So is guncon2 support just dead or what?

[chrisnack]

I can't find anything that isn't 3 years old...
I can't find the wingun drivers anywhere.

I played with a LCD top gun and don't like the bars, or how far away you have ot be for it work, pain to configure in MAME.

Picked up a couple Namco guns for cheap, but can't quite configure then or find any help anywhere.

Nor can i find out exactly what the "rolling x" issue is.

Any help/info would be greatly appreciated!

-Chris

[daywane]

I am sitting in the muck with you.
I can not find crap eather
bunch of HOOPLA ... now nothing

[Bleagh]

I have the wingun drivers.  PM me and I'll send them to you.

I was recently messing around with my lcd topgun again after a couple years.  I played some house of the dead: overkill on Wii and was disgusted with it so I had to play hotd 1 and 2.  I still had the drivers and crap saved, so give me a pm and I'll send em over.

EDIT:

I uploaded them to my ftp here

http://www.bleagh.com/guncon2/

Try not to eat up all my bandwidth.

[chrisnack]

Awesome, thank you very much.

Eat up your bandwith, they are tiny files

Maybe i'll have to throw them up on my blog so people can find them as well.  The Guncon2 can be found at http://xoomer.virgilio.it/guncon2/ but it's obvious that site hasn't been touched in years. 

Just curious why people just dropped off the map with these things.  I was looking at the Act Labs, but $100/gun is hard to swallow.  And my buddy let me borrow his LCD topgun II, but i'm just not a huge fan of it thus far, i REALLY don't like the light bars and that distance you need to stand away.

I'll give the wingun drivers a shot and see if that works for me. 

Thanks again.

[chrisnack]

Some info from the Wingun thread, someone found the archived site. Awesome!

Quote from: MacGyver on Today at 08:08:41 AM
I was thinking of getting some of these for an upcoming project, I got to the end, and saw that it was gone, so I checked the Wayback archive and grabbed the driver, I have attached it below.  I hope this helps.  A question, are these the best guns for MAME, or are the ACT labs the best?  I like the possibility of switching from a TV based display to a real arcade monitor, and not needing to replace both guns.

Here is the last page archived:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080213100641/http://www.guncon2driver.com/

I always try the archive first, sometimes .exe and .zips get archived too, that was the case here. I just zipped the .exe, but if you are weary of .exes like I am, you can open it with 7-zip. Smiley

Awesome, thank you for that.

From what i have found out thus far, I have tested both Smog's Guncon2 driver and the Wingun Driver.

With the official Namco guns:

Smog's Guncon2 driver:
Doesn't track, has rolling x issue
Buttons work in windows, doesn't track well at all (rolling-x issue)
Buttons work in Mame .129


Wingun:
Tracks perfect
Works great in windows, buttons work and register
Buttons don't work in Mame .129

From what i've read the buttons will work in Mame .104, but you can't use 2 lightguns, since it won't track them seperately, so gun2 will shoot where gun1 is sometimes and gun1 where gun2 is.

I ordered some generic Yobo Guncon2 for $22 shipped that i'm hoping to test out this week.

I was considering the ACt Labs, but at $100/pop that just sucks.

I've used the LCD topgun that everyone raves about, but i personally don't like it.  YOu have to stand 2-3 times the distance between the infared bars, so on my 27" tv in my arcade, i had to stand about 4-6 ft back before the guns would work, but the light bars are just ugly, there is no way around that.

I like the TV based lightguns because no lightbar and they work great.  Just a matter of getting the right driver and mame version.

[chrisnack]

I finally got both my official namco guncon2 guns working tonight.  Buttons and everything, took me alot of trial and error. I'm using the Wingun driver.

Gun 1
Tigger=mouse1
clip button=mouse2
Gun 2
Trigger=mouse3
clip button=mouse4

In mame 0.129
#
# CORE INPUT OPTIONS
#
coin_lockout              0
ctrlr                     
mouse                     1
joystick                  0
lightgun                  1
multikeyboard             0
multimouse                0
steadykey                 0
offscreen_reload          0
joystick_map              auto
joystick_deadzone         0.3
joystick_saturation       0.85

#
# CORE INPUT AUTOMATIC ENABLE OPTIONS
#
paddle_device             keyboard
adstick_device            lightgun
pedal_device              keyboard
dial_device               keyboard
trackball_device          mouse
lightgun_device           lightgun
positional_device         keyboard
mouse_device              mouse

dual_lightgun 1

works in area 51 and also works in terminator 2 (the adstick_device setting is for term2 or any other game that used positional guns)

Will be checking other games tonight.

[Kayden]

My problem with getting the guncon2s working is I don't know how to connect them.  =(

I found a circuit at http://xoomer.virgilio.it/guncon2/VideoCon1.htm but I think it's fairly ambiguous and one of the pictures doesn't even work.  =\

How do you hook up 2 guncon2s to an arcade monitor without a jpac?

[swamprat96]

I won't go into mame setup as I haven't got that right yet. But I have got them working in windows.

Whilst I use a Japc this should still work without one - I think! The main thing the Jpac does is protect the monitor from the intial 31khz startup that PC's feed the monitor on boot but you can work around it

Use soft15Khz (software). Get a 2 port graphics card - preferably one listed here http://community.arcadeinfo.de/showthread.php?t=7925.

Configure one port for the monitor and one for the guns- you'll need an adaptor or two. Make the port for the guns the primary adaptor so that windows boots on it then switches to the secondary port- your monitor - on windows start.  Follow the directions for soft15Khz and set resolutions for both ports the same.

This should work and wil take some mucking around. Of course the easier route is Jpac and arcadevga. I use a combo- a Jpac and an ATI Radeon running soft15khz with a VGA and a DVI-D port. The VGA port is attached to the monitor and the DVI to the guns through a couple of adaptors

[Kayden]

How are you connecting the guns to the port?  Wouldn't a VGA splitter accomplish the same thing?

[swamprat96]

I try to avoid splitting so as not to lose video quality. I used a DVI to VGA adaptor to a VGA to composite adaptor and the guns plug into that. That way one port has the monitor and the other the guns

[Kayden]

Splitting is the only option when you only have one output.  ...I suppose I could just stick the wires to the guns strait into the hole and then put the monitor cable on...  That'd probably be iffy though.

You didn't mention how you actually connect your guns to the video out though.

[Luigi]

Hi folks.

I'm trying to get a Namco Guncon2 running....but not much success

I tried the guncon2-driver at first: buttons work but I cannot track. Drivers are installed, incl. the HID-mouse-driver.

Then I uninstalled guncon2 and installed Wingun.

It doesn't detect my gun at all. I can click "Detect" a thousand times an nothing happens.

Everytime I re-connect the gun the HID-Mouse is installed again and the pointer moves like crazy over the screen when pointing at it with the gun.

What am I doing wrong?? 

[swamprat96]

Your computer is still seeing the guncon2 drivers. I had this problem. Use system restore and go back to before you installed the guncon2 drivers. Now install wingun and it will work fine

[Luigi]

Your computer is still seeing the guncon2 drivers. I had this problem. Use system restore and go back to before you installed the guncon2 drivers. Now install wingun and it will work fine

Thanks for the hint. I returned to the point before driver installation but Windows still found the guncon2-drivers. I crawled the registry and deleted every entry with guncon2.....but there was one entry that windows refused to delete: in the HID-devices! So it's still there.

At least wingun now finds my gun and wants to calibrate. Buttons work and the screen flashes when I pull the trigger....but the pointer keeps jumping around

I will re-install windows......was something I wanted to do either

[swamprat96]

The pointer does jump around in windows- don't worry too much. Just calibrate the guns as accurately as you can and then set up mame. RE the driver issue- what I did in the end was make a restore point for each instance of driver install. As I was testing guncon2 and wingun this made it easy to switch.

The biggest issue with lightguns is a nice bright screen- and an undiluted video feed to them. Smoked glass is a no-no and a fully vertical screen helps. I don't know your setup but the best seems to be a seperate video feed for the guns rather than a splitter. A dual output video card can work ok but a TV with video out is better.