Solved- 2 Act Labs lightguns setup - Also something I didn't know

[Brewser]

Hello,
I just got in the Dual Act Labs light guns and I am having problems. The manual is not that great. I am using Mame 105 command line with windows xp pro. Both seem to work as a mouse but in Mame the first gun works good but the second isn't. When you press the fire button on the second gun it does a reload. I have tried mapping the buttons but in mame they both say mouse button 0. I have mame.ini setup for mouse = 1, lightgun=1, & dual lightgun=1. They both seem to track good but I can't fire with the second gun.
I have the first gun plugged into my vga port. The box that is running serial with gun 1 is labeled 2 player gun. Is this correct or does it matter because the first gun works great but the second gun will do goofy things like always reload (as I mentioned), make the screen go blank for a second, &/or cause the screen to shrink and expand a little bit when I push the fire button.
Thanks for all your help on this.

[Brewser]

I noticed on the bottom of the 2nd player gun that it is labeled PC TV USB light gun while the player 1 gun says PC USB light gun. Do you guys that have the dual gun setup have the same labeling?
I can only get Egg Venture to work with both guns. Area 51, maximum force, & police trainer all will not track the gun. The screen will go blank and then pop back on several times. The fire buttons don't work and you hear the reload going off everytime you press the fire button.
Any thoughts on this?

[Brewser]

No need to reply to this post any more because the problem is now solved but I found out something interesting.
After about 6 hours of playing around and trying different configurations with the guns I have found the single player gun is defective.
What I found is that you can use the older Act Labs Ray Gun and the 2-player gun from Act Labs together. It works perfectly in Mame. You have to setup the Ray Gun as the first controller and then daisy chain the 2-player gun to the old ray gun. I didn't think this would work but it does. This might help out some people that are deciding on purchasing 2 new guns that have already purchased the older gun.
Playing 2 player gun games in Mame is a blast and really enhances the experience.

[Rocky]

I have a question about your setup.  I have an older Act-labs gun and was wondering if it would work with a newer one.

You mention a "player 1" and a "player 2" gun.  Are they different?  If I were to get one of the newer guns, is there a specific gun I would need, or are they all the same?

Thanks,
Rocky

[Brewser]

Rocky - They do have 2 guns available; one for single player and an add-on gun for 2 players. The 2plyr gun is different in that the control box says 2-player and the switch on the side has 3 positions for 1 player, 2 player, & calibration.
The gun I have is a couple years old and is the ray gun style. As mentioned above that this works with the 2nd player gun.

[Cananas]

Rocky - They do have 2 guns available; one for single player and an add-on gun for 2 players. The 2plyr gun is different in that the control box says 2-player and the switch on the side has 3 positions for 1 player, 2 player, & calibration.
The gun I have is a couple years old and is the ray gun style. As mentioned above that this works with the 2nd player gun.

The difference between the two guns (player one and the add-on for 2 players) is this switch.

First, it is important to know that ActLabs guns emulate a four buttons mouse.

The normal PC USB gun has a two position swith (Calibration and player1). When you wanted to calibrate, you swithed to calibration position. After that, you switched to 1 player position. In this position, the gun works like a two buttons mouse, where the first button of the mouse (button1) is the trigger and the second one (button2) is the reload button. There is no option to use the button3 and button4 of the mouse (built in hardware) driver.

The new PC USB gun (it works for one or two player, not only for two player), is like the old TV USB gun about the switch. It has three positions (calibration, player1 and player2). The first and second is the same like normal PC USB. The third position (player2) redirect the trigger press to the button3 and reload button press to button4 of the mouse driver.

So, before Mame104u5, if you want to play two players gun games, you must have one of the gun with the switch in player1 position and the other in player2 position, and remap player2 control to use the button3 and button4 for the second one. Mame do it for you when use -dual_lightgun option.

But after Mame104u5, with the new raw mouse driver included in Mame, you don't need to use the dual_lightgun option, because each gun is managed separately. You can use two actlabs gun in the player1 position.

I hope this help you.