

or maybe:
Mouse 4 X (Lightgun)

or maybe:
Mouse (Lightgun) 4 X

Do any of these seem better?  Any other ideas on a good way to report it?

D.
dabone:

--- Quote ---Would it be better if I changed the name to: "Lightgun on Mouse"?  So this would be reported instead:
Lightgun on Mouse 4 X
Lightgun on Mouse 4 Y
--- End quote ---


That sounds like a great idea.

Also, for people like me with actlabs guns, you can always add a foot pedal to fire grenades and the like and have off screen reload.


The easy way to deal with xp and the mouse order is deal with it.

I've had 5 mouse devices hooked up to my cab for a couple of years and I've had no problems with it reassigning numbers now.

I DON'T plug and unplug devices!, I DON'T use hubs.
I DO use real Intel Motherboards.

When I setup analog mame the first time, I had the guns in a hub and occasionally they would move around after power cycles. I got rid of the hub and that fixed the problem.

With this config, my machine has never had to redetect or change the order of my mice (I know this because analogmame wouldn't work correctly all this time if the mouse order was changing.)

If you have a machine that changes the order, relocate all mice to the onboard usbs and connect non mouse devices to your hubs if needed.

Later,
dabone.


p.s. again, thanks Derrick. and I just hope to god that the input situation doesn't get worse when vista finally gets here.

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