Act Labs GS Gun System

[AlanS17]

Is anybody familiar with the older Act Labs PC guns? I know they were sold in a pair and share a base and they also have some sort of controller that came with them. I also know that they had after-market drivers made for mouse emulation so they should be theoretically possible for using MAME. Has anybody used any of these older guns? They were made for Win98.

[anthony691]

Is anybody familiar with the older Act Labs PC guns? I know they were sold in a pair and share a base and they also have some sort of controller that came with them. I also know that they had after-market drivers made for mouse emulation so they should be theoretically possible for using MAME. Has anybody used any of these older guns? They were made for Win98.

Wha? What aftermarket drivers... where? I am 99% suer it won't work in MAME... but if it does mouse emulation...

Anyway I get like 2 lightgun e-mails a day and havn't heard from anyone that they have had any success with these guns...

I don't know... maybe AL can send U_Rebelscum a set If anyone could make it work, it's him

[AlanS17]

Well all I can say is that it BETTER work... because I bought a set and the guy who sold them says he got some drivers to make mouse emulation work so that it will be MAME compatible...

It was an Ebay auction. Lemme get the page...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3027177187&category=3677&rd=1

There ya go.

[u_rebelscum]

Well all I can say is that it BETTER work... because I bought a set and the guy who sold them says he got some drivers to make mouse emulation work so that it will be MAME compatible...

It was an Ebay auction. Lemme get the page...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3027177187&category=3677&rd=1

There ya go.

FWIW, he said "better compatibility", not perfectly compatable.  

Now AFAIK, the old GS lightguns acted like analog joysticks.  Again AFAIK, they could move the crosshairs, but calibrating them so the crosshairs went to where the gun was pointing was "impossible".

IDNK about mouse drivers, but that couldn't hurt the mame playablity, and might help like the seller implied.  Let me know how it goes; I'd like know how well they work, too.  I might even be able to help answer some specific questions if/when you run into any, but that's a given.

Good luck.

[AlanS17]

Well the auction specifically says "mouse emulator" so that really ought to be what I need. Otherwise he better be prepared to take it back.   I'm just wondering if this might be a way to get 2 guns to work well together... Maybe I'm just dreaming...

[u_rebelscum]

Well the auction specifically says "mouse emulator" so that really ought to be what I need. Otherwise he better be prepared to take it back.   I'm just wondering if this might be a way to get 2 guns to work well together... Maybe I'm just dreaming...

Umm, if it uses a mouse emulator it will have the limits of a mouse in windows.  Depending on the driver and guns' hardware, the guns could act like one mouse, two PS/2-ish mice, or two USB-ish mice.  Those would respectively result in: not two guns, not two guns, two guns with Mame:Analog+ or 2 as player 2 & 3 in standard mame 0.68 up on 3 or 4 player lightgun games (both standard and analog+ "dual"ing only on win98 & winME systems).

The other thing is if you could set gun one as a mouse and gun two as a joystick, you might get one gun of mouse quality and one gun of joystick quality.  A max of 1.5 guns.

[AlanS17]

The thing that confuses me is this... I think the whole thing connects through the game port... what the hell is that all about???

*crosses fingers*

[kspiff]

I used to have an Act Labs GS.. seriously, if you haven't paid him then don't.  He isn't lying, but he is certainly stretching the truth (if he ever even personally tried MAME).  The guns will work with MAME with mouse emulation, but they are horribly inaccurate, lose track of your calibration constantly, and can't deal with the resolutions of most old-school arcade games.

There were and probably still are people *giving* their GSs away.. I threw mine out, personally.

And about the game port..?  It's slow/pokey-ness will wring the last bit of enjoyment out of the gun that you would have had playing Die Hard 2 (the only game I ever found that worked *well* with the GS).

[AlanS17]

I can't just back out on an auction. It's a binding contract. (Plus I already paid.)