Sega line of fire: Connect guns to pc for mame? How?

[Son of Zombie]

Hi,

I have a Sega line of fire machine (1989) in which the picture tube is failing. If I knew how to connect the guns to a pc it would be a very simple mame conversion as I could run any old tv of the composite video output of my pc. Just in case you need to know it is the larger sitdown model.

Any help appreciated!

[shmokes]

I haven't followed light gun progress over the last couple years, but I don't think there is currently a way to interface arcade light guns to a PC.  You have to use aftermarket guns like the ones made by Act-Labs.  There's a promising new light gun solution in development now.  Check out the Sonic Light gun thread right here on the main page.

[u_rebelscum]

What shmokes said, but there are two projects, the sonic one and a crt one.

FYI, the arcade gun had most of the location computing hardware in the cabinet, and the gun itself sends a very "raw signal" that doesn't include screen location (without more info and fairly very time critical computing).  Even if mame could emulate the location hardware (which it doesn't), the location would not be accurate enough due to the PC & OS "in the way" messing up the timing.  For rough display on the timing precision needed, if frame @ 60 hz, and 640x480 res, that's 1 sec / 60 fps / 480 lines per frame / 640 pixels per line = 1/18432000 of a sec for pixel precision, or 0.000000054253472 of a second.

[Son of Zombie]

Hi,

Thanks, all very helpful as I am new to light guns in mame.

I realised today though that they are not actual light guns on my machine. I'm pretty sure that the mounting they are on acts like an analogue joystick with an axis for u/d and one for l/r. So I'm pretty sure that in this case it could be connected and work for some games in mame such as T2 which uses an AD stick.

Please correct me if I'm wrong! My line of fire machine isn't stuffed yet, so I wouldn't want to wreck a machine only to find out that the "guns" can't be connected...

Cheers!

[CheffoJeffo]

Your positional guns can be hooked up via something like an APac and would appear as a joystick. I've never tried it, but here are a few links from some years back:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=29817.0

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=46676.0

[Son of Zombie]

Wow!

Thanks, exactly what I was looking for. It turns out the Apac is obsolete but has been replaced by a product called U-HID which will do exactly what I want when The time comes to modify my arcade machine.

Cheers.

[u_rebelscum]

Wow!

Thanks, exactly what I was looking for. It turns out the Apac is obsolete but has been replaced by a product called U-HID which will do exactly what I want when The time comes to modify my arcade machine.

Cheers.

Yup, U-HID is great, and the AKI board just came out with a new model.

FWIW, the guns should work in lightgun lightgun games, too, like area51.  Make sure you calibrate in windows first, then the mame game.  But the feel might be "funny" or "different" enough to make you not use it (total personal opinion either way).  Some settings to adjust in mame to make the positional gun work well: joystick_deadzone (to ~0) and joystick_saturation (to ~1.0).

Good luck!

[Son of Zombie]

Awesome,

Thanks for your help!

I'll stick with line of fire until the video on it is completely screwed, then I'll begin the conversion.

Thanks again,

Son of Zombie.