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

[evh347]

The other gun is completely dead though. It fired the recoil twice when I intially installed it and pulled the trigger, but after that it never responded again (no laser no recoil nothing).  Guess I'm going to have to return that one *sigh*.

The same thing has happened to me.  The first gun I tried to install was working and then at some point it just stopped working.  I tried different USB ports, reboots, system restore, uninstall/reinstalling drivers...the first gun is dead.  I'm awaiting a reply on my PlayAsia exchange request.

The results were different with the second gun.  I learned soon enough that I was standing too close to my monitor in testing.  Initially, I found myself not being able to get passed the gun calibration phase involving the "six targets".  It says that you should place the gun "about an inch off the screen"...however, if you do that, it will exit to Windows as soon as you pull the trigger.  That was frustrating for sure.  The minimum distance between the gun and the monitor (for me) is about 4 feet.

I'm running these on my 27" CO2 SlikStik Arcade Cabinet.  I used some heavy duty velcro to secure the LED bars to the formica bordering the bezel.  The recoil is better than nothing, but its not what I would consider great.  The laser is a nice touch, but it doesn't tell you anything you don't already know when the gun has been configured properly in a game you already expect it to be compatible with...ie HOTD2.  If anything, the laser simply helps confirm how badly off some shots are in games that I wish I could yet play (but won't)...ie Time Crisis.

This gun is more accurate than the ActLabs gun in the games in which the ActLabs gun was usable.  However, I'm not finding any new games working any better than before.

Unlike what was posted earlier in this thread...I found that MAME32 worked fine with the Acorn's WINGUN drivers.  I initially started testing using MAME32Plus, but then went back to confirm issues with MAME32 and the gun seemed to track and operate just as well as in the MAME32Plus version.

In Mame:  Area51, Maximum Force, VS. Duck Hunt, VS. Hogan's Alley, Zero Point, Point Blank, Police Trainer, Egg Venture, Sharpshooter, and Operation Wolf all seem to work fine.  I had very little issues in testing those (with the one gun).

Games like Chiller, Clay Pigeon, Crossbow, and Crackshot seemed to be lined up nice whenever you shoot at something in the center of the screen.    Unfortunately, most targets come immediately from the sides of the screen and the crosshair is visible 3-4 inches away after pulling the trigger.  Something similar occured during Tickee Tackets.  The shot was 3 inches above my laser sight whenever I aimed at something towards the edges (or even 6 inches from center).  Sure, you could adjust the laser to line up with the crosshairs, but as soon as you aim in the middle for something, your shot is off again.  Point is, the laser sight and the shot are only lined up when you aim at something in the center of the screen.

However, games like Time Crisis, Zombie Raid, and Carnevil are still unplayable for me.  My 3.06Ghz Alienware still can't keep up with the emulation power required to run these games to my satisfaction.  Besides that, the shots are WAY off.

Golly Ghost and Lethal Enforcers also had calibration issues.  Shoot in the center of the screen and watch your shot land 10 inches to the upper left.

Next, I tried some Chicken Hunt.  After scoring over 1400 points using just a mouse, I thought the LCD gun would make things better.  So far, I just don't think its accurate enough to make a difference.  I haven't scored over 700 using the LCD gun.  I'm trying to use the D-pad to scroll (with Auto Fire on), but its too slow IMO.  From 4 feet away, you have to be balls-on to hit those 25pt chickens in the distance and that's tough.  Chicken Hunt is made even more difficult by it not including a method of configuring buttons.  You can configure buttons within WINGUN, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to reload when using the LCD gun in Chicken Hunt. 

HOTD2 had practically no issues (again, just one gun though).  Everything was very tight.  HOTD3 (the PC EU version) just sucks.  It runs incredibly slow (even on my system) and I gave up on that one quickly. 

I tried Virtua Cop 2 and (again) I can't find a way to configure the gun calibration in the game.  The shots are WAY off.

I uninstalled all of my American Laser Games about a month ago because they stopped functioning after receiving the typical Windows update and I've never figured out what the problem is yet.  All the scenes loop into one another (beyond my control once I begin a game) and no matter what I shoot it results in a death scene.  This is also happening during my DL, DL2, and SPA games...so I didn't test these.

I guess what I have so far is a gun that looks more like a real gun with a fancy laser sight and a gimmicky recoil function.  So far, I've found it only useful in the same handful of games that the ActLabs gun already performed well in.  While I will comment in saying that it is more accurate when utilized during Area51, MF, and HOTD2.  For one thing, I can now shoot off the screen to reload without having to coax some sort of button workaround out of MAME to do it. 

I still have to figure out if I really have atleast one dead LCD gun on my hands or if it's something beyond my technical understanding.  It won't fire, recoil, or display a laser.  It did at first, but like one of the previous posters...it's dead.

All I can say is...thank god for this thread.  There are no instructions packaged with the gun and messing with the Gun2Mouse drivers was a butt-load waste of time.  Neither version would go so far as to recognize an LCD gun attached to my system. 

I don't know if I could justify buying 2 of these...just yet.  It's cooler looking and handles better than the ActLabs gun, but I had far less issues installing the ActLabs gun over the LCD gun (for sure).  Something tells me, I'm not done yet.

[Fat_Trucker]

Golly Ghost and Lethal Enforcers also had calibration issues.  Shoot in the center of the screen and watch your shot land 10 inches to the upper left.

Reading back a short way have you tried Silvers 'fixed' version of mame that addresses the issues with the games where the aim is off?.

Looks like this is a known issue with the mame source rather than the gun calibration, and afaik Silver fixed it with his lightgun build. HERE

Won't be able to test until my gun arrives (hopefully) on Monday.

[Smog]

@Silver
Do you have a diff file for the offsets you changed in mame ? (Obviously only for the offsets that actually fixed the game )

[Howard_Casto]

I hope you guys know better, but just in case..... 

You do know that several games in mame have thier own gun calibration modes in their dip sections and the crosshairs will be off until you calibrate them there too (sometimes manually, like in the case of T2).

[Silver]

@Silver
Do you have a diff file for the offsets you changed in mame ? (Obviously ibky fir the offsets that actually fixed the game )

Yes I've put it here: http://www.silverfoxy.f2s.com/mamegundiff.zip
Its a diff for the 0.103 build.

Note that most of the diff is just stripping of all the DRIVER lines in driver.c to make it lightgun only build, not useful changes (they are all at the bottom of the diff). All the (working) changes are basically the same and described with an example at the bottom of the page: http://www.silverfoxy.f2s.com/Topgun.html#solved

Hope that helps.

[Silver]

I hope you guys know better, but just in case..... 

You do know that several games in mame have thier own gun calibration modes in their dip sections and the crosshairs will be off until you calibrate them there too (sometimes manually, like in the case of T2).

Well reminded. Most gun game do indeed. I think I posted about delete the nvram files for several games to cause the calibration screens to recrop up, but that may have been 10 pages ago. It also does not apply to all games.

A quick reminder that namco games:

Golly ghost
Lucky&Wild
Steel Gunner
Steel Gunner 2

require the following to even get the target to move at all:

How to calibrate the guns:
  - hold 9, press f2
  - shoot at the targets it shows using the crosshair
  - after you've shot the target press 9 again to move onto the next one
  - once you get back to the start again press f2 to exit.


Generally, if you have the game calibrated in windows controlling the mouse cursor ok, when you go to play a game, hit F2 or go to DIP switches and turn on Service mode, and have a look for Gun Calibration of I/O setup or test or similar....

[brandon]

yeah.. I think the calibration issue within Mame could  very well be part of some peoples problems.  I think it would be best to calibrate the in game calibration with a mouse or joystick first.  That way Mames cursor is calibrated with the games cursor.  Then as long as your gun is cailbrated to that you should be ok.  This would eliminate the gun as a possibility for the error.  If the cursor is off when using the mouse no amount of gun calibration is going to fix that.  T2 probably illustrates this the best.   What we have to keep in mind is that we have several "layers" of calibration going on..   Calibrating the Topgun to the LED stands, calibrating a gun2mouse driver, then calibrating in the games such as Terminator 2.

[madmagician]

Great stuff, folks.  I will order a pair as soon as my tax return comes back.


What I would love is to develop a compatibility matrix to cover

MAME
MAME - Non lightgun
PC Lightgun Games
NES
SNES
SEGA Genesis
Atari 2600
Atari 7800
Atari ST
etc, etc. 

Compare across diferent emus with 1 and 2 players and different drivers.  Anyone else game to help?

As a side note, I already have the matrix in Excel   I just need the compatability info.

Magic

[ErikRuud]

I know this is sort of beside the point right now but.. what if you could somehow take the raw data from the gun and convert it to X-Y axis joystick coordinates?  Then you could have as many guns as you like and they would not conflict..  and screen resolution shouldn't matter in that case..   maybe somebody has already tried this.. just a thought..

I suggested much earlier in this thread that a Gun2Joy or Gun2Analog driver would probably be a good idea.  I just don't have the knowledge to do it myself.

[ErikRuud]

Great stuff, folks.  I will order a pair as soon as my tax return comes back.


What I would love is to develop a compatibility matrix to cover

MAME
MAME - Non lightgun
PC Lightgun Games
NES
SNES
SEGA Genesis
Atari 2600
Atari 7800
Atari ST
etc, etc. 

Compare across diferent emus with 1 and 2 players and different drivers.  Anyone else game to help?

As a side note, I already have the matrix in Excel   I just need the compatability info.

Magic

I started to put one together, but so far it is easier to list the few issues that we have found on a per game basis.

[ErikRuud]

The results were different with the second gun.  I learned soon enough that I was standing too close to my monitor in testing.  Initially, I found myself not being able to get passed the gun calibration phase involving the "six targets".  It says that you should place the gun "about an inch off the screen"...however, if you do that, it will exit to Windows as soon as you pull the trigger.  That was frustrating for sure.  The minimum distance between the gun and the monitor (for me) is about 4 feet.

The calibration instructions are for ACtLabs guns.  These guns are different.

I'm running these on my 27" CO2 SlikStik Arcade Cabinet.  I used some heavy duty velcro to secure the LED bars to the formica bordering the bezel.  The recoil is better than nothing, but its not what I would consider great.  The laser is a nice touch, but it doesn't tell you anything you don't already know when the gun has been configured properly in a game you already expect it to be compatible with...ie HOTD2.  If anything, the laser simply helps confirm how badly off some shots are in games that I wish I could yet play (but won't)...ie Time Crisis.

This gun is more accurate than the ActLabs gun in the games in which the ActLabs gun was usable.  However, I'm not finding any new games working any better than before.

The lasers main use if calibrating the hardware.

Unlike what was posted earlier in this thread...I found that MAME32 worked fine with the Acorn's WINGUN drivers.  I initially started testing using MAME32Plus, but then went back to confirm issues with MAME32 and the gun seemed to track and operate just as well as in the MAME32Plus version.

The information that MAME32 and Wingun came from the Wingun site.  If it's working for you, then maybe Acorn needs to know how your system is setup.

In Mame:  Area51, Maximum Force, VS. Duck Hunt, VS. Hogan's Alley, Zero Point, Point Blank, Police Trainer, Egg Venture, Sharpshooter, and Operation Wolf all seem to work fine.  I had very little issues in testing those (with the one gun).

Games like Chiller, Clay Pigeon, Crossbow, and Crackshot seemed to be lined up nice whenever you shoot at something in the center of the screen.    Unfortunately, most targets come immediately from the sides of the screen and the crosshair is visible 3-4 inches away after pulling the trigger.  Something similar occured during Tickee Tackets.  The shot was 3 inches above my laser sight whenever I aimed at something towards the edges (or even 6 inches from center).  Sure, you could adjust the laser to line up with the crosshairs, but as soon as you aim in the middle for something, your shot is off again.  Point is, the laser sight and the shot are only lined up when you aim at something in the center of the screen.

However, games like Time Crisis, Zombie Raid, and Carnevil are still unplayable for me.  My 3.06Ghz Alienware still can't keep up with the emulation power required to run these games to my satisfaction.  Besides that, the shots are WAY off.

Golly Ghost and Lethal Enforcers also had calibration issues.  Shoot in the center of the screen and watch your shot land 10 inches to the upper left.

Most of these MAME issues were discussed earlier in this thread.  Minwah and Silver have posted new MAME builds that address these issues.

Next, I tried some Chicken Hunt.  After scoring over 1400 points using just a mouse, I thought the LCD gun would make things better.  So far, I just don't think its accurate enough to make a difference.  I haven't scored over 700 using the LCD gun.  I'm trying to use the D-pad to scroll (with Auto Fire on), but its too slow IMO.  From 4 feet away, you have to be balls-on to hit those 25pt chickens in the distance and that's tough.  Chicken Hunt is made even more difficult by it not including a method of configuring buttons.  You can configure buttons within WINGUN, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to reload when using the LCD gun in Chicken Hunt. 

For Chicken Hunter ( and other Mouse/Keyboard FPS games) you need to use the drag option (Instead of single) in the Wingun configuration.  Turning off auto fire is probably a good idea.  For reload you need to set the C button to "Right Mouse".  The C Button ois the button in the grip.

HOTD2 had practically no issues (again, just one gun though).  Everything was very tight.  HOTD3 (the PC EU version) just sucks.  It runs incredibly slow (even on my system) and I gave up on that one quickly. 

I tried Virtua Cop 2 and (again) I can't find a way to configure the gun calibration in the game.  The shots are WAY off.

The HOTD and Virtua Cop games require that you use the Troubleshooter in addition to the gun drivers.  It has been mentioned several times in this thread.

I uninstalled all of my American Laser Games about a month ago because they stopped functioning after receiving the typical Windows update and I've never figured out what the problem is yet.  All the scenes loop into one another (beyond my control once I begin a game) and no matter what I shoot it results in a death scene.  This is also happening during my DL, DL2, and SPA games...so I didn't test these.

I have not tested these yet.

All I can say is...thank god for this thread.  There are no instructions packaged with the gun and messing with the Gun2Mouse drivers was a butt-load waste of time.  Neither version would go so far as to recognize an LCD gun attached to my system. 

There are some instructions printed on the bottom of the box.  Mainly the basic hardware setup stuff. 

[madmagician]

Great stuff, folks.  I will order a pair as soon as my tax return comes back.


What I would love is to develop a compatibility matrix to cover

MAME
MAME - Non lightgun
PC Lightgun Games
NES
SNES
SEGA Genesis
Atari 2600
Atari 7800
Atari ST
etc, etc. 

Compare across diferent emus with 1 and 2 players and different drivers.  Anyone else game to help?

As a side note, I already have the matrix in Excel   I just need the compatability info.

Magic

I started to put one together, but so far it is easier to list the few issues that we have found on a per game basis.

Well, I guess I thought there would be more interest in a compile chart, but I do have the majority of the matrix ready anyway.  if anybody is interested in contributing, let me know.


Magic

[ChodTheWacko]

HOTD2 had practically no issues (again, just one gun though).  Everything was very tight.  HOTD3 (the PC EU version) just sucks.  It runs incredibly slow (even on my system) and I gave up on that one quickly. 

I tried Virtua Cop 2 and (again) I can't find a way to configure the gun calibration in the game.  The shots are WAY off.

The HOTD and Virtua Cop games require that you use the Troubleshooter in addition to the gun drivers.  It has been mentioned several times in this thread.

I uninstalled all of my American Laser Games about a month ago because they stopped functioning after receiving the typical Windows update and I've never figured out what the problem is yet.  All the scenes loop into one another (beyond my control once I begin a game) and no matter what I shoot it results in a death scene.  This is also happening during my DL, DL2, and SPA games...so I didn't test these.

I have not tested these yet.

Okay, i admit, somehow I missed the troubleshooter stuff too.  I was under the implication that youonly need it it you had two guns, which is not the case.  You pretty much need it for all the games it lists.

I still can't get the american laser games to work (i.e. mad dog mcree for example). But virtua quad and HOTD work nice now. 

[Smog]

I suggested much earlier in this thread that a Gun2Joy or Gun2Analog driver would probably be a good idea.  I just don't have the knowledge to do it myself.

I could do it easily .. what would it be useful for ?

[Howard_Casto]

I can tell you that programatically speaking, if you intend to get the guns to replace analog guns in a simultaneous 2 player mode (like t2) it is FAR easier to code for if the drivers send joystick values. 

As of now how act-labs guns work in 2 player mode is as follows:

The two gun's "mice" are actually one in the same.  When you code for two player you register a target hit for player one when the mouse button 1 is pressed and player 2 when button three is pressed. 

Obviously this doesn't work when the guns are constantly tracking, such as in t2.  An anlog gun driver would prevent the low level trickery required to get seperate mice axis form each gun. Gun one would come up as joystick 1 and gun two joystick two.  It's as simple as that. 

[brandon]

Also, if anybody has tried playing a lightgun game such as Lethal Enforcers with a analog stick such as a (PS2 gamepad via USB adapter) you'll see that Mame converts the absolute coordinates of the joystick to absolute coordinates in the game.. So I think that this would make 2 player or even 3 player gun games (Beast Busters) easily done.  And once it was calibrated it should work at any resolution without need of being recalibrated.  of course this is all based on my experimentation with a joystick and not a lightgun.. but in theory it could work.  This would also overcome the OS limitations that multiple mice has..  The only thing I wonder about is what "resolution" can a joystick have?  could it be as sensitive or accurate as a mouse?  maybe Smog can answer this..  What are the downside, if any, of emulating a joystick versus a mouse?

[Fozzy The Bear]

The only thing I wonder about is what "resolution" can a joystick have?  could it be as sensitive or accurate as a mouse?  maybe Smog can answer this..  What are the downside, if any, of emulating a joystick versus a mouse?

None that I can see.... The current batch of optical encoded joysticks... (top end sidewinder etc etc) do exactly this. Emulate a joystick in hardware while actually being an optical mouse interface. Makes them much more accurate and stable. No joystick jittering.

But I'm still not convinced that this will help us much with MAME. Except in a very few games that might use it, and it's then an issue of interfacing and re-writing things again.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Smog]

What are the downside, if any, of emulating a joystick versus a mouse

Well ... I think none. One versione of the driver was actually made to install 2 HID devices : 1 mouse and 1 joystick, it worked nice but just one time....  now windows crashes each time I try to force isntall two devices in one ... however ... I don't see downsides at the time we can just try it and see since it is not so much work .
One could choose at installation time if he wants either a mouse or a joystick device. For the control panel/flasher to handle this it will take a bit longer but we can start with driver only.

Regarding the resolution of data, it does not depend by me:
 The gun has his own screen / resolution. The range does not depend from video res. So the higher is the number of pixel on the screen the less accurate will be the gun. Meaning that a delta in the gun movement will corrispond to an higher number of px.
The gun's resolution is about 700x250 units, I don't know how you feel with it but, at 640 x480, it is more than one pixel precision on the X and 2 pixel on the Y.

[Silver]

Most of the games work fine as is....

the main advantage I can see is that you will always need a special build of mame in windows to support 2 mice. But more than 1 joystick is not problem I believe, so you can have normal mame for 2 player tracking games...

[brandon]

I thought that some where one of the guys from EMS said that the resolution of the Topgun was 1024x768?  maybe its only appearing to be lower because its emulating the Guncon which would normally be low res on a TV.  I guess that's still OK because most arcade games are low res anyway.. I'm just curious if there is some way to make it higher res.

As far as Mame not working with this or needing to be rewritten I don't really see that.  as it is most all of the gun games work fine with a joystick already.  The ones that didnt work had the simple bug thats been fixed with Silvers compile of Mame.  I guess what I'm saying is the games that work correctly in Mame will work with a joystick.  and personally, as long as Mame tracks the movements of the gun with the correct coordinates who cares if Mame thinks it a joystick or a mouse as long as the end result is the same? 

[Silver]

Thinking about this, do Jurassic park, zombie raid, opwolf3 play ok with an analogue joystick? These games don't play well with a lightgun at all at the moment - if they play well with a joystick then having the lightgun appear as ajoystick may (or may not) help.

[Smog]

I thought that some where one of the guys from EMS said that the resolution of the Topgun was 1024x768?

I don't really know what they ment ... gun ranges between 50-750 in X and 5-255 in Y (changes slightly by monitor and gun) you can normalize this, let's call it hardware resolution, in every video res (not limited at 1024x768) but the higher you go the worst is the proportion between gun and pixels.

Maybe they meant their software is able to normalize the coordinates only up to 1024x768, but this is a software limitation nothing to do with hardware.... don't know ...

About the Gun2Joystick driver .. as I said I was not able to write a combo driver to have both a mouse and a joystick toghether from one gun, so the drivers would be alternative .. this mean you could not switch between devices with reinstalling the driver. So if is just for one game I am not sure it is worth anything.

[aljupy]

Hello:

I would Like to ask you: Could someone explain me wich is the problem with ZOMBIE RAID??? I Play this game since my first ACT LABS gun 2 years ago. I played it with Guncon2 driver, and now I

[roylazarovich]

Hi Everyone.

I see a lot of discussions about the LCD TopGun usage in MAME but not much really about its usage in ePSXe.

Can anyone confirm that it works with games such as Time Crisis, Time Crisis: Project Titan, and the three Point Blank games?

I've been testing the new Digital\Gun option in ePSXe 1.6 and it seems to work in several games, but in Point Blank 3 you can move the gun sight with the mouse but not shoot, that in itself is not a big deal as I could have mapped the gun's trigger to the keyboard key for shooting, but apparently the keyboard keys do not work when in Gun mode, any ideas?

Should I open a new topic for this?

Thanks.

[aljupy]

Can anyone confirm that it works with games such as Time Crisis, Time Crisis: Project Titan, and the three Point Blank games?

I Would say that everything you can do with a "LCD TOP GUN" is the same that you can do with a GUNCON2 with the PC driver.

So, for that you

[roylazarovich]

So, for that you

[Smog]

@roylazarovich
Believe us when we say that it do work with troubleshooter .. we are working on this topic since months now.

@Aljupy
LOL You are not wrong I like beretta's

[brandon]

About the Gun2Joystick driver .. as I said I was not able to write a combo driver to have both a mouse and a joystick toghether from one gun, so the drivers would be alternative .. this mean you could not switch between devices with reinstalling the driver. So if is just for one game I am not sure it is worth anything.

I'm recovering from a harddrive crash but hopefully I'll be able to do some testing this afternoon with the current release of Mame...  but from my past experience all lightgun games that I test with a joystick worked excellent.  They worked in absolute coordinates so that the gun was centered when the stick was center and the cursors was upper right when the stick was upper right etc..  

 So in this case all games would work regardless of resolution and multiple players could all be completely independent and track in realtime.  To me that sounds like a huge improvement over a mouse.  Of course there is always the option of having one gun act as a mouse and player 2, 3 etc could use a joystick driver.   but like a said before.. if Mame receives absolute X,Y coordinates from the gun in realtime does it really matter if Mame thinks its a mouse or a joystick?  as long as its playable a functions as intended...  Granted, you wouldn't be able to shoot desktop icons or play flash games with a joystick driver.. but personally I could be ok with that

[Smog]

.. this mean you could not switch between devices with reinstalling the driver

I meant WITHOUT not WITH ... sorry

[ChodTheWacko]

Slightly off topic, but my topgun order from play-asia.com came with a coupon that says 'give to any friend'.

The code is GA-CTS-TMU and it is $5 off a $50 order, so that's great if you order two guns online.

[Silver]

I would Like to ask you: Could someone explain me wich is the problem with ZOMBIE RAID??? I Play this game since my first ACT LABS gun 2 years ago. I played it with Guncon2 driver, and now I

[RandyT]

Ok, I finally got this thing in the mail.  My views on it are very mixed.

The cons first:

It immediately strikes me that this technology is much better suited for small screens, unless you want to play your games from across the room.  This is not how the arcade games were designed to be played, so no authenticity here at all.  You can play on a larger screen, but even on my 52" HD, I had to put the bars in the middle of the screen.  Even then, I had trouble in the corners from about 7' back.  And who wants to play with something stuck in the middle of the screen?  And, related to all of the above, the cables are just too short.  If your XBOX or PC is next to the display, and you need to get back that far, it's hard to achieve it with the supplied cables.

The stock drivers are just worthless.  It's hard to believe they would ship a driver that blatantly doesn't track the mouse cursor on anyone's system.  At one point, I had both of the LCDgun2mouse apps (old and new) running at the same time, because one would track the mouse and the other would let you assign the buttons.  Great, except the buttons did not work in any application I tried it with (including MAME.)  It should probably be noted that this was on a 98SE system, which may or may not be the cause.   I also could not seem to get either of the 3rd party freeware drivers working on this system.

The tracking on this device is pathetic.  To me, this means that the technology is not ready for prime-time.  There is about a .5 second lag between where you point the gun, and where the shot is placed.  If you are slow to acquire your targets, or are a casual gun enthusiast, this may be acceptable.  It drives me nuts.  Real light guns (when working properly) track in real-time, so the games designed to be played with a real light gun are designed with this in mind.  What that ultimately means is, by using this gun, you will be playing at a disadvantage. 

True calibration seemed impossible.  It seemed like no matter what I did, the calibration in HOTD3 always put the crosshair about a half inch above the site.  With a normal lightgun, you can sometimes "cheat" the calibration screen a little to get things to line up.  that doesn't appear to be the case with this one.  I went back and forth between the gun calibration and the HOTD3 calibration screen about 5 times and had very little control over the process, no matter what I did.  The alignment was probably acceptable at the center of the screen, but the error seemed to grow exponentially as I approached the corners on the 52" HD.  Nothing could fix this. 

The "recoil" effect should have just been left off.  It's cute at first, but quickly became annoying.  It's not a feedback mechanism, it just clicks back every time you pull the trigger, seemingly without concern as to whether you actually fired a shot.  I don't think I'll need that extra power pigtail they provided

Watch out for the laser.  There were a number of times I felt that beam go past my eyes and it's still very intense, even though it's reflected.  I thought my earlier concerns about this may have just been a little over-cautious, but after using it for a bit, I now feel they are warranted.  And watch where the beam goes.  It might not affect you, but might hit others in the room (like your kids who might be watching you play)

The trigger doesn't bottom at switch activation.  I kept feeling like a hard trigger pull was going to snap something.  Usually things like that will fatigue over time and eventually break.

And now the things I like:

The gun itself feels solid, with the possible exception of the trigger.  It's pretty much a dupe of a real hand-gun, so it feels very comfortable in the hand.  The re-load button (bar) built into the front of the grip is a work of genius and is very intuitive.  The joy on the back isn't made for gameplay, but works well for selecting menu options.  The cables seem to be sturdy and well made.

The laser, while technically cheating and hazardous, is actually fun to use.  HOTD3 tends to focus the action toward the center of the screen, so the calibration issues were not a huge problem with this title.  Being able to put the red dot on a zombie's throat and taking his head off with one shot made for some good fun.  As others have noted, it also makes the calibration process easier. Just line the laser up to the gun site and use the laser for the calibration process.

The price isn't bad.  It's costing us a lot to play with these because of the shipping, but they are likely to become less expensive once they get regulatory approvals and importers bring in a containerload at a time.  It's hard to be too critical at the price point.

And the biggest thing I like is that it actually works, flaws or not, with displays you couldn't ordinarily use with a light gun at all.  This counts for a lot when considering the merits of the device.  If you have no other options, the device works well enough to use it.

Current conclusion:

If you are running anything other than a console system with a 25" or smaller non-conventional display, or a PC with 2000/XP, you may want to wait and hope for better options.  Some of the issues may be able to be fixed with better drivers, but there are hardware limitations that will not be overcome due to the nature of the technology.  And if you are the type who doesn't like to fiddle, and just wants things to work great, you are watching the wrong thread.

RandyT

[Silver]

It immediately strikes me that this technology is much better suited for small screens, unless you want to play your games from across the room.  This is not how the arcade games were designed to be played, so no authenticity here at all.  You can play on a larger screen, but even on my 52" HD, I had to put the bars in the middle of the screen.  Even then, I had trouble in the corners from about 7' back. 

I'm only playing on a 24" screen, but I don't have to be anywhere near 7' back. But if you have to be that far back for 52', I can see its annoying.

The stock drivers are just worthless.

100% agreed. If wingun/guncon2pc did not exist, this would have been a 100% unusable product. I mean 100% unusable. I've been able to do NOTHING on my system with the shipped drivers.

The tracking on this device is pathetic.  To me, this means that the technology is not ready for prime-time.  There is about a .5 second lag between where you point the gun, and where the shot is placed.

Hmmm. I defintely do NOT have this problem. Firing is instant, as is tracking. I've played lots of point blank/zero point in the arcade, and some t2/opwolf and find this gun just as good if not better (some of the arcade guns I've used have been VERY poorly calibrated. Anyway - if you have a 0.5sec lag then I would suggest something is wrong.

For pure tracking of the mouse cursor, WinGun produces a slight lag (not that big though - only noticeable if you are sweeping the screen). Smog's driver does not exhibit this. I would concur that a 0.5 sec delay would make 90% of lightgun games unplayable. Are you using the Troubleshooter? I believe I have read that on some systems this will produce such a long lag in some games. This appears to be a side effect of it hijacking input's, although I've not had the issue.

True calibration seemed impossible.  It seemed like no matter what I did, the calibration in HOTD3 always put the crosshair about a half inch above the site.  With a normal lightgun, you can sometimes "cheat" the calibration screen a little to get things to line up.  that doesn't appear to be the case with this one.  I went back and forth between the gun calibration and the HOTD3 calibration screen about 5 times and had very little control over the process, no matter what I did.  The alignment was probably acceptable at the center of the screen, but the error seemed to grow exponentially as I approached the corners on the 52" HD.  Nothing could fix this. 

Are you using troubleshooter? I just tried HOTD3 (PC version) with Troubleshooter, and accuracy is perfect. Spot on. It won't track as you move (only targets when you fire) which may not be perfect (as when you play with mouse the gun graphic moves to follow you) but is fun to play.... Also check for windows mouse acceleration - check its off.

The "recoil" effect should have just been left off.  It's cute at first, but quickly became annoying.  It's not a feedback mechanism, it just clicks back every time you pull the trigger, seemingly without concern as to whether you actually fired a shot.  I don't think I'll need that extra power pigtail they provided

Agreed. I don't like it. Tried it, unplugged it. It has no connection with the game at all.

I agree with lots of your points, but for me its so far ahead of actlabs (tv and USB) and guncon2 (I now have all 4 gun systems) the others appear a waste of money.

[ChodTheWacko]

And, related to all of the above, the cables are just too short.  If your XBOX or PC is next to the display, and you need to get back that far, it's hard to achieve it with the supplied cables.

I'm going to be trying this with a front projector, so this should be pretty interesting.

The simple solution to the cables being too short is to power the led strips with an external adaptor.
I happened to have a perfect one in my closet.

I was also thinking that there's no reason the led strips couldn't be on the floor, or above the tv.  They just have to be anywhere were  the gun can see them, and half the distance apart as your shooting distance, right?

[Silver]

Update:

Just to confirm that ZombieRaid works fine. I believe I calibrated ingame incorrectly at first, hence thought it was off.

Also, CryptKiller does not track correctly. Fortunately its solved by the same fix as the others, as I've updated my build/diff file to support it.

http://www.silverfoxy.f2s.com/mamegun.zip

Sourcediff from 0.103 here:

http://www.silverfoxy.f2s.com/mamegundiff.zip

NB I missed CryptKillers and Carnevil from my build, I've added both (fixing cryptklr on the way). Carnevil plays fine with a gun once you've calibrated in game (F2, gun calibration menu). Although its way too slow on my system, so unplayable.

List of Fixed games in the build:

CryptKiller
Lethal Enforcers
Lethal Enforcers 2
Golly ghost
Lucky&Wild
Steel Gunner
Steel Gunner 2

[RandyT]

I'm only playing on a 24" screen, but I don't have to be anywhere near 7' back. But if you have to be that far back for 52', I can see its annoying.

Even so, according to the manufacturer you need to have the tip of the gun a minimum of about 3' away from that screen.  That's further away than most would play at the arcade.  Personally, I think that distance is understated.  I used them on my 27" RGB monitor and had difficulties with the far corners standing 6' back.

Hmmm. I defintely do NOT have this problem. Firing is instant, as is tracking. I've played lots of point blank/zero point in the arcade, and some t2/opwolf and find this gun just as good if not better (some of the arcade guns I've used have been VERY poorly calibrated. Anyway - if you have a 0.5sec lag then I would suggest something is wrong.

My testing of HOTD3 was on the XBOX.  There are no drivers to fiddle with there.  I can move the gun and watch the crosshair trail it as though there was a 1/2" long  rubber band connecting the two.  It did exactly the same thing in the calibration screen of T2 with MAME. 

For pure tracking of the mouse cursor, WinGun produces a slight lag (not that big though - only noticeable if you are sweeping the screen). Smog's driver does not exhibit this. I would concur that a 0.5 sec delay would make 90% of lightgun games unplayable. Are you using the Troubleshooter? I believe I have read that on some systems this will produce such a long lag in some games. This appears to be a side effect of it hijacking input's, although I've not had the issue.

As I wrote, I could not get WinGun working.  It would not even install on my 98SE system.  What OS are you using?

Are you using troubleshooter? I just tried HOTD3 (PC version) with Troubleshooter, and accuracy is perfect. Spot on. It won't track as you move (only targets when you fire) which may not be perfect (as when you play with mouse the gun graphic moves to follow you) but is fun to play.... Also check for windows mouse acceleration - check its off.

My system always has mouse acceleration off because it is used with trackballs and spinners.  But as I wrote above, I was using the XBOX, so there are no settings to be incorrectly set.

I agree with lots of your points, but for me its so far ahead of actlabs (tv and USB) and guncon2 (I now have all 4 gun systems) the others appear a waste of money.

I don't have any of those to compare.  I am basing my opinions not on how much better it is than the current solutions for this application, but whether it stacks up to what I have become accustomed to.  This pretty much means the Guncons, when used with the Sony Consoles, and of course the arcades.  My opinion is that this system is inferior enough to both of those to leave me wanting (and expecting) more. 

And, related to all of the above, the cables are just too short.  If your XBOX or PC is next to the display, and you need to get back that far, it's hard to achieve it with the supplied cables.

I'm going to be trying this with a front projector, so this should be pretty interesting.

My sofa is only 10' away from my screen, so I had doubts that I could get far enough away for the projector.  I will probably try it eventually though.

The simple solution to the cables being too short is to power the led strips with an external adaptor.
I happened to have a perfect one in my closet.

Yes.  But you'll still need have your machine close by you, or get a USB extension cable.  You'll want to make sure that the power supply you use is regulated.  Those LED bars probably only have a resistor inside and expect a solid 5v source.  Anything greater than that will accelerate their demise.

I was also thinking that there's no reason the led strips couldn't be on the floor, or above the tv.  They just have to be anywhere were  the gun can see them, and half the distance apart as your shooting distance, right?

Therein lies the problem.  The manufacturer gives a 15' distance limitation.  With a large screen, you would be physically pointing the gun a fair distance away from the bars when aiming at a corner, or even the sides.  Without knowing the field-of-view for the camera, it's hard to know the limitations, but the lens and aperture is small.  So it can't be that wide an angle and is probably prone to considerable distortion.  Based on what I know about optics and the way this was handling on a larger screen, I  believe the error will be much greater, the further the gun is pointed from the position of the LED bars.  That's why I concluded the optimal use to be for displays under 25" diagonal.

RandyT

[Gh0sty]

RandyT i play on my 37" CRT Monitor with this LCD Topgun, and i'm standing aprox
2meters from the display away, it works really great, and i wouldnt want to stay
closer to this huge screen anyway.
2m are nothing when you have a 37" in front of you, its feels like an real arcade.

It took my aprox 2 days full testing with calibrating (build in calib-soft & wingun)-calib to get it near
perfect now. unfortunately Smogs driver didnt detect my guns at all, so i cant test
his driver. But Wingun works very good single & dual play!

what i can tell you from my expirience is forget the laser pointer while calibrating,
use it just for successful calib-confirmation, point it somewhere to the side and aim
the gun like you would in real. When playing a game and you realize that your aim is
100% in the middle but not good tracking in the corners, thats where i use
Wingun calibration when you shot the last 6 circles. If your aim is off to the left and
right but good in the middle, then shot at the left and right circle not exsactly
in the middle, point it a littler more towards the screen center. Same goes for
up & down if you have a tracking problem there. This way i now have a close to 100%
perfect tracking .

We now play Zero Point daily with 2 Guns! it is really fun. Comparing it with
the act-Labs crap we used before, its a fresh brise!

But i need help with other emulators, i want to play Sega Master System
Lightgun Games, ie. Shooting Gallery, what Emulator are you guys using
with the LCD Gun

R
Gh0sty

[RandyT]

RandyT i play on my 37" CRT Monitor with this LCD Topgun, and i'm standing aprox
2meters from the display away, it works really great, and i wouldnt want to stay
closer to this huge screen anyway.
2m are nothing when you have a 37" in front of you, its feels like an real arcade.

I'll drag the XBOX into the bedroom and hook it up to the 37" in there.  Maybe it will work better in that configuration.

It took my aprox 2 days full testing with calibrating (build in calib-soft & wingun)-calib to get it near
perfect now. unfortunately Smogs driver didnt detect my guns at all, so i cant test
his driver. But Wingun works very good single & dual play!

what i can tell you from my expirience is forget the laser pointer while calibrating,
use it just for successful calib-confirmation, point it somewhere to the side and aim
the gun like you would in real. When playing a game and you realize that your aim is
100% in the middle but not good tracking in the corners, thats where i use
Wingun calibration when you shot the last 6 circles. If your aim is off to the left and
right but good in the middle, then shot at the left and right circle not exsactly
in the middle, point it a littler more towards the screen center. Same goes for
up & down if you have a tracking problem there. This way i now have a close to 100%
perfect tracking .

Thanks for the tips, but part of my current problem is being unable to use any of those utilities/drivers.  So if the cure lies in those, they aren't going help.  If you are using 98SE as an OS to do all of this, then please let me know how you managed to get WinGun working.

This does make sense, btw.  It sounds like a multi-point calibration like a touchscreen might use.  The calibration screen on HOTD3 on the XBOX was only 2 points.  The PC can probably correct for things the XBOX cannot.

But i need help with other emulators, i want to play Sega Master System
Lightgun Games, ie. Shooting Gallery, what Emulator are you guys using
with the LCD Gun

I was wondering this as well.  The few I tried didn't recognize the mouse as a lightgun input, or had the lightgun option greyed out.

RandyT

[ChodTheWacko]

Followup.

Okay, trying it with the front projector was pretty much a failure.   THe picture is just too freakin' big.

I tried it on my 35 inch television, and that worked with no problem.
Well, calibration was a little bit off, but I was too lazy to correct it.  For the most part, it was working fine.

I also noticed something interesting, if you are having problems calibrating, then calibrate randomly (just click on the middle of the screen 5 times).  Then move the laser pointer around, and note if it flickers or flat out vanishes if you hit a corner of your screen.   The laser light goes out if it can't see that corner, and it doesn't matter if it's calibrated 'correctly' or not.

Same goes in wingun calibration.  the cursor should be smoothly moving around.  If it starts stuttering in its movement, then that's a sign you need to change positions of stuff somehow.

I did a bunch of experimentation and I haven't got a good feel of how big is 'too big'.  Putting the bars inside the screen had varying degrees of success.

I think it would be very useful to keep track of:
1)  how big of a screen you have
2)  how far apart the led bars are
3)  how far back you stood and were able to play well.

There are definitely 'sweet spots' you want to stay in.  I'm curious what the biggest tv someone can get this to work with.  Anyone try on a 42" yet?

[patrickl]

I completely agree with RandyT. I like the look and feel, but the installation is a nightmare. The lag is horrible for me too. I'm using WinGun does that matter? I got the idea that Smogs's drivers would be really drivers and thus perhaps faster? Unfortunately I cannot get those drivers to detect my gun.

The lag is really my biggest issue. With fast moving action it's nearly impossible to hit all the targets quick enough when with the mouse that's no problem at all.

Maybe I should tweak the calibration further though. But then that's really a hit-miss thing too. I never seem to get it right and somethimes it goes completely out of whack and some parts of the screen can't even be hit.

The cable is too short too. Even with my 28" TV. I'm thinking about using an USB extention cable or maybe even an active  USB hub. I might need the hub anyway since the recoil seems to kill the device (Windows loses and then finds the USB device again).

I get the feeling it's more a gimmick rather than something I would actually use. Anyway, my kid loves it so I guess that means it's money well spent nomatter what I think of it