Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Lightguns => Topic started by: leapinlew on March 29, 2025, 12:20:41 pm
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Tried searching here and the internet and couldn't find an answer to my question. I have a Standup Golden Tee cabinet that's been converted to mame. The monitor is tilted back, and I'm trying to learn if the angle of the monitor would cause me any problems with the Sinden light guns. The image I attached is from the installation of the Unico 26" monitor so you can see the angle.
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Sacrifice your wallet and let us know, bro.
:cheers:
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Sacrifice your wallet and let us know, bro.
:cheers:
lol! The 26" monitor put a hurting on it already!
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My screens are tilted back a little (about half as much as yours) and I've never had any issues with my Sinden guns.
Since Sinden is a 'webcam' - i'm sure there is a tipover point where the image distortion will start effecting accuracy.
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My screens are tilted back a little (about half as much as yours) and I've never had any issues with my Sinden guns.
Since Sinden is a 'webcam' - i'm sure there is a tipover point where the image distortion will start effecting accuracy.
Thanks. What's the Sinden experience like? I've used Guncons back on the PS2. I've also used the Ultimarc guns. I've been bothered by having to calibrate frequently (like when the gun launches)
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My screens are tilted back a little (about half as much as yours) and I've never had any issues with my Sinden guns.
Since Sinden is a 'webcam' - i'm sure there is a tipover point where the image distortion will start effecting accuracy.
Thanks. What's the Sinden experience like? I've used Guncons back on the PS2. I've also used the Ultimarc guns. I've been bothered by having to calibrate frequently (like when the gun launches)
To be completely honest. They work fine. But the bezel drove me nuts, and the rapid fire recoil is weak. The USB power just can't keep the huge capacitor charged, so the recoil gets weaker and weaker after a few rapid fire shots. Single shot is really strong though.
So I picked up some RetroShooters Reaper RS3 and MX24. Much happier with the overall platform.
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If aliexpress will ever ship my stuff I'll be trying a few different gun solutions. The wiimote route might be the most cost effective for a pure lightgun. It's essentially gun4ir but much cheaper.
For me you've got to have three guns to play everything properly. A "light gun" for single shot games like virtua cop, a positional gun for mounted cabinet machine gun games like t2, and a third option for whatever "other" you might run across like shotguns in big buck hunter or wiimote-like ir guns in the more modern machine gun games. None of the solutions out there are perfect, but I'm hoping to develop software as I go, so stay tuned.
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There are a few modern games that come in both positional and hand-held light gun versions. Aliens Extermination and Armageddon are both this way. 43" screen versions (standard) have position guns, 55" screen versions (deluxe) have hand held guns. I'm not sure how much more 'nostalgia' you'd get out of having a fixed bug vs. a hand held submachine (MX24) gun. So the lines get blurry. If you've got a dedicated T2 or Operation Wolf cabinet, sure - go mounted guns. But if you're on a multi-cade setup, I don't see the benefit. I guess you could build a dedicated fixed gun cabinet... lol (MOAR CABINETS!)
There is a pump-action shotgun made with Sinden internals. Kind of neat. Its really expensive though for what it is. https://thunderstickstudio.com/products/grs-sinden-target-pro-arcade-lightgun
The only 'gun' game that I see being an issue is the silent scope games. Hard to fake / emulate that setup.
I tried using a real wii-mote as a light-gun a few times - and the accuracy / stability was horrible.
A side note: the RetroShooter MX24 sub-machine guns' recoil is LOUD. There is a mod to add a buffer on the solenoid to quiet it down. I'll be doing that to mine. You have to turn the game sounds up crazy loud so you can hear them over the constant full-auto solenoid recoil noises. (Maybe this forces more 'arcade experience' ? Every time I go into a modern arcade, it seems like every game has its volume cranked up to the max)
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I don't have one and I don't really know, but if it didn't consider the viewing angle then it wouldn't work too well for children or with multiplayer games where players are standing to the side of the screen. These are very similar scenarios where the screen is skewed in relation to the lightgun. I have not heard about anyone complain about these. Their original Kickstart campaign specifically addressed viewing angles as part of the benefits as well.
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Where’s that British guy that couldn’t shut up about these things when we actually need him?
Splash the cash, Waterman.
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Splash the cash, Waterman.
Done! Bottom line: it works great after a good deal of configuration. Not recommended for a n00b.
It's a complex setup in a few different areas:
- Windows setup was probably the easiest of the setup options. Getting it working in windows and turning on at bootup
- MAME setup is tricky. For my setup, this meant I had to create .lay files to put the white border around every game. I also had to create individual game .ini files and controller config. I also did some scripting to work with different versions of MAME(i
- SINDEN Lightgun setup is weird in itself. A ton of configuration options. There is a lot of material on the web, but much of it is geared towards different configurations that what I had. They have a discord channel and email, and the email support was used to bail me out once when I hit the wall
It took many many hours, over a couple weeks, to get this setup. It was painful. If you are hoping for a plug and play, and you have a setup like mine, I'd say move on. The border doesn't bother me, as you'll see in the video I made:
https://youtu.be/mq-h2TAJdgE?si=XTDVbasuTKX6dw7l