Analog Stick guns?

[TeutonicDarkness]

  Hello,


 I have Been Really getting into the Light gun idea.
Been Reading up.. Already own LCD Guns and Act Labs.

 They both have their advantages but neither seems
 quite right for a Mame Cabinet.
They seem more like the guns to use while kicked back
on the couch!


 What I'm thinking Is this:
Has Anyone Designed a Mame guns that simply sits on
top of a Joystick like Terminator 2 did?


If Hasn't already been  designed .... Why Not?


While I have not put together a Mame Cabinet yet..
( guns I have work fine for now)
To me at least these type of stationary guns would
be Ideal for a Mame Cabinet.


So what do you think?
 
 
 

[padstack]

You might want to grab that flame-retardant suit...  And check the search while you're at it...

Time for the forum wrath to rain down!

[Games001]

No Forum wrath... just Fozzy's 

[TelcoLou]

Well, to be practical, they would get in the way of the other controls (assuming this was for a MAME cab, not a dedicated-stationary-shooter cab)

</flameless reply>

[Fozzy The Bear]

No Forum wrath... just Fozzy's 

 noob ..... You pissed more people than me off with your repeated posting of multiple threads with the same damned question in them.

Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Fozzy The Bear]

What I'm thinking Is this:
Has Anyone Designed a Mame guns that simply sits on
top of a Joystick like Terminator 2 did?

It'd be an easy one to do if you really wanted to.... However, TelcoLou hit the nail on the head. Unless you're building a dedicated static shooter cab or fitting swappable panels, then they'd get in the way of everything else.

The thing is that that they don't just sit on top of a Joystick.... they do have an up/down (back to forward) movement like a joystick, but the other axis is not side to side like a joystick, but a rotary twist for the left to right of the gun.

In actual fact Act Labs released a gun that was just a thing, siting on top of a joystick.... it was a miserable failure and very very difficult to play anything with. I think it was called something like "The Mousegun" or something similar... anyway, to cut a long story short, it was crap!

The other problem with pot based guns like the T2 ones, is that they only work well with pot based shooter games. On top of that, there are still problems with the interpretation and use of POT based inputs in Mame.  Jurassic Park is a case in point, where guns track very badly even after calibration.

If you really want some of those, then pick up a set of T2 Guns off e-bay (they sell for next to nothing most of the time) and you can very easily interface them to a PC and Mame.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[TeutonicDarkness]

You might want to grab that flame-retardant suit...  And check the search while you're at it...

Time for the forum wrath to rain down!

 What is that suppose to mean...?

Yes I have Searched very extensively at least
the last 3 years.

Which is the exact reason I made this post.

[TeutonicDarkness]

It'd be an easy one to do if you really wanted to.... However, TelcoLou hit the nail on the head. Unless you're building a dedicated static shooter cab or fitting swappable panels, then they'd get in the way of everything else.

 You are probably right it just seems there would be a way if it
was used on a wide enough control panel and placed cleverly enough.
Though I admit I have no experience designing control panels..

The thing is that that they don't just sit on top of a Joystick.... they do have an up/down (back to forward) movement like a joystick, but the other axis is not side to side like a joystick, but a rotary twist for the left to right of the gun.

 Yes I am aware of that I should have been more technical in my
first post.

But Maybe a mechanism of some kind that could rotate
as a gun would need to. Wither  it be a sit on top solution
or independent it could send key signals to Mame as a regular
Mame joystick would.

In actual fact Act Labs released a gun that was just a thing, siting on top of a joystick.... it was a miserable failure and very very difficult to play anything with. I think it was called something like "The Mousegun" or something similar... anyway, to cut a long story short, it was crap!

 Yeah everything I ever heard about the mouse guns was Bad..
My point is I can control all those game like Terminator, Area 51,
etc.. right now with just a joystick and it works.
Just if it had a more of a way to aim like simply holding a
gun in your hand.

The other problem with pot based guns like the T2 ones, is that they only work well with pot based shooter games. On top of that, there are still problems with the interpretation and use of POT based inputs in Mame.  Jurassic Park is a case in point, where guns track very badly even after calibration.

 Well I know what your saying which is my I was thinking/wondering
of a Mame-Joystick route.

If you really want some of those, then pick up a set of T2 Guns off e-bay (they sell for next to nothing most of the time) and you can very easily interface them to a PC and Mame.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

 That is a interesting thought though probably not
a permanent solution. I would not begin to know how to interface
them; Would seem like a waste just for a handful of games as
much as I loved Terminator.

 Maybe it just not a do-able solution don't know
just seems it would defiantly be more compatible.

At any rate...

thanks for your input!




Teutonic Darkness

[u_rebelscum]

IIRC, someone here had a removable pair of joystick guns on his cab, but I can't fine it ATM.

The other problem with pot based guns like the T2 ones, is that they only work well with pot based shooter games.

They should work as well as lightguns on lightgun games.  At least, the u360 in analog mode works well on the lightgun games I've played.  Why do you say they'll only work well with POT games?

On top of that, there are still problems with the interpretation and use of POT based inputs in Mame.  Jurassic Park is a case in point, where guns track very badly even after calibration.

I agree calibration will be the problem.  Depending on the POTs used and the windows driver and driver settings, and mame settings, and the original game coding the mame's emulation code, a joystick gun might track well in the center but not the edges or vice versa, or good in X axis but not Y or vice versa.  Then again it might be on site on the whole screen.

I haven't tried jurassic park, though.

[Fozzy The Bear]

They should work as well as lightguns on lightgun games.  At least, the u360 in analog mode works well on the lightgun games I've played.  Why do you say they'll only work well with POT games?

They should! being the pertinent phrase there..... My experience is that a set of T2 guns tracked very badly in the tests I did with them on nearly everything except the pot based shooters.

I haven't tried jurassic park, though.

Do try it, it's at least good for a laugh..... The problems may have been fixed in the more recent versions of Mame, haven't tried it in the last year. But the last time I looked at it the guns would track OK for half of the screen, then refuse to track at all past that point.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Bluedeath]

T2 is playable either with with LCD tTOP GUN or an analog stick (cheap usb one will do) but the gameplay will sucks, i tried to scratch build positional guns with poor results. To achieve good result the position of the gun base and the screen must never change if you try to use positional guns on a PC remember that arcade joystick pots are usually 5k and PC pots are 100k (custom 10~30° of travel) or 500k used only from 0 to 100k, this trick is used in the cheap sticks and by saitek, but saitek sticks do have a dedicated circuitry that optimizes the signal and give same results of custom pots.

Actually i'm looking for a set of T2 guns (op thunderbolt, rev x etc are all the same any of them wil do) to hack if the price is near nothing (and they are already in europe)  please let me know.

[u_rebelscum]

...To achieve good result the position of the gun base and the screen must never change...

That's a given.

...remember that arcade joystick pots are usually 5k and PC pots are 100k (custom 10~30° of travel) or 500k used only from 0 to 100k...

You do need to worry about this if you're hacking gamepads or connecting through the gameport.

But just get any modern interface that can do 5k to 100k POTs.  A-pac2 does any POT that outputs 0 - 5v automatically; many flightsim interfaces do this too (I've tested the plasma).  Even the old A-pac1 and AKI can do 5k and 100k POTs.

[TeutonicDarkness]

To achieve good result the position of the gun base and the screen must never change

 Exactly ... I just don't see how this I possible using
Act Lab guns, or EMS top guns.

There has to be a solution to having a Mame Cabinet
and fixed guns?

Or is there? 


***Teutonic Darkness ***

[Bluedeath]

with the lcd (taking for granted that you calibrated the gun and the game in a mamanner that position coordinates of the game and aof the gun are the same) you can ingnore this statement because for the top gun it matters where is pointed not the postition, the game play will not be the same that you may have with a positonal gun.

[Minwah]

I think screen size, control panel angle & distance from monitor etc are other factors which mean a commercial positional gun will probably never happen.