WOW New LightGUN Info !!! Woot!!! :)

[Farmboy90]

Do these guys work with console emulators?  Can you play duck hunt with this?? 

I played the player's choice version last night, but could not get the trigger to register.  Not sure what happened there since the gun worked fine in Police Trainer.

I will try FCE Ultra tonight though.

[HOTR6]

WOW! Mine are out for delivery this morning! I should have mine by 11!WooHoo more stuff to play with!
So did we figure out if there are holsters for these?

[mark6437]

I have been playing with trying to get mame (or a variant) to track both guns at the same time. No success so far.

I've been trying with Analog+ 83.2 (last version with which the analog changes worked I believe. I've had no luck getting it to work at all. Bizarely the triggers on either gun fail to register as anything (and no motion data at all seems to be passed). Not sure is this is my setup or due to something else.

I was thinking that this is essentially like getting dual trackballs to work (which is something else I have been looking at doing anyway) I have a feeling this maybe to do with the fact the guns are NOT seen by the system as mice at all (I'm using the Guncon2 HID compliant driver). It's the Wingun app that is parsing the gun data, and throwing the data at the system mouse. This is why 2 guns work in normal mame for non tracking games (you are both actually sharing the same mouse I believe) but not for tracking.

If thats right, then analog+mame is no help, I think, as there are not 2 mice to see. According to what ErikRuud posted, the EMS Gun2Mouse app does not support 2 guns anyway.

 Now Smog's Guncon driver may be different - There is code in AdvanceMame that specifically looks for either Actlabs or Smogs lightguns. However, I have totally failed to install Smogs driver on my system - I can't calibrate it at all, which ends up locking my mouse off screen even when the gun is nowhere near the screen. So I can't control my desktop except the keyboard. I am sure this is something I am doing, as someone posted they had successfully used Smogs driver with this gun.

Silver:
I got 2 trackballs working in Marble Madness and Atari Football using version 83.2 Of Mame Analog+ (the last version on his site that provides this functionality.) Here are the exact settings I am using:

In the mameanalogxp.ini

### Input device options ###
mouse                   1
joystick                0
lightgun                0
dual_lightgun           0
offscreen_reload        0
steadykey               0
keyboard_leds           0
led_mode                ps/2
a2d_deadzone            0.300000
# ctrlr                 <NULL> (not set)

### Analog+ options ###
multiplemice            1
switchablemice          0
switchmiceaxes          1
splitmouseaxes          0
resetmouseaxes          0
lightgun2a              0
lightgun2b              0
williams49way           0

It took a LONG TIME to figure out that switchmiceaxes was the important switch to set to 1. I did ALOT of searching on the diffrent boards to get this to work.

Now as far as using this program to get two light guns to work, good luck. I tried for a week to get two act labs tv guns to work using it and at best I got spotty results. No better than regular MAME really so I gave up and just went back to regular MAME as far as the guns are concerned. But with Marble Madness and Atari Fottball Analog+ works awesome. I can play two player MM and AF using two diffrent trackballs, each controls their marble or football player independently of the other one. Its very nice.

My experience with two light guns in MAME is nothig short of horrible. Except for HOTD series using the troubleshooter. THat works great!
I went ahead and ordered two of these guns but in retro spect I wish I had only ordered one.

Mark
Hou TX

[brian23]

Awesome. I just installed USB ports on the front of my cab this morning for player one and two. External hub w/ PS would come handy.

Farmboy,
               I don't have the guns but from reading your  posts it sounds like you have them plugged into a USB hub. Not all USB hubs provide enough power for devices like this. Try to plug them into USB ports on your machine if possible.

Maybe we could try using a hub that has external power supply?

Just bought one this morning bro.  I will let you know if that changes anything. 

[Farmboy90]

WOW! Mine are out for delivery this morning! I should have mine by 11!WooHoo more stuff to play with!
So did we figure out if there are holsters for these?

I was looking at real holsters (for a baretta).  These look like they would fit actually.  LOL  They are very similar in shape and size.

Way to expensive for my taste though.  So I may just attach brackets and just hang the guns off of them.

I want to help get the bugs ironed out first though.   

[Silver]

Silver:
I got 2 trackballs working in Marble Madness and Atari Football using version 83.2 Of Mame Analog+ (the last version on his site that provides this functionality.) Here are the exact settings I am using:
---
switchmiceaxes          1
---
It took a LONG TIME to figure out that switchmiceaxes was the important switch to set to 1. I did ALOT of searching on the diffrent boards to get this to work.

Now that is the ONE option I did not try. What does it do (as it seems it does more than it says)??

I've been thinking I've been over hasty with my claiming that they are not seen as mice. Because actually they are HID compatible devices.....

I think we can get this working eventually. You may appreciate that 2nd gun yet. If 2 trackballs work well, this can work well.....

Thanks for posting that info - your right, it is hard to find any info on it!

[ErikRuud]

If you look closely at my photos, you will see that the gun is based on a Beretta 92FS!

By the way, I have updated my page again to include all the relevant links, and the FAQ from this thread.

http://erikruud.freeservers.com/arcade/lcdtopgun.html

[Farmboy90]

I have also now played 2 player in MAME successfully with area51. Works great, nice and accurate. Again, there is no tracking of the cursor (so you will want to turn off the mame target) but then you dont want one anyway to play properly.

How do you turn off cursors for a game?  Is it per game, or can you turn them off globally for all games?

[mark6437]

Silver:
I got 2 trackballs working in Marble Madness and Atari Football using version 83.2 Of Mame Analog+ (the last version on his site that provides this functionality.) Here are the exact settings I am using:
---
switchmiceaxes          1
---
It took a LONG TIME to figure out that switchmiceaxes was the important switch to set to 1. I did ALOT of searching on the diffrent boards to get this to work.

Now that is the ONE option I did not try. What does it do (as it seems it does more than it says)??

I've been thinking I've been over hasty with my claiming that they are not seen as mice. Because actually they are HID compatible devices.....

I think we can get this working eventually. You may appreciate that 2nd gun yet. If 2 trackballs work well, this can work well.....

Thanks for posting that info - your right, it is hard to find any info on it!

I do not know what it does. I found this post http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=21283.0 by searching for analog. I weeded through probably 75-100 posts and found this one. So I tried it and boom, works great.

The MameAnalog+ site does not provide enough/quality documentation to be able to use the program to its fullest capabilities. Like these:
lightgun2a              0
lightgun2b              0

What the heck do those do??

And

switchablemice          0
splitmouseaxes          0
resetmouseaxes          0

Anyone know what those do?

I read somewhere that when using some of these options you are supposed to set mouse to 0 and lightgun to 0 to get dual lightguns working. But like I said these features of this program are not well documented anywhere. I think the author is Urebelscum and I think he posts on here. If someone knows him maybe you could get him to write a.txt file for us or something??

Mark

 

[mark6437]

Ok his nickname on here is u_rebelscum
 and his last post was on Jan25th where he was helping someone with MameAnalog+. Can someone get him involved in this discussion? Anyone know him? It says he is a full member..

Mark

[ErikRuud]

Interseting Tidbit from the Wingun site.

Joystick, gamepad, and possibly early "lightgun device" support will be enabled. This means you can assign gun functions to joystick/gamepad buttons. The lightgun device, read as a game controller, will enable any programs that choose to support it to read from the lightgun with no emulation layer. As an example program, I have been writing a game called "Paper Ducks". Finally, the absolute-to-relative routine is reaching an acceptable level, at least for joystick use. It may be included, allowing you to play things such as Confidential Mission in chankast (which does not support a lightgun, or a mouse currently).

This is from a new item about upcoming features.  Acorn may already be sitting on our Gun2Ananlog solution!

Acorn are you listening?

[Knievel]

Thanks for the quick work on the webpage Erik. I just discovered this and you made it real easy to catch up.

For my fellow Canadians out there..
I ordered a single gun from lik-sang.com and was able to choose Global Priority(mail) shipping. It's a slower option but will save you the horrendous brokerage fees the courier companies charge. Total was $50 US which is damn reasonable for a light gun.

I had the expensive POS Act-Labs gun for one day and sold it. Turned me right off light guns but this looks promising.

And thanks to everyone else posting their ongoing findings with this gun.

[mark6437]

Also one more thing. I tried to get AdvanceMame working but everytime I tried to play a game it would start up in a little bitty box like I was 5 inches tall.
I read that AdvanceMame helps with dual light gun and multiple mice so if anyone has this working PLEASE post your configs. I am pretty good with computers but after a while these programs start bleeding into one another; mame, mameanalog+, advancemame, mamewah.............................................It is just too much sometimes.

Mark

[darthbane2k]

can you guys with completed cabs start showing us pics of how you have mounted the led stands. would appreciate if we could share ideas.

[ErikRuud]

I would have to actually complete my cab in order to do that. 

I will probably go with a variation on mounting them behind the bevel with holes for the leds to show through.

[Farmboy90]

can you guys with completed cabs start showing us pics of how you have mounted the led stands. would appreciate if we could share ideas.

I should have taken pics when I mounted mine last night.  Sorry about that.  it is really trivial though.

I removed the plexi and just used double sided tape to stick the to the sides of my cab.  Put the plexi back on and buttoned everything back up.

It works perfect through the smoked plexi.  The only thing you can see is the faint glow of the red power LED on the top of the right hand side LED stand.

The stands are VERY thin so you can mount them anywhere with ease I suppose.

darthbane2k - I believe tyour problem is that you cannot remove the glass or bezel?  If that is true your only option is to mount the outside the cab.  Can they fit on the inside edges of the cab though (over the glass)?  It might look a little better.  Either way I think they look fine becasue they match in color and are very thin.

[ssc arcade]

Just ordered mine, took the DHL route, wanted to be a cheap sake and go with standard but it says 2 to 4 weeks to reach US, then add a week or 2 to get to me.  Waiting one month plus compared to 3 days is works $11.

Final price $60.95.

Again wanted to give a thanks to the guys who dug this up and are keeping us informed with their testing.

I plan on putting the strips behind my tinted glass, I have a 21" monitor and a 26" wide cab.  Does it work better to have the strips right on the sides of the monitor or would a few inches away on the inside edge of the cab make any difference.

thanks

[Farmboy90]

Just ordered mine, took the DHL route, wanted to be a cheap sake and go with standard but it says 2 to 4 weeks to reach US, then add a week or 2 to get to me.  Waiting one month plus compared to 3 days is works $11.

Final price $60.95.

Again wanted to give a thanks to the guys who dug this up and are keeping us informed with their testing.

I plan on putting the strips behind my tinted glass, I have a 21" monitor and a 26" wide cab.  Does it work better to have the strips right on the sides of the monitor or would a few inches away on the inside edge of the cab make any difference.

thanks

Put them next to your monitor unless you prefer to stand 47' feet away when shooting at things that (when that far away) are the size of a stamp.   

Seriously, the closer you keep the stands, the closer you can stand to the screen.  And that is better.

[unclet]

Questions for anyone who has tested the gun in Mame:

1) Have the games Jurrasic Park, Egg Venture, Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, Area51 been proven to work fine with this gun?

I am using NoNameMame.exe right now, and my ActLab USB TV gun does not work in these games.   The calibration never works.   This might be a problem with me using NoNameMame, rather than a nice Mame.exe version, however, I am not sure.   I thought I read that the real arcade games of Egg Venture and Jurassic Park used different type of lightguns (or something) which Mame does not emulate ... could that be true?

2) The name of the gun is LCDTopGun .... does the gun work on a normal JVC 27" TV which is not LCD, plasma, etc...?

3) Can you turn off the recoil action if you can not stand the click-click it makes?

4) Does one gun work in Mame perfectly?

5) I understand two guns at the same time might still be a problem in Mame.  Is this because the "LCDGun2Mouse V2.1 driver" does not work and that once the new driver is created (which the makers of the gun indicate they are working on) then two guns should work in Mame as well?

[ErikRuud]

1). Duck Hunt works.  Area 51 works (2 guns even). I don't think anyone has tested the other games yet.

2).  Forget the name, the gun does not care what type of screen you are using (LCP, Plasma, DLP, Projection, Black and White TV, whatever)

3) Turn diable the recoil, you simply do not plug in the 5 volt connector on the gun.

4) One gun seems to work perfectly in MAME, but not all games have been tested.

5)  Two guns do work in MAME for some games, but not for others.  This is mostly due to the way Win XP and Win 2000 combine all mice into one system mouse. Two guns might work better under Win 98, I don't think anyone has tested this yet.

[ErikRuud]

Let's start a list of which games have been tested.

If anyone has successfully gotten a game to work, send me a PM.

Include the following information:

Game Name
Type (MAME, PC, SNES, Etc)
Emulator Version
Driver Used (EMS, Wingun, Guncon2)
Os (WinXp, Win 200, etc)
# of guns working

I'll add the listing to my page. http://erikruud.freeservers.com/arcade/lcdtopgun.html

[adonis_minus_20]

5)  Two guns do work in MAME for some games, but not for others.  This is mostly due to the way Win XP and Win 2000 combine all mice into one system mouse. Two guns might work better under Win 98, I don't think anyone has tested this yet.

It seems from this thread that the only two player gun games that don't work with these guns are ones that require constant tracking, e.g. T2, Operation Wolf, etc.

Is this correct?

Thanks for all your testing with these guns.  I haven't ordered yet, but I've been following this closely.

Jim

[ErikRuud]

Yes, that does appear to be the case, but most games have not been tested yet.

[mark6437]

Silver: Any updates?

Mark

[ahofle]

Also one more thing. I tried to get AdvanceMame working but everytime I tried to play a game it would start up in a little bitty box like I was 5 inches tall.
I read that AdvanceMame helps with dual light gun and multiple mice so if anyone has this working PLEASE post your configs. I am pretty good with computers but after a while these programs start bleeding into one another; mame, mameanalog+, advancemame, mamewah.............................................It is just too much sometimes.

Mark

I have dual Act-Labs USB TV lightguns working simultaneously in Area51/Maxforce with an older version of mameanalog+ (although I am using Win98, so that might be why it works).  Even the offscreen reload works.  I can post my command line when I get home if you are still interested.

[mark6437]

Sire that would be great.  But honestly I cannot see myself ever going back to Win98.

THX!

Mark

[mark6437]

5)  Two guns do work in MAME for some games, but not for others.  This is mostly due to the way Win XP and Win 2000 combine all mice into one system mouse. Two guns might work better under Win 98, I don't think anyone has tested this yet.

It seems from this thread that the only two player gun games that don't work with these guns are ones that require constant tracking, e.g. T2, Operation Wolf, etc.

Is this correct?

Thanks for all your testing with these guns.  I haven't ordered yet, but I've been following this closely.

Jim

adonis_minus_20 :

Can you look at my post   http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=49209.0
Do you have any idea why this would be? I am trying to get ready for when my guns come in.

THX!
Mark

[Silver]

Silver: Any updates?

Mark

Not yet - only just back from work though. A quick test has not shown much, although it appears to me that NO information from the guns gets to analogmame at all - not even the button presses. So it may be something ...else?

[Silver]

Op wolf works perfectly with no calibration needed (which is lucky as there is no in game calibration).

RE: comment above about some games not working properly (t2/tracking games) - thats ONLY in 2player mode.

I have not yet found a game that does now work 1player. But there are many more to try.... 

[Silver]

I've only given a quick test, but Jurassic Park does not play so well. The target seems to be under acceleration over the middle part of the screen, less at the outer. So you can still 'control' the target, but its not calibrated right.

I'm guessing the original game used analog joys that perhaps had a certain mechanical properties and the game is calibrated for them? Any played it with any lightgun? Or is it behaving like this because its designed to be played with a mouse in mame? I'm surprised as Op Wolf is calibrated perfectly and is also an analogue joy game....

[Jawadali]

Has anyone shown this info to Smog or Acorn?

BTW, here is the old thread (Guncon2-related) for reference:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=35416.600

[Gh0sty]

my 2 guns are still underway and i watch this thread closely, i'm also very interested
especialy in 2 player lightguns games, there is this CPNMouse to use more than one pointing device in Windows 2000/XP applications.
It maybe is usefull here? I still wait for my 2 guns but maybe someone will test it.

R
Gh0sty

[Silver]

Hogans alley works (non-playchoice), Egg Venture works (only tried 1P).

[buks]

I too have joined in and ordered 2 .... 1 would have done but theres always that off chance that someone will want to play HOTD3 with me ...

I had very shakey success with the Guncon2 guns using acorns driver. Not that this is in any way acorns fault more to do with the fact that I had to play in 640x480 mode due to overscan problems (I'm using a scart to vga cable). The picture quality is excellent but the extra soldering we had to do to the cable to interface the guns wasn't really designed for this kind of cable. By the sounds of it it doesn't matter what TV/cable/graphics card/whatever you use as the tracking is done by the camera and the two "sticks" at the side.

I've also got an xbox so I ordered hotd3 for it. Damn - should have waited till I actually got paid. I wonder if the bank manager will mind me defaulting on the mortgage ? lol

By tha way - I'm UK based and ordered via playasia and paid $42 for UPS shipping. I basically went for playasia as thats what other uk based byoacers seem to have done (nothing against lik-sang !).

I'll no doubt post my woes when I get to test them - deffo going to get one working before I even unpack the second gun !

Finally - many thanks to all who have contributed ideas/fixes etc so far. This is what MAKES a forum !

Buks

PS My brother has just bought a PS2 so hes about to get 2 guncon2 guns for free as they are no use to me know !

[Silver]

my 2 guns are still underway and i watch this thread closely, i'm also very interested
especialy in 2 player lightguns games, there is this CPNMouse to use more than one pointing device in Windows 2000/XP applications.
It maybe is usefull here? I still wait for my 2 guns but maybe someone will test it.

R
Gh0sty

Hi I tried the cpnmouse driver, but XP rejects the driver as having "no information about your hardware" when you try and force it on one of the guns in device manager....

[Gh0sty]

@Silver,
have you read the Documentation "How to install Driver"
and "My mouse is not recognised" at the CPNMouse site??

@buks,
LOL i have the same problem like you, but payday is close, we have the 27 January

[buks]

Ghosty - Can I send my bank manager your details for a character refernce ? lol !

[NIVO]

let me know when one of you turkeys hack the gun to be wireless    and pm me and ill be sure and post it on the main page/news section.

[Gh0sty]

NIVO check this out.
It ships 2nd quarter 2006 though until then we have to test this guns out.

[NIVO]

thx for the tip im lookin forward to try those.