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

[Gh0sty]

RandyT i run WinXP SP2 so i dont think its a help for you :/
But i can suggest you try different things while calibrating and see
what changes ingame. Unfortunatley this guns are not plug & play
made, too many different variables ( ie. screensize, standing point)
But i think its still O.K. for this price compared to others PC Lightguns (what others ? lol
I forgett to told you, in Mame like others suggested, if possible try a
Gun calibration in that game you play too (F2). In Zero Point you cant calibrate
but you can test how the gun work, i used this Info for this Game to change the
way i calibrate in Wingun.
I'm not 100% sure, but i doubt you will get one calibration for all games.
On the other side, it took not much longer then 1min to calibrate for each game.

Fuzzybear had a good idea, we should made a sticky thread about what emulator
is used succesfully in combination with this Topgun, it would help everyone and
safe alot time.

R
Gh0sty

[Gh0sty]

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

I use an extention USB device, and yes hehe i deactivated the recoil, it was fun at start
but got very anoying fast for me ...but my Girfriend likes it grrrrrr. and she likes
to
play even with the laser pointer ! *MEGA-sigh* 

[Smog]

@randyT
My driver do work in win98. The only thing that is stil broken is the on-the fly update of the settings. You have to unplug/replug or stop/Start the driver after you update the settings (even moving the switch away from guncon2 mode and back will work).

@Patrickl
You surely have something worng with the installation, it's impossible the driver does not detect the guns. Probably to much dirvers on the USB messed your windows up.

[Silver]

Hmm well if the slowdown/lag is on the xbox that is poor (I've only tried PC). Although the video on their site for Xbox looks problem free.....

I've just played some zeropoint and while I'm not brilliant I can pass loads of the stage, which I really don't think you can do in that game if you have any lag....

[Silver]

Update.

TimeCrisis actually works great, I've previously said that the aiming is way off, but I'd missed the 'advanced' ingame calibration.

There is a standard calibration, which does not help, and an advanced calibration (6 steps) with Time crisis that got the aiming spot on. Hold down service button and hit the test switch to get to a menu for standard or advanced, select advanced, then go through each area, opting to calibrate at every stage. Nice and accurate now!

As far as I know this only leaves 3 games in mame that dont play properly with the guns. Jurassic park, Operation Wolf 3 and BeastBusters. All the rest will play great if you either go through the ingame calibration or use the modded build. Although if anyone finds more, please post.

[RandyT]

An update:

I took the XBOX into the bedroom and hooked up everything to the 37".  Had the same problems.  So I decided to find out what the gun could and couldn't see by watching the laser as I moved off the screen.  Turns out there may be some manufacturing issues, unless this is normal.

Thinking it made sense to do so, I stuck the LED bars to the sides of the monitor, as close to vertical screen center as possible.  Did the test, and found that the bottom, especially the corners, could not be seen by the camera. at a distance of 6 feet exactly with the bars 35.5" apart.  However, there was probably an extra foot (!) above the screen where the laser stayed on! WTH?

I moved the bars down so that the bottoms were flush to the bottom of the monitor, which put the top group of LEDs at roughly the center of the screen..  I can now easily hit the bottom of the screen and a few inches below. 

I thought my problem was solved, but not yet.  Just being able to hit the screen isn't good enough, you need to be able to hit the LEDs.  This meant pulling back another foot, otherwise I couldn't start the calibration sequence.

So, as it turns out, I may have a misaligned camera or bad optics in the gun, and it's possible that others may as well.  If the same thing is happening to you, shift the bars up or down, depending on what part of the screen you seem to lose range on.  I'll be looking to see how to adjust these things at some time to see if it can be fixed.

So a fairly satisfying game of HOTD3 was played, but it still seems awfully far away.  The arcade unit used a larger projection screen and you stand closer.

But it did seem to work a little better.

RandyT

[eastbayarb]

I got my 2 guns from play-asia within like a day of ordering (very fast service, especially for UPS).

I have only set one of them up, but I am currently using it with XBOX via component video (480p with my flat screen HDTV screen - it is NOT an LCD) I played 1 player using 1 gun with House of the Dead 3 and it works great! Weird thing is, When I try to play House of the Dead 2 (which is unlockable), in game I cannot shoot! Anyone else experience this?

I will try with my PS2 and PC soon...

[eastbayarb]

I know someone has mentioned that playing MAME with these guns, you need to set the resolution to always display at a fixed resolution, but how do you do this with MAME32? I am currently running MAME32 optimized for P4 version .103u4

[aljupy]

@Silver:

What I really do in Zombie Raid is:
1)I Run game
2)I press F2
3)I press F3
4)Using P1Start and P2start I go to the Callibration "in game"
5)I calibrate Both players (This calibration is like T2 or Revolution-X)
6)When I Finish all I press F2
7)I press F3

IMPORTANT: After all that I SAVE IN A STATE (Pressing Shift+F7) Because EVERY time I run the game, calibration is Lost. I Learned that 2 years ago with my ugly-crappy Act Labs (It was very painfull to me)

I can not run TIME CRISIS, I Have it in mame 0.95, I have timecrisisa (ROM) and timecrisisb (ROM). But none of them are working. It is not that important, Because I have it in PSX and in PS2. But it doesn´run in my PC. IT "goes out" after 1 minute that rom is loaded

@RANDYT (And everyBody):

For a XBOX:  Please, Use a "MAD CATZ BLASTER", or a "BERETTA 92 FS from CYBERGUN/INFOGRAMES" (Not the LCD TOP GUN). This two LightGuns are OFFICIAL And WILL NEVER DISAPPOINT YOU in Xbox Light-Gun games. They are specially designed for XBOX.

For a PS2: Please, use:

1)NAMCO GUNCON 2
2)SCORPION 3 from BLAZE
3)MAD CATZ BLASTER from "Mad Catz"
4)P992L from "Logic 3"

The only officiall is the Guncon2. This one will never Dissapoint you, the other ones are not official, but they work EXCELLENT for an alternative to the "Blue/Orange" NAMCO GUNCON2.

For a PC: Use a "LCD TOP GUN" (Ok, you know it he he he) You´ll never have problems with Dark games or LCD Screens. I think it is the best BECAUSE you can callibrate the EDGES and achive the PERFECT ACCURACY. Obviously, and as you said.....in a PS2 and in a Xbox you´ll shoot about 3 inches away the laser is. It seems that "hardaware Callibration" Is not the way in a PS2 or Xbox. So please, for XBOX and PS2 there are LightGuns Well designed to work FLAWLESSLY.
 After all, A PS2/Xbox Ligthgun game has been designed to work with the "Photo Sensor" Of that Lighguns.

If you think you´ll safe 10 USD just for buying another Ligth-Gun for console, cheapest of the ones mentioned above, I think you could be wrong.

IMHO I would consider the "LCD TOP GUN" just for "PC GAMES"  and for a PS2/Xbox with a Projector/Big LCD. But mainly just for "PC GAMES" I do not like this Light-Gun in a Xbox/Ps2, Just evade it for Consoles (Just a personall Tip,please, do not offense anyone)

About the LAG : Some months ago, We found in WINGUN A lag when playing House of Dead and mame. Acorns said,  that it could be in some VideoCards (mainly a Geforce 4 mx in my case), because WINGUN uses Direct commands and there are some VideoCards that can´t support "Wingun´s directx command + the game using directx + the troubleshooter´s directx commands" . (I hope I´m explainin it well).

YOU CAN SOLVE MAME LAG by Using the "MAME32PLUS+" or some people  (Like me) did it by disabling the Directx for MAME32. But for House of Dead.....You can not Disable "TROUBLESHOOTER" Wich uses Direct commands, too.


TO SOLVE IT FOR SURE JUST USE GUNCON2MOUSE. Because it is a MOUSEDRIVER.....Have someone found a Lag with an "Act Labs LightGun"?? -No,   Do you know Why?? -BECAUSE IT IS A MOUSE. So if you WANT A PURE MOUSE with your "LCD TOP GUN", please use: GUNCON2MOUSE.

SEE YA!!!!!!!!

[Silver]

I know someone has mentioned that playing MAME with these guns, you need to set the resolution to always display at a fixed resolution, but how do you do this with MAME32? I am currently running MAME32 optimized for P4 version .103u4

Once calibrated it appears that you do not need to fix resolutions. I've been testing lots of mame games and initially I was fixing the resolution to the desktop. But now I just the games and let mame decide - the gun stays calibrated through resolution changes fine for me.

[patrickl]

@Patrickl
You surely have something worng with the installation, it's impossible the driver does not detect the guns. Probably to much dirvers on the USB messed your windows up.

Smog,

I have seen several others talking of the same problem (IIRC RandyT also had it). I have tried on two different PC's and the gun is not detected on either. I assume it's something I'm doing wrong, but I cannot seem to figure it out.

Should I deinstall the EMS LCDgun drivers or something? Dunno how I would do that though.

[Smog]

Well patrickl let me understand what is happening exactly:

1) Windows does not detect the gun : there is no Guncon2 device + HID compliant mouse in windows device manger.
2) Control panel does not the detect the gun: You can find a GunCon2 device + HID compliant mouse in the device manager and this tells you the driver is corerctly installed.

In the first case you probably have another driver handling the device and you should uninstall it. Probably wingun and ems uses the same library to read the data from the gun and it is installed (as I explained before) on the USB so you can use one or the other just launching one of the two applications. Mine is different, it is a driver and must replace every library installed for doing that tricks.

The second case : Gun detected by windows, my driver installed (you see a guncon2 device and an HID compliant mouse in the windows device manager) ,but  control panel does not show the guns. This  has never happened before. If this is your situation, it is SURELY a bug in my control panel, but as I said .. I've never heard of it.

[ErikRuud]

Well patrickl let me understand what is happening exactly:

1) Windows does not detect the gun : there is no Guncon2 device + HID compliant mouse in windows device manger.
2) Control panel does not the detect the gun: You can find a GunCon2 device + HID compliant mouse in the device manager and this tells you the driver is corerctly installed.

In the first case you probably have another driver handling the device and you should uninstall it. Probably wingun and ems uses the same library to read the data from the gun and it is installed (as I explained before) on the USB so you can use one or the other just launching one of the two applications. Mine is different, it is a driver and must replace every library installed for doing that tricks.

The second case : Gun detected by windows, my driver installed (you see a guncon2 device and an HID compliant mouse in the windows device manager) ,but  control panel does not show the guns. This  has never happened before. If this is your situation, it is SURELY a bug in my control panel, but as I said .. I've never heard of it.

Smog,

I tried using your drivers again last night, and I believe I am having problem #2.  I am using Win2000.  I was able to install the driver.  I manually selected your driver through the New Hardware wizard.  The mouse pointer started to folow the gun, and after redoing the gun's hardware calibration the pointer started to track almost perfectly and mouse button 1 was assigned to the trigger.  I then opened the console and got a small popup that said "Unable to Register".  I clicked OK, and the console came up, but it does not see the gun.

[ErikRuud]

An update:

I took the XBOX into the bedroom and hooked up everything to the 37".  Had the same problems.  So I decided to find out what the gun could and couldn't see by watching the laser as I moved off the screen.  Turns out there may be some manufacturing issues, unless this is normal.

Thinking it made sense to do so, I stuck the LED bars to the sides of the monitor, as close to vertical screen center as possible.  Did the test, and found that the bottom, especially the corners, could not be seen by the camera. at a distance of 6 feet exactly with the bars 35.5" apart.  However, there was probably an extra foot (!) above the screen where the laser stayed on! WTH?

I moved the bars down so that the bottoms were flush to the bottom of the monitor, which put the top group of LEDs at roughly the center of the screen..  I can now easily hit the bottom of the screen and a few inches below. 

I thought my problem was solved, but not yet.  Just being able to hit the screen isn't good enough, you need to be able to hit the LEDs.  This meant pulling back another foot, otherwise I couldn't start the calibration sequence.

So, as it turns out, I may have a misaligned camera or bad optics in the gun, and it's possible that others may as well.  If the same thing is happening to you, shift the bars up or down, depending on what part of the screen you seem to lose range on.  I'll be looking to see how to adjust these things at some time to see if it can be fixed.

So a fairly satisfying game of HOTD3 was played, but it still seems awfully far away.  The arcade unit used a larger projection screen and you stand closer.

But it did seem to work a little better.

RandyT

Make sure the laser is aligned!  The thumb wheels are really sensitive.

I had to recalibrate my gun last night because I moved my cab to another part of the basement, and I was trying to install Smog's drivers.  I could not get the gun to see the right edge of the screen, It turned out that the laser was way off to the left which meant that the camera was pointing even farther right and losing site of the left LED's.

I aligned the laser so that the dot was perfectlly in line with the gun's sights and then everything worked great again.

[RandyT]

Yeah, I was using the site on the gun for that anyway.  I didn't notice an huge left to right differences with what the gun could "see", but I'll give that a look again.

The odd thing is that the laser, even when aligned with the site, stayed on while pointing at the LED group, yet wh the the trigger was pulled, it would't blink to indicate the beginning of the calibration procedure.

RandyT

[Fozzy The Bear]

Fuzzybear had a good idea, we should made a sticky thread about what emulator
is used succesfully in combination with this Topgun, it would help everyone and
safe alot time.

Thanks for the credit Ghosty.... But it wasn't me... LOL and It's Fozzy not Fuzzy  LOL ....

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

P.S. URGHHH!! Who changed all the emoticons to space invaders... Horrible!!

[ErikRuud]

Randy,

The laser will stay on no matter where the gun is pointed during calibration mode.

If the laser does not blink during calibration, the gun cannot see all of the LEDS or a reflection is causing trouble.

In my cabs current location there is a white wall behind the shooter. Besides the laser alignment problem, I was noticing a few odd spots where the gun couldn't track.  I tried turning off some of the lights, but that did not help.  I began to wonder if IR from the leds was reflecting off the wall and onto the monitor glass.  I turned my cab about 20 degress to the right and the problem went away.  I'll have to check with my camcorder toinight and see if I can see the IR reflections.

[Smog]

ErikRuud,
You are right because as we discussed some messages ag

[Gh0sty]

If the laser does not blink during calibration, the gun cannot see all of the LEDS or a reflection is causing trouble.

I had a lamp on behind my Monitor, an that caused alot trouble. external lights who come from
the same direction as the Monior towards the gun will make problems. I removed the lamp and
everything was ok.

[ErikRuud]

ErikRuud,
You are right because as we discussed some messages ag

[RandyT]

The laser will stay on no matter where the gun is pointed during calibration mode.

If the laser does not blink during calibration, the gun cannot see all of the LEDS or a reflection is causing trouble.

Whoops!  I knew that.  That's what I get for posting when I just get out of bed....

But to my original point.  From my position at 6' away, it could see the screen, but not the LED groups.  Depending on the size of the frame around your TV (or more importantly, arcade machine) the extra space can cause you to have to stand even further away.  It looks like the bare minimum distance of 77'" is required with the  center of the LED bars spaced at 36.5".  This would indicate a roughly 52 degree field of view for the gun. 

Based on this, I calculated that on my cab, with a 27" monitor (29" tube with a 4:3 aspect ration) and the LED bars affixed right to the side of the tube, the gun tip would still need to be at least 51" away to properly calibrate.  Now supposing you fire, as most do, with outstretched arms, and that that would place my person at about 6' from the cabinet.  In my opinion, this is a long way to be standing away from a machine with only a 27" monitor.  If games in the arcades required this, people would be blocking the aisles.

So, what I am wondering is: How do these numbers compare to what everyone else is seeing?

If nothing else, what can be gained from this is the knowledge that you absolutely must place those bars as close to the edge of the monitor as humanly possible.  Any extra distance added by placing them on the outside of the cab will cost you dearly in terms of the distance you must stand away to use the gun.

RandyT

[Fozzy The Bear]

So, what I am wondering is: How do these numbers compare to what everyone else is seeing?

Hi Randy,
                 I'm seeing about the same as far as distance goes. Which to be honest is not ideal.

I think it was Silver who said it was possible to mount the stands above and below the monitor instead, thus reducing the distance required. I havn't had chance to try that yet. But I'd guess it could help a lot in getting the stands closer together. Effectively on a ratio of 4:3 hence 3/4 of the current distance.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Silver]

Should do anyway - not tried it myself.

Also - would changing the angle of the stands so the LED's pointed "inwards" help at all. Should let you get close with all LED's visible, though may impact accuracy, or rather limit the area in which you can hold the gun.....

[RandyT]

Should do anyway - not tried it myself.

Also - would changing the angle of the stands so the LEDs pointed "inwards" help at all. Should let you get close with all LEDs visible, though may impact accuracy, or rather limit the area in which you can hold the gun.....

My opinion is that placing them in the other direction will further impact accuracy.  It seems that the further outside the pair you are, the greater the error.  This makes a certain amount of sense, as the reference becomes smaller.

And, angling the LEDs inward will not help the distance situation.  The gun is viewing the LED's, not vice-versa.  It is a good idea though.  The LEDs probably have a fairly narrow field of view, and angling them will probably make them appear brighter to the sensor in the gun.

I would really like to see a utility that painted an accurate picture of the view of the LEDs from the perspective of the sensor.  That would aid incredibly in the trouble shooting and setup of the device.

RandyT

[ChodTheWacko]

Also - would changing the angle of the stands so the LEDs pointed "inwards" help at all. Should let you get close with all LEDs visible, though may impact accuracy, or rather limit the area in which you can hold the gun.....

My opinion is that placing them in the other direction will further impact accuracy.  It seems that the further outside the pair you are, the greater the error.  This makes a certain amount of sense, as the reference becomes smaller.

And, angling the LEDs inward will not help the distance situation.  The gun is viewing the LED's, not vice-versa.  It is a good idea though. 

I had played with angling the leds when trying to get it work with my Front projector.  It had pretty minimal benefits, but then again I needed to shoot 'outside' of the led bars.  (the led bars were inside the screen).  I didn't need to do anything special on my 35"   tv or 14" lcd laptop)

I was also thinking, where is the LED camera?  Is it inside that little hole in the gun?  What happened if you drilled that hole a little bigger?  Wouldn't that give the camera a wider viewing angle?   

[ErikRuud]

So, what I am wondering is: How do these numbers compare to what everyone else is seeing?

Hi Randy,
                 I'm seeing about the same as far as distance goes. Which to be honest is not ideal.

I think it was Silver who said it was possible to mount the stands above and below the monitor instead, thus reducing the distance required. I havn't had chance to try that yet. But I'd guess it could help a lot in getting the stands closer together. Effectively on a ratio of 4:3 hence 3/4 of the current distance.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

Actually, I was the one that actually tested my gun this way.  Put the left hand stand on the top so that the top group is at the upper right corner.

Personally, I think that arcade lightgun games let you stand too close!  What challenge is there when the gun is a foot away from the screen?

[roylazarovich]

I would really like to see a utility that painted an accurate picture of the view of the LEDs from the perspective of the sensor.  That would aid incredibly in the trouble shooting and setup of the device.

I used to own a Track IR 3, which I believe was mentioned in this thread, the software that came with the product allowed you to view what the camera of the Track IR was seeing, that way you could get a crystal clear idea of how you should position the camera or yourself so that the tracking is optimal.

I don't know much about the TopGun as I did not recieve mine yet, but if it works somewhat similar, than perhaps someone could write such a program and this way we'll be able to see not only the distance that we should be at, but also if there is an interference from a light source.

Perhaps some programmers could approach the manufactorer and request an SDK to be able to develop such a program or other utilities.

[Silver]

I used to own a Track IR 3, which I believe was mentioned in this thread, the software that came with the product allowed you to view what the camera of the Track IR was seeing, that way you could get a crystal clear idea of how you should position the camera or yourself so that the tracking is optimal.

Out of curiosity does it work well, and can you use it in mame? I always thought the best solution possible for this would be to use TrackIR3, there "Vector" addition for the 6degrees of freedom, and mounting the vector unit onto an arcade gun. In the end I quit because they informed me they could not get it to work with units (think 2 guns) and was also very expensive....  Looked like it worked well though...

[roylazarovich]

Out of curiosity does it work well, and can you use it in mame? I always thought the best solution possible for this would be to use TrackIR3, there "Vector" addition for the 6degrees of freedom, and mounting the vector unit onto an arcade gun. In the end I quit because they informed me they could not get it to work with units (think 2 guns) and was also very expensive....  Looked like it worked well though...

The Track IR is not a gun system, it is used by Simulator players and allows for hands free head tracking, I'm not sure if it can be used as a gun system, but even if it was, it would be a pretty expensive solution, the Track IR 3 is $99 and Track IR 3 PRO is $129

As a head tracking device it works flawlessly

[RandyT]

I was also thinking, where is the LED camera?  Is it inside that little hole in the gun?  What happened if you drilled that hole a little bigger?  Wouldn't that give the camera a wider viewing angle?   

This is kind of like saying "maybe I could see better if I drilled holes in my eyeballs to make my pupils bigger"

Like your eye, this thing has an optical system.  There is a lense and a sensor.  Messing with any part of it, particularly destruction of the lense, will only render it inoperable.

The only thing one might be able to do is adjust the angle in relation to the barrel of the gun, but even that seems a little doubtful.

RandyT

[RandyT]

Since I had it apart, I thought it would be irresponsible of me not to take pictures of the camera....

So, what kind of camera has a transmit, receive, and reset lines?  Firewire?

RandyT

[jelwell]

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. 

Are there any consumer light guns that track in real-time, other than the LCD TopGun?

I know arcade games like Ghost Squad offer real-time tracking. But every gun I've ever seen, available to consumers, can only track when you pull the trigger. That's hardly real-time, that's more like click-time. Real time is continuous, it doesn't stop when, oh wait time just stopped while I was typing - nevermind.
Joseph Elwell.

[ChodTheWacko]

I was also thinking, where is the LED camera?  Is it inside that little hole in the gun?  What happened if you drilled that hole a little bigger?  Wouldn't that give the camera a wider viewing angle?   

This is kind of like saying "maybe I could see better if I drilled holes in my eyeballs to make my pupils bigger"

Like your eye, this thing has an optical system.  There is a lense and a sensor.  Messing with any part of it, particularly destruction of the lense, will only render it inoperable.

I didn't mean to imply that the sensor should be touched at all.
Let me rephrase my question.

The sensor isn't on the outside of the camera, it's inside that hole.
It seems pretty consistent that if the LED strips are X inches apart, you need to stand 2*x feet back.  If you do the math that's about a 50 degree viewing angle for the sensor on the gun.

Now, my thought is, is the viewing angle 50 degrees because the sensor only has a 50 degree field of view?  Or does the sensor natively have a wider viewing area, but it is 50 degrees only because it has 'tunnel vision' since it's inside a hole/tube?  (similar to how your field of vision is restricted when you look through a tube).

If it's the latter than making the hole bigger can widen the viewing angle of the sensor.

You would think that if you angle the LEDs towards the gun, you should be able to stand fairly close to the monitor.

[ErikRuud]

Since I had it apart, I thought it would be irresponsible of me not to take pictures of the camera....

So, what kind of camera has a transmit, receive, and reset lines?  Firewire?

RandyT

How difficult was it to dis-assemle?  How hard will it be to re-assemle?

[Santoro]

So, what kind of camera has a transmit, receive, and reset lines?  Firewire?

TX and RX are serial terms from my experience so my bet goes with Universal Serial Bus. This bolstered by the fact that its a USB device


I probably misunderstood the actual question that was being asked.

[ChodTheWacko]

Since I had it apart, I thought it would be irresponsible of me not to take pictures of the camera....

How difficult was it to dis-assemle?  How hard will it be to re-assemle?

yah - my entire train of thought can be easily proven/disproven by taping the sensor outside of the gun now, and seeing if you can shorten the minimum shooting distance.

If it's easy to reassemble, I'll give it a try.

[sci]

What the crap, now I cant calibrate my guns at all? whats going on? if I hold a+b, well .. the gnu never goes in calibration mode.

WHAT IS THIS!?

[Silver]

Are there any consumer light guns that track in real-time, other than the LCD TopGun?

I know arcade games like Ghost Squad offer real-time tracking. But every gun I've ever seen, available to consumers, can only track when you pull the trigger. That's hardly real-time, that's more like click-time.

Using smog's driver or wingun, any guncon2 compatible can "real-time" track in windows/mame. However, they can only track over BRIGHT areas of the screen. So a full screen desktop actually tracks quite well (although I had to turn the brightness up). Unfortunately games like Terminator2, which needs realtime tracking, is mostly dark so you it does not work properly. Some people reported success turning up the screen brightness, although this did nothing for me in black areas. (In my experience this also introduced errors, where often the first shot into a new bright area (eg a sprite in a game) would be off).

[RandyT]

Are there any consumer light guns that track in real-time, other than the LCD TopGun?

I know arcade games like Ghost Squad offer real-time tracking. But every gun I've ever seen, available to consumers, can only track when you pull the trigger.

That's a software thing.  Any lightgun can "track", it's up to the software to decide whether or not it should.  For an example of this, go into the calibration screens of just about any game and usually the crosshair will track the gun for testing purposes.  The reason a normal lightgun doesn't track all the time is because it prefers a white screen.

I didn't mean to imply that the sensor should be touched at all.
Let me rephrase my question.

The sensor isn't on the outside of the camera, it's inside that hole.

There is no "hole."    That thing you see leading to the outside world is a lens.  Behind it, it another lens.  It's all in that black cylinder (see the picture)  There is no adjustment of any kind anywhere.  This was a good engineering design to prevent things from messing up.  But it's only as good as the QC on the little black cylinder assemblies.  My opinion is that mine is a bit goofy based on where I need to place the stands.

Now, my thought is, is the viewing angle 50 degrees because the sensor only has a 50 degree field of view?  Or does the sensor natively have a wider viewing area, but it is 50 degrees only because it has 'tunnel vision' since it's inside a hole/tube?  (similar to how your field of vision is restricted when you look through a tube).

Knowing that the distance requirement is one of the primary shortcomings of this technology, you can bet the farm that they did everything possible to address that issue.  They would not be so dumb as to obstruct the field of view.

You would think that if you angle the LEDs towards the gun, you should be able to stand fairly close to the monitor.

It doesn't work like that.  If the cameras were in the LED bars, and the light source on the gun, yes.  But not this way. 

If it's outside the "field-of-view", then it's "invisible."   So pointing one way or the other will have no effect.

TX and RX are serial terms from my experience so my bet goes with Universal Serial Bus. This bolstered by the fact that its a USB device

USB doesn't have a reset or 3.3v line.  These might go to the camera stuff, but it's hard to say.  It's probably proprietary because I doubt the rest of the gun electronics are pretending to be a USB host, and the device enumerates as a single device (I think).  I'm pretty sure it's not firewire either for the same reasons.

It doesn't look like there's much of anything on that little board.  If there is, the entire thing must be encapsulated in that block of plastic behind the lens.

How difficult was it to dis-assemle?  How hard will it be to re-assemle?

You have to take out 1 screw.  The rest is a puzzle.  I don't recommend it to novices.

What the crap, now I cant calibrate my guns at all? whats going on? if I hold a+b, well .. the gnu never goes in calibration mode.

WHAT IS THIS!?

I panicked like that twice.  The first time was when I plugged it into the PC and then realized the gun wouldn't do anything until I installed drivers.  And the second time, I forgot that I turned the laser off.   Don't know if that helps.

RandyT

[buks]

okay here my 2 pence worth :

first of all, I got charged