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Ultimarc AimTrak Light Gun Module reviews

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romshark:
Dang, I knew I forgot something (I was planning to test Terminator 2.) I'll try it later.

I did get it in a gun shell. I put it in an old Dreamcast lightgun. A little bigger than an arcade gun, but it'll do for now.
I hooked it up to my cabinet, temporarily put up the LED board, and configured everything to work. I tried to hook buttons up to the other connections (P1 through P5), so I could coin-up and start without having to be right at my machine. Unfortunately, the pins don't seem to work. I do have them set in the configuration software (and sent to the Gun PCB), and evern tried shorting the inputs to ground with a small wire, but they don't do anything, even in the gamepad test. I'll check my settings, as I may have done something wrong. If it is a problem on the Ultimarc end, I'm sure a simple software update is all that's needed.

And now, the part that everyone is asking about: accuracy at different angles and heights. I tried this using Area 51. I calibrated the AimTrak, but I never adjusted from the Area 51 "in-game" (service menu) settings. Got through the first part with ease.
Next, the height. I sat down on the floor (same place as I was standing). For reference, I'm roughly 5'7". Sitting on the floor, shooting up at an angle, and not recalibrating, I still did pretty good. So I don't think height is going to be much of a problem.
I tried off to the right of the screen at almost a 45 degree angle. Now I has having difficulty hitting things. In reality, nobody would seriously play from that angle, but if the angle did affect anything, a quick recalibration might be in order. I'll try to do more testing in this area.
Finally, distance from screen. I tried standing as far back from the screen as I could (a wall prevented me from going further. I did still have some cord left). So distance went from 5 ft from the screen to 9 ft. (still no recalibration, and at the same angle as when I started.) Things got hard to hit again. I might go back to see if the cursor lines up at this distance, since by this time in my test, I was in the middle of level 2, so it naturally was more difficult. Plus, I was trying to shoot things on a 21 inch screen from 9 feet away.

So, at least to me, everything seems to work as expected, given the used technology. Take into account I'm a casual gamer. Someone with actual weapons training may find small variences I didn't even notice. But for casual gamers, there's enough leeway that you won't have to put an X in tape on the carpet where the player must exactly stand, and height doesn't seem to be a major factor at all.
Perhaps a Youtube video could be made, when I have the time.

KonkeyKong:
Appreciate all the feedback!!! :applaud: :applaud: :applaud:

RandyT:

--- Quote from: romshark on September 25, 2009, 09:12:58 pm ---Finally, distance from screen. I tried standing as far back from the screen as I could (a wall prevented me from going further. I did still have some cord left). So distance went from 5 ft from the screen to 9 ft. (still no recalibration, and at the same angle as when I started.) Things got hard to hit again. I might go back to see if the cursor lines up at this distance, since by this time in my test, I was in the middle of level 2, so it naturally was more difficult. Plus, I was trying to shoot things on a 21 inch screen from 9 feet away.

--- End quote ---

Someone brought up the need to re-calibrate when distance changes.  A light went on when I read it and it makes sense.  When the camera is angled upward at the LED's, and the two are very close together, a system like this will have no way of knowing whether the gun is raised, or angled upward, or pulled away from the screen.  All three will have a similar effect on the camera.  The software may be able to measure the length of the LED pattern to see if it gets smaller, but at those small variations in distance, it would take a very high resolution sensor to be able to do this well (or at all.)  At larger distances, this vertical shift will become less prominent.

Considering the above, going from 5ft to 9ft is not going to be the same as going from the stated minimum of 2ft to, say, 3 or 4 ft (or possibly even 2.5ft).  The real question in my mind is how it fares at "arcade" proximities.  If the deviation is very small in a 12 to 18 inch cube in space where the gun is held, then it might not be a big issue.  Can you do the same test starting closer to the screen and report the deviation at specific distances?

romshark:
Alright, tried Terminator 2. After a lot of trial and error, got MAME PLUS to recognize the trigger (even though I have it set as a mouse, and Windows let's me click with it as a mouse, MAME [at least the one I'm using] sees it as a gun. And since T2 is technically not a true lightgun game, I couldn't set the trigger for the game. I had to trick it by going into Area 51, and setting the global Player 1 button 1 controls for the trigger, and the button 1 on my control panel. That finally worked. I'm sure there's an easier way...)
Finally got it calibrated in-game, and it works pretty good. Of course, the 5 second trigger problem was still in effect, but that's easy to disable in software. Hopefully, we can change what button enables the calibrate mode in future versions.

Looks like the major problem is getting MAME properly set up.  It even boggles my mind at times.  Perhaps someone can write a nice tutorial?

Randy, I'll try that distance test and post what I come up with.

romshark:
Well, I set up the measuring tape and ran the tests. This was using Area 51, but in attract mode only (tested using MAME's built-in crosshairs. BTW, I did turn off the crosshairs during my earlier Area 51 test).  All tests done lined up with the left side (player 1).
At 2.5 ft., everything worked, except the very bottom of the screen. This can be attributed to me not pointing the LEDs down at the gun (still default and taped onto my bezel, which results in them pointing ever so slightly upward.)
Now it gets wierd. At other distances (about 3 ft or more from the initial calibration point) the aiming at the right side varied in results. Half the time, the crosshair would be off an inch on the screen. Other times, it lined up darn near close. Again, more testing required.
Well, I gotta go. I have a long day ahead tomorrow. I can try to answer questions / test tomorrow night, and Sunday.

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