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

[JODY]

Second gun doesn't appear to be good though.  Rarely registers.  Can't go through the auto calibrate option of WinGun.   Have swapped the two guns several times.  First one always works great...second doesn't...  Will retry tomorrow...

[Farmboy90]

Quick update.

The problem also exists (and is fixable) in golgo13. I suspect it also exists in critcrsh, however the game does not currently work.

I have also updated a patch for all the games to mamedev, as I have had feedback suggesting the fix could be accepted. So hopefully, all these games will work fine in normal mame sometime soon.

Other feedback suggests that the behaviour of jurassic park and opwolf3 could be trickier, as they used analog joysticks not lightguns in real life, and its quite likely that there odd tracking is part of the game to compensate for the mechanical controls (I suspect this is defintately the case for jpark). Its quite likely that only a hack would make them playable with any lightgun, although I'd love someone to prove me wrong. Anyone tried these with a analog joystick?

Someone was over my house last weekend and played Jurassic Park for about 20 minutes using my flight stick.  The kid loved it.  I never played so I couldn't tell you how well it played.  But he played it in the arcade and said he never got that far before.  So I guess he loved playing it with the analog stick.

[Flinkly]

it seems like the whole jurassic park thing is the data is being read in a diffferent scale, in this case, probably a tapered pot.  we should be able to 'correct' the driver by re-adjusting the output or by taking out the in game adjustment of data in the first place.  sounds like this is going to be a power mame thing as regular mame would probably stick to true documentation of the analog sticks. 

so we've got a documented case of someone being able to play it with an analog stick?  or was it just 'playable' like star wars is with a 49-way stick?

[Fozzy The Bear]

it seems like the whole jurassic park thing is the data is being read in a diffferent scale, in this case, probably a tapered pot.  we should be able to 'correct' the driver by re-adjusting the output or by taking out the in game adjustment of data in the first place. 

Not exactly..... It's more of a problem than that. In the arcade, the left hand gun (stick) is restricted to the left side of the screen and the right gun (stick) is restricted to the right side of the screen.  In mame the original game rom is expecting the same behavior but the drivers are feeding it information to track the whole width of the screen.  It's a big rewrite problem, and one that's not going to be solved quickly.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Minwah]

Not exactly..... It's more of a problem than that. In the arcade, the left hand gun (stick) is restricted to the left side of the screen and the right gun (stick) is restricted to the right side of the screen.  In mame the original game rom is expecting the same behavior but the drivers are feeding it information to track the whole width of the screen.  It's a big rewrite problem, and one that's not going to be solved quickly.

So what happens in 1 player mode?  You only get enemies on the left side of the screen?

Edit: interestingly it seems Jurassic Park didn't even use a gun...just analog trigger sticks: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=J&game_id=8262

[Minwah]

My other question is if i can tell mamewah to run mamegun on the lightgun list only. I am trying to avoid treating it like a completely different emulator. I have seen references to this being possible, but can not find where there is an example or instructions on how to do it.

Use a list-specific ini file which uses a different emulator...or just use Silver's all-games build.

[aljupy]

I did notice a little lag when moving the gun fast across the screen but in actual play I pay attention to the sights on the gun and not the cursor on the screen.  Did notice a couple of times that I squeezed the trigger but a shot did not register and a few times think the lag didn't allow it to be on target when I squeezed the trigger.  Found I had the "Enhance Pointer Precision

It seems that some People found a LAG with WINGUN. some pople founds a BIG LAG other found just a littlle lag and other people don´t found ANY lag.

If LAG is annoying you. Use GUNCON2MOUSE from http://xoomer.virgilio.it/smogdragon/

Personally I use WINGUN for "multiplayer games" and Guncon2mouse for "Troubleshooter compatible games", because my PC is suffering BIG LAG when troubleshooter+Wingun+HOD2 is running.
Save your profiles in each Driver to save headhaches with callibrations  You can not install both at same time, you always need to uninstall one

[Fozzy The Bear]

So what happens in 1 player mode?  You only get enemies on the left side of the screen?

Edit: interestingly it seems Jurassic Park didn't even use a gun...just analog trigger sticks: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=J&game_id=8262

Even more interesting.... Is it possible that those trigger sticks are using LOG Pots... and not linear ones. If that's the case then it would explain the acceleration of the cursor to the outside edges.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Smog]

If that's the case it can software-fixed in the driver. Instead of sending data to windows in a linear fashion it can be done using an exponential function ....

[Silver]

Well it would be great if you could add options to shape how you feed the data.

With jpark, as suggested by aaron, the behaviour is probably because of how close the guns are mounted to the screen. I seems to accelerate across the middle of the screen, and slow down at the edges.

opwolf3 is different. In the in-game calibration it gives you the gun co-ordinates and they appear to track nicely across the whole screen, but in game I find the cursor is calibrated to the top right, then accelerates out from there in every direction. Top right is 0,0 in the game (as seen in calibration screen). The thing I find strange here is that it reads co-ordinates over the WHOLE screen in calibration, but in-game if you only move the gun over say 1/4 of the screen, the crosshair has already passed over the whole screen. Its like the calibration and in-game don't actually match up at all.

[Lilwolf]

One game I was hoping would work is starwars. 

I know it wouldn't be authentic... but I thought it would be fun using a gun to shoot darth out of the air.

I was a bit dissapointed that when you turn off mouse and turn on lightgun, it doesn't use it everywhere. 

Anyone know if this could be a driver issue?  or is it ingame?  Seems like it would be a driver issues since the joysticks seems exact (and not relative)

Any other games that should work? 

[Smog]

@silver
It seems to me that opwolf3 is broken if it acts the way you say ...
@lilwolf
Actually I don't think you can use the gun as a joystick.

[Minwah]

With jpark, as suggested by aaron, the behaviour is probably because of how close the guns are mounted to the screen. I seems to accelerate across the middle of the screen, and slow down at the edges.

I don't think this is the case, because the game did not seem to actually use guns, just analog sticks - Aaron even points this out at MameTesters...which makes it very bizzare that the game's input is treated as 'lightgun' in MAME.

[Smog]

I just received the 2 guns. 31 euro of taxes. And this seem to happen sistematically in Italy. So anyone take in account the taxes too before ordering. At this price I am not sure they still worth the try

[ssc arcade]

I got my gun yesterday and did some testing, didn't have a chance until late and only messed with it about 1/2 hour or so but it seemed to be working OK so far.

I am using acorn's wingun driver, win xp sp1, P4 2.8GHz, 21" computer monitor.

I mounted the strips on the sides of the monitor with velcro tape (worked good) followed ErikRudd's instruction from his site and his link to Silver Fox steps (very helpful, thanks).  (stupid person question, do the led's on the strip use visible light, should I be able to see when they are powered?)

Went through the hardware calibration, mouse seems shaky, from standing about 5 to 6' away I cannot minimize any windows and hard to hit any icon in particular.

Then I went through the wingun calibration, this went pretty good, Question should I get something at the end of the targets or does it just go to windows after 6.  I don't know if I am missing or if it is complete.

One item I did notice is that my laser pointer would drift off very quickly from sighted in, I would set it to be centered on my aim and in a dozen or so shots it was off by more than an inch or 2.  I learned not to use the laser to aim with.  This may be due to the recoil.

Also I was not too concerned about the laser pointer but I know I was getting some reflection of my CRT, my eyes hurt after using it a short amount of time.  I recommend turning it off, I know I will have to tape it down or one of my kids will point it at his sister.

Tried to play some mame games duckhunt and hogans alley, cursor was all over the screen and could not get a hit.  I am using std command line mame.

I do not know where to edit my mame.ini as stated in silver fox's instructions.  Do I need to calibrate these games before running?  If I am using it as a mouse shouldn't these games work with -mouse option?

I did have a good old basement bare bulb on ceiling close to arcade (between me and the monitor) it did help to turn that off.

Thanks for the help

[Fozzy The Bear]

I just received the 2 guns. 31 euro of taxes. And this seem to happen sistematically in Italy. So anyone take in account the taxes too before ordering. At this price I am not sure they still worth the try

This only happens when people order two or more guns from a store supplier.... It's happened to some people in the UK as well.  

The problem is that by ordering two guns it actually looks like a commercial purchase so you get taxed on it.  I'll take bets that the company supplying them to you also put an invoice in the package. That kind of proves that you were buying them and are therefore liable for the tax.

I went straight to the manufacturer not via a third party store and mine arrived in a plain wrapper, with no invoice, and the customs declaration marked as "Gift"

Under EU Law, They can't tax you when someone gives you a gift with a value below about

[Smog]

It did not happen to me only, other friends from other italian forums took one per each and they paid 20 euro taxes ... probably play-asia does not use to write GIFT on the box ... this was really not a gift for me (31 euro ?!? Are they crazy ?!? )

[Fozzy The Bear]

(31 euro ?!? Are they crazy ?!? )

They're Customs and Tax People! Of course they're crazy! 

Are they taxing you on the cost of the postage as well as the cost of the guns? that seems like an awful high rate of tax.  Can't you complain to the customs service?

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Lilwolf]

It does work in many joystick games (Term2, ect)...  There really shouldn't be much difference...

ESPECIALLY since joysticks games are usually not relitave... the standard mice (which they work with) are... And the lightguns are not... Seems like there would be an easier and more direct mapping from the lightgun->joystick then a mouse->joystick.

but I still say that starwars would be fun with these guns, if we can get it to work.

@lilwolf
Actually I don't think you can use the gun as a joystick.

[ErikRuud]

I got my gun yesterday and did some testing, didn't have a chance until late and only messed with it about 1/2 hour or so but it seemed to be working OK so far.

I am using acorn's wingun driver, win xp sp1, P4 2.8GHz, 21" computer monitor.

I mounted the strips on the sides of the monitor with velcro tape (worked good) followed ErikRudd's instruction from his site and his link to Silver Fox steps (very helpful, thanks).  (stupid person question, do the led's on the strip use visible light, should I be able to see when they are powered?)

The clear LED's are infrared, you should not be able to see any light from them.  Your camcorder proably can.  Only the one red led should show visible light.

Went through the hardware calibration, mouse seems shaky, from standing about 5 to 6' away I cannot minimize any windows and hard to hit any icon in particular.

The shakiness you describe is normal.  So far Smog's driver seems to have the least jitter.

Then I went through the wingun calibration, this went pretty good, Question should I get something at the end of the targets or does it just go to windows after 6.  I don't know if I am missing or if it is complete.

Yes, It exits to windows after six targets.

One item I did notice is that my laser pointer would drift off very quickly from sighted in, I would set it to be centered on my aim and in a dozen or so shots it was off by more than an inch or 2.  I learned not to use the laser to aim with.  This may be due to the recoil.

The lasers do not stay aligned, the vibration of the recoil can real mess them up.

Also I was not too concerned about the laser pointer but I know I was getting some reflection of my CRT, my eyes hurt after using it a short amount of time.  I recommend turning it off, I know I will have to tape it down or one of my kids will point it at his sister.

In normal operation the laser will shut off when it cannot see the screen, so can't point the laser directly at someone off to the side or behind you.  Reflecting the beam off the screen is another issue.  The laser shoukld really only be used durin calibration.

Tried to play some mame games duckhunt and hogans alley, cursor was all over the screen and could not get a hit.  I am using std command line mame.

I do not know where to edit my mame.ini as stated in silver fox's instructions.  Do I need to calibrate these games before running?  If I am using it as a mouse shouldn't these games work with -mouse option?

Some MAME game do have in game calibration.  I don't think that DuckHunt does.  You do need to edit the mame.ini file because the defaults do not work for light guns.  If you do not have a mam.ini file in your MAME folder you will have to create it using the command "mame -cc"

I did have a good old basement bare bulb on ceiling close to arcade (between me and the monitor) it did help to turn that off.

Thanks for the help

[Minwah]

If I am using it as a mouse shouldn't these games work with -mouse option?

No, use lightgun (mouse & lightgun are different as far as MAME is concerned).

[ErikRuud]

Using the mouse option causes MAME to read the mouse in relative mode (essentially all movement is expressed as an offset from the last position).

The lightgun option switches it to absolute mode which uses coordinates to indicate where the gun is pointing.

[unclet]

My kids used my ACtLAbs TV USB lightgun to play Jurassic Park and they shot a bunch of stuff.   It was not until I went over there to watch them play that I realized the lightgun crosshairs were not really moving around the screen when the gun was shot.

Thing is, the crosshairs start somewhere on the screen and you can shoot the big T-Rex at the beginning and get farther in the game.   The crosshairs kind of move a bit on their own, but does not move where they should ....

.... anyway, this might explain how the kids were able to "play" Jurassic Park.......

FYI

[Flinkly]

i'm not sure i'm reading your post right, but the crosshairs are displayed incorrectly, so the guns shoot where sighted?  or were the kids just moving the guns wherever to get the sights on a bad guy?

[unclet]

i'm not sure i'm reading your post right, but the crosshairs are displayed incorrectly, so the guns shoot where sighted?  or were the kids just moving the guns wherever to get the sights on a bad guy?

the crosshairs are displayed incorrectly at the beginning, so the guns shoot where sighted, which happens to be in a place to get some good shots at the TRex ....

[MKChamp]

How is the work on a new driver coming? Anyone getting closer? Is it a race between SMOG, ACORN and EMS??

[Smog]

First impression: Calibrating this gun is a friggin nightmare!!!!!!!

The autocalibration in my driver works fine (how this can happen is still a mistery to me) but using the control panel is way damn impossible!!!! How were you able to use it ? My dear old guncon2 was a little jewel compared to this.... however ... it's still magical to see it work (a little) on my LCD ...

[jelwell]

Does anyone have a patch for MAME that will add simultaneous tracking for two lightguns? I know I can use Analog or AdvanceMAME but I roll my own for myself and some friends (to disable cheating and to use a single, networked, high score directory). It would be nice if I could patch my build rather than run a different one for the lightgun games.

I started to dig into AnalogMAME's source to see if I could pull their fix out, it seems doable but I want to make sure I'm not reinventing the wheel before I begin.
Joseph Elwell.

[Silver]

First impression: Calibrating this gun is a friggin nightmare!!!!!!!

The autocalibration in my driver works fine (how this can happen is still a mistery to me) but using the control panel is way damn impossible!!!! How were you able to use it ? My dear old guncon2 was a little jewel compared to this.... however ... it's still magical to see it work (a little) on my LCD ...

I ended up doing it manually. My values (this may be worthless for all I know):

Top: 30
Left: 150
Right: 660
Bottom: 225

Thats with the stands either side of a 19" LCD. This works perfectly for me. I just plug it back in and it works. No re-calibration needed at all.

[Silver]

Does anyone have a patch for MAME that will add simultaneous tracking for two lightguns? I know I can use Analog or AdvanceMAME but I roll my own for myself and some friends (to disable cheating and to use a single, networked, high score directory). It would be nice if I could patch my build rather than run a different one for the lightgun games.

I started to dig into AnalogMAME's source to see if I could pull their fix out, it seems doable but I want to make sure I'm not reinventing the wheel before I begin.
Joseph Elwell.

Those are the only builds I know that can do it (possibly NoName too?). I believe AdvanceMame has code specifically dependant on the driver you use - I believe it checks for Smogs driver. Although I've had issues getting advancemame to work in windows, even without any flash gfx generation.

[Smog]

lol silver It's funny you suggest me what are the right setting for my driver

However the following are what the autocalibration gives me back all the time (seems it does not depend by hardware calibration ... I must go deeply through this) :

D 223
L 162
R 671
U 32

GunCon2PC Control panel is full of bullshits!!!! I'll spend the night in trying to fix it ...

[Silver]

lol silver It's funny you suggest me what are the right setting for my driver

Yeah I thought so - couldn't resist!

However the following are what the autocalibration gives me back all the time (seems it does not depend by hardware calibration ... I must go deeply through this) :

D 223
L 162
R 671
U 32

Interesting it does not depend on hardware - maybe it always gives out set values, and alters when/where it gives them dependant on hardware calibration - that would make it nice and easy to configure if everyone needs the same values...?

GunCon2PC Control panel is full of bullshits!!!! I'll spend the night in trying to fix it ...

I'm actually quite pleased to see you say that. The driver does work well, but to get it working well was an absolute nightmare. Hope you get it sorted!

[patrickl]

I use similar calibration settings too for a 19" screen and a 28" TV. In Wingun though. Guess the calibration is already done by the hardware calibration.

[cobey]

when working, these guns are great. I have them calibrated in wingun and they are dead on, even after switching multiple usb ports. The main problem i am having is that they draw ALOT of power. At least that is what i am guessing is my problem.  Here is a rundown of my problems

if i start the cabinet with a gun connected to one of the built in usb ports, games run way too slow. If i plug in the gun after windows has started, its all good.

I plugged gun one (and the leds) into a belkin usb 2.0 4 port powered hub. It is the only thing plugged into it. The gun will play great for a while, but will eventually not be recognized by windows. Wait a few seconds, reinitialized and all is good. Over and over again. Guessing hub is not powerful enough?? Anyone? ideas?

Tried a powered usb hub i had sitting around (not 2.0), did not work. Windows would not recognize the gun and said something about the hub not having enough power for the device. I tried moving the mouse and control panel onto this hub to free up some juice for gun 2, no difference.

Anyone have any suggestion. I am guessing that i need two new powered usb hubs. Anyone found any good, powerful ones on the cheap?

Also, though i should include that i do not have the recoil powered.

[shawn]

Anyone have any suggestion. I am guessing that i need two new powered usb hubs. Anyone found any good, powerful ones on the cheap?

Also, though i should include that i do not have the recoil powered.

Im using this USB hub from Best Buy 19.99.  I found it in the store.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6620463&type=product&id=1082119934961

Odd thing is that if I power it with the AC adapter it won't recognise USB devices correctly.  If I plug one in and then something else, the first one that was plugged in turns off.  I fixed this problem by not using the AC adapter at all and now I have both guns (without the recoil) and an external drive working.  Weird.

[Silver]

if i start the cabinet with a gun connected to one of the built in usb ports, games run way too slow. If i plug in the gun after windows has started, its all good.

I've seen this with other usb devices - its not just your games, probably your whole system is slow. NEver quite nailed it - I think it was a strange over-polling problem or something, possibly down to motherboard bios issues. Modern bios' enumerate the usb ports to look for devices, and it seems some don't always deal with this correctly like windows does. Have a look in your bios settings for any usb options that might help....

[JODY]

If LAG is annoying you. Use GUNCON2MOUSE from http://xoomer.virgilio.it/smogdragon/

I installed Smog's driver but it doesn't recognize that I have a gun plugged in.  The WinGun driver works fine.

[Silver]

If you already have Wingun installed, you may have to go to device manager and force the "gun" to change the driver to Smogs one.....

[JODY]

Second gun doesn't appear to be good though.  Rarely registers.  Can't go through the auto calibrate option of WinGun.   Have swapped the two guns several times.  First one always works great...second doesn't...  Will retry tomorrow...

My second gun is going to have to be returned.  Everything appeared fine except it wouldn't calibrate.  Would try the auto calibrate feature in WinGun and could rarely get the cursor to move on screen.  When it did move, it would tend to go right when I was moving the gun left.  I could move the gun all around the screen and it would recognize when it was off screen and shut off the laser so assume there is something wrong with sending the signal to the PC.

[JODY]

If you already have Wingun installed, you may have to go to device manager and force the "gun" to change the driver to Smogs one.....

I uninstalled Wingun prior to installing Smogs but still no go.  Tried unplugging the gun and plugging it back in, etc.

Also tried all the drivers on a Win98 machine and could not get anything to work.  Wingun gave some errors on install and uninstall dealing with needing 16-bit DLLs instead of 32-bit.  There was only one install version.  Could not get Smog's or the drivers from the gun manufacturer to recognize the gun was installed.

Wingun is the only driver that has recognized the guns on my XP machine.