LCD/EMS TopGun - 2 Player In MAME

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

   Yes, another EMS Topgun thread. I was hoping to make this one specific to 2-player problems.

   I'm wondering if anyone knows a good technique of getting TWO EMS TopGun lightguns working with MAME.

   I have P1's gun calibrated and it works fine with either the SMOG's GunCon2 drivers, or with the original EMS drivers. The gun controls the mouse pointer in Windows.

   Player 2's gun works perfectly to control the mouse in Windows as well. It is detected by MAME (Windows command-line version) and MAMEUI32 (both the 32.124a) when I run in -verbose mode.

   However, the movement of player 2's gun is read as movement on player ONE's gun.

   Oddly, the EMS guns are NOT appearing in the Guncon2 Control Panel - I'm not sure if this is a problem though, since the mouse cursor tracking is working fine.

   I have tried with Mouse input enabled and disabled.
   I have tried with Mouse input on and Multimouse enabled.
   I have tried with Dual_Lightguns turned on. (apparently, this property is no longer used).

   I have heard people say that I may need to revert to an earlier build of MAME (around the .116 build, I believe) to get lightgun support working correctly. Is this what other people have seen too? I haven't tried that option yet.

   So - does something sound wrong at any point here? Do people have any hints/suggestions?

   Oh, I've also noticed that in MAMEUI, the target on the screen for the position of the gun updates as you wave the gun around. For MAME command-line, it only appears to re-position the target when you PULL THE TRIGGER ON THE GUN. Is this a known MAME bug, or am I missing another setting?

[lanman31337]

Have your guns set as mouse, and make sure multi mouse is enabled.  When you go into global settings with the p1 lightgun in mame, highlight the x axis with enter, then hit escape.  it should automatically pick up your light gun.  then do the same for y, and then the same for player 2.  Set the buttons up as well for both players.

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

Tried that several times - no luck. The trouble is that MAME is seeing ALL mouse input- from both Lightguns and from the plugged-in mouse itself - as coming from Mouse 1. This is true for both buttons AND axis information/

Quick question - I've been trolling websites about this particular problem, and I noticed that RawInput (the technique originally employed by MAMEAnalogue+ to enable multiple-mouse and later added to the core MAME project) only works correctly on Windows XP+

My cabinet is Windows 2000.

So - is the end result that quite simply that Multi-Mouse doesn't actually work properly on Win 2000 machines?

[ark_ader]

XP and Windows 2000 are basically the same platform, except that 2000 doesn't have the new drivers installed to accommodate new hardware.  Also Xp is more suited to game hardware.

I think you are doing something wrong, as I have had both topguns working on my arcade rig using a stripped down version of 2000 Professional.

Go back to the start and work the problem as lanman described and the guns will work.

I had a lot of grief getting the guns to work together too.  Sorry no quick and easy shortcuts, just be methodical.

It will work. 

[Games001]

Have your guns set as mouse, and make sure multi mouse is enabled.  When you go into global settings with the p1 lightgun in mame, highlight the x axis with enter, then hit escape.  it should automatically pick up your light gun.  then do the same for y, and then the same for player 2.  Set the buttons up as well for both players.

I tried these same settings in MAME v123 today Lanman.  Does not work under ANY variation of those settings.

The Mouse works in Desktop, in FE (GameEX), but not in MAME.  MAME config also won't detect the 'mouse' gun.

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

I'll detail what I've done...

   * Ensured that the EMS drivers are uninstalled both by actually running the uninstaller and also by removing the .INF files from the c:\Winnt\System32 directory.

   * Tested both guns - they do not influence the mouse
 
   * Installed SM0G's GunCon2 drivers (NOTE: The Flasher program crashes on my PC due to a missing function in User32.dll - I'm assuming this is an XP, Win9x or Service Pack compatibility problem)

   * Connected my guns

   * Both guns register as Guncon2 controllers, and each provides a HID Interface Device for a mouse pointer.

   * Moving both guns now controls the mouse cursor

   * I open the GunCon2Mouse control panel - there are no entries in the list for either of my guns, which I find a little odd. Close the control panel again.

   * I turn mouse input ON and multimouse ON in MAME, then run the Police Trainer ROM.

   * I press 'Tab' to bring up the options, go to Player 2 Controls, and attempt to set "button 1" for player 2 by pressing the trigger on one of my guns. It registers a click from MOUSE 1.

   * I try remapping the control using the trigger of the OTHER gun. It registers the click as MOUSE 1.

   * I try using the physical mouse to remap the control - it registers as MOUSE 1.   

The same problem occurs with the different axes of motion. It always sees it as coming from mouse ONE, not mouse TWO or THREE, which I would have expected.

Note that when I run MAME with the -verbose flag, both guns appear as "Shared Axis Lightgun" #1 and #2.

[lanman31337]

Try reinstalling the smog drivers, then check in the guncon2pc control panel.  they should show up as id1 and id2 in there.  I'm probably not going to be much help because I run either mame32ui or mame32uifx.

I've heard of problems of the ems drivers causing problems, even after being installed.  Check the registry and see if anything's left.

Maybe http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=48982.1640 will help too?   

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

Oh, I'm happy to switch to MameUI or MameUIFX if it gets the darn games working properly, but I also have tried in those versions of MAME without much success.

I think high up on my list of "problems" may be the issue of the guns not appearing in the Guncon2PC control panel.

I've already re-installed the drivers a couple of times.

One of the reasons I started a seperate thread was the sheer amount of content in that LCD Topgun thread. I thought it may be better to get a thread running that is specific to the two-player issue. It's difficult to read up on a specific issue on the topgun thread due to the amount of other conversations and queries coming up on it.