Lightgun Gaming Advice

[Lamaman1971]

Hey Folks, Im building a Hyperspin cabinet replete with an AimTrack. Has anyone here got good recommendations for games/platforms to use it with?

[7theye]

http://www.act-labs.com/gun_gamelisting.htm

[BadMouth]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,119925.msg1271123.html#msg1271123

When I had an Act Labs CRT setup, the Model 2 emulator games and PC versions of the American Laser laserdisc games got the most play.

[romshark]

With some configuration, MAME and Supermodel (Model 3 emulator, with games like Lost World) work with the Aimtrak.

For other arcade systems, take a look at argonlefou's DemulShooter program. This program has support for Demul (Sega Naomi games like House of the Dead 2 and Confidential Mission), Model 2 (House of the Dead 1, Virtua Cop), some PC games, and even the Silent Hill arcade game and the Dolphin (Wii) emulator.

[DarthMarino]

[Rockstead]

Great videos, do you just do videos of the games that work or are there others that work just as well, has anyone done a complete list of games that work well? 'm not interested in the console gun games, just Arcade.

Also, can you play them without the mouse pointer? I've seen mention that people use the pointer because the calibration is poor, wouldn't the Aimtrak sensor bar resolve that? it's unclear to me if people are using that when they say they have issues.

[DarthMarino]

Great videos, do you just do videos of the games that work or are there others that work just as well, has anyone done a complete list of games that work well? 'm not interested in the console gun games, just Arcade.

Also, can you play them without the mouse pointer? I've seen mention that people use the pointer because the calibration is poor, wouldn't the Aimtrak sensor bar resolve that? it's unclear to me if people are using that when they say they have issues.

I will only do a video if it's playable.  A few gliches here and there are OK but nothing major. Most of the arcade games should be in my videos.  This includes anything in Demul, Model 2 or Supermodel. If anything is missing, let me know. The arcade versions of the American Laser games can supposedly be played with Daphne but I just stuck with the PC ports.

[yotsuya]

I have all the American Laser Games running in Daphne. They work well.

[Titchgamer]

I have dual aimtraks set up on my cab.

I run games through Mame and Sega M2 emulators and they work well but I can only get 1 gun to work with the M2 emulator.
This is due to the way the emulator handles dual light guns not the guns themselfs.

I always have the  crosshairs turned on for all games, I would prefer not to however they can loose calibration slightly mid game (Usually a few inches) and then it can go back to normal rinse and repeat.
Having the crosshairs on just lets you keep going without having to re-calibrate

As for the games I play my personal faves are Time Crisis, Point Blank, House of the Dead, Virtua Cop, T2, Carnevil and Crypt Killer.

Hope thats some help to you

[ArcadeBliss]

Demulshooter will solve all of rheae problems.

I have dual aimtraks set up on my cab.

I run games through Mame and Sega M2 emulators and they work well but I can only get 1 gun to work with the M2 emulator.
This is due to the way the emulator handles dual light guns not the guns themselfs.

I always have the  crosshairs turned on for all games, I would prefer not to however they can loose calibration slightly mid game (Usually a few inches) and then it can go back to normal rinse and repeat.
Having the crosshairs on just lets you keep going without having to re-calibrate

As for the games I play my personal faves are Time Crisis, Point Blank, House of the Dead, Virtua Cop, T2, Carnevil and Crypt Killer.

Hope thats some help to you

[Rockstead]

Great videos, do you just do videos of the games that work or are there others that work just as well, has anyone done a complete list of games that work well? 'm not interested in the console gun games, just Arcade.

Also, can you play them without the mouse pointer? I've seen mention that people use the pointer because the calibration is poor, wouldn't the Aimtrak sensor bar resolve that? it's unclear to me if people are using that when they say they have issues.

I will only do a video if it's playable.  A few gliches here and there are OK but nothing major. Most of the arcade games should be in my videos.  This includes anything in Demul, Model 2 or Supermodel. If anything is missing, let me know. The arcade versions of the American Laser games can supposedly be played with Daphne but I just stuck with the PC ports.

Sorry, I missed your compilation videos and had been looking at the videos for individual games, I actually got really excited to see so many of the games played great, I can't wait.

I'm not sure I saw Time Crisis 2,3,or 4.

Do newer games get emulated,  like Transformers light gun game and the Jurassic park one that has a wheel I think, and I think I saw another game that had a wheel and two guns.

[Rockstead]

I have dual aimtraks set up on my cab.

I run games through Mame and Sega M2 emulators and they work well but I can only get 1 gun to work with the M2 emulator.
This is due to the way the emulator handles dual light guns not the guns themselfs.

I always have the  crosshairs turned on for all games, I would prefer not to however they can loose calibration slightly mid game (Usually a few inches) and then it can go back to normal rinse and repeat.
Having the crosshairs on just lets you keep going without having to re-calibrate

As for the games I play my personal faves are Time Crisis, Point Blank, House of the Dead, Virtua Cop, T2, Carnevil and Crypt Killer.

Hope thats some help to you

Are you using the extra large sensor bar that is available from the Aimtrak seller, would that help at all in maintaining calibration and not using the cross hairs, I don't think I have seen any threads where someone mentions they are using this specific sensor bar.

[DarthMarino]

Sorry, I missed your compilation videos and had been looking at the videos for individual games, I actually got really excited to see so many of the games played great, I can't wait.

I'm not sure I saw Time Crisis 2,3,or 4.

Do newer games get emulated,  like Transformers light gun game and the Jurassic park one that has a wheel I think, and I think I saw another game that had a wheel and two guns.

I originally started with the compilation videos but I add them individually now as they become playable.

The first Time Crisis is the only one that works properly. Once you start getting into the 2000's, it's pretty unlikely that a game will be playable.  The Jurassic Park game came out last year so no one will touch it for at least 10 years.

[BadMouth]

I'm not sure I saw Time Crisis 2,3,or 4.

Do newer games get emulated,  like Transformers light gun game and the Jurassic park one that has a wheel I think, and I think I saw another game that had a wheel and two guns.

This emulation stuff is fun to tinker around with, but I have a feeling it isn't anywhere near the experience you're expecting. 
If you're expecting much more than playing some old games from the 80's-90's or wouldn't be happy with wii controller type gun control, prepare for disappointment.
Playing driving games standing up also gets old real fast.

There are a few newer (circa 2005-2012) Taito Type X games that originally used a standard PC running embedded windows which have been hacked to run on the standard versions of windows, but they can be more of a pain in the ass to configure and incorporate into a front-end than MAME.  Although nice looking 3D games, the pc requirements are actually pretty low for them since it's just running on the PC without the original arcade hardware needing to be emulated.

In between those years, there is Demul emulator which can run a lot of the Sega 3D games from the late 90's/early 2000's.
It will require a good current video card and modern OS that can support DirectX11 though.

There are also more accurate guns, but they are either hard to find and require you to have a CRT screen, or require you to buy a very expensive Sega arcade IR setup and figure out for yourself how to get it working on your setup.  The aim-trak is the best affordable solution on the market right now, but it isn't comparable to old school CRT guns IMO.
Again, if you're happy playing gun games with wii controllers you'll be happy with them.  If you're expecting to stand close to the cab and only rely on the gun sights like the old arcade games, you'll probably be disappointed.

[argonlefou]

Here are my thoughts about Aimtrak :

A few years ago I bought an original Time Crisis cab, and that's for sure : accurracy is way better with this kind of hardware
But not all arcade systems are as accurate as Namco's ! And this was the very same problem with Playstation (PSONE) Guncon45 vs third party reaaaaally inaccurate Lightguns 

Aimtrak is not the most accurate shooting hardware in the world, and it has some drawbacks :
- You can't really move around while playing because changing position change calibration. For me this never was an issue as I don't really move where I'm playing. But it can be when playing with someone else or giving the gun to someone who is smaller than me.
- Every small rotation (you know, if you want to play "Gansta Style" with horizontal handling  ) is also a loss of calibration
- You can't play too close to the screen or you'll never reach the bottom of the screen. This was the biggest issue for me (lack of space for big screen size)
- It's better to play in the dark or without any light interferences (sunlight, lamps...)

But knowing them and using Aimtrak in a correct way, it is far better than any Wiimote setting I used. Wiimote on Wii is really poor in terms of accuracy and I, personally, can't play at all with it....
I play all games without any cursors, spent a little (well, a lot in fact !)  time to calibrate the Aimtrak for every game in my cab (in fact you can use a mouse to calibrate them, it's the same and easier to do)  and I'm not that far from my old Arcade TIme Crisis highscore 

[Rockstead]

Here are my thoughts about Aimtrak :

A few years ago I bought an original Time Crisis cab, and that's for sure : accurracy is way better with this kind of hardware
But not all arcade systems are as accurate as Namco's ! And this was the very same problem with Playstation (PSONE) Guncon45 vs third party reaaaaally inaccurate Lightguns 

Aimtrak is not the most accurate shooting hardware in the world, and it has some drawbacks :
- You can't really move around while playing because changing position change calibration. For me this never was an issue as I don't really move where I'm playing. But it can be when playing with someone else or giving the gun to someone who is smaller than me.
- Every small rotation (you know, if you want to play "Gansta Style" with horizontal handling  ) is also a loss of calibration
- You can't play too close to the screen or you'll never reach the bottom of the screen. This was the biggest issue for me (lack of space for big screen size)
- It's better to play in the dark or without any light interferences (sunlight, lamps...)

But knowing them and using Aimtrak in a correct way, it is far better than any Wiimote setting I used. Wiimote on Wii is really poor in terms of accuracy and I, personally, can't play at all with it....
I play all games without any cursors, spent a little (well, a lot in fact !)  time to calibrate the Aimtrak for every game in my cab (in fact you can use a mouse to calibrate them, it's the same and easier to do)  and I'm not that far from my old Arcade TIme Crisis highscore 

All great info, thanks guys. Without knowing too much about this or how the management of the calibration is done. Using Hyperspin as my front end and whatever is used to manage the calibration, can I setup profiles for different players with their specific calibration? So I would have the games calibrated to my height and I could have the kids go through the same process and calibrate it for them and their height, I would set a line on the floor where you need to stand to manage that part. When they want to play, they would select their profile, not sure this is possible or how it is done if it is, or if the player just needs to go through calibrating every time they play if it will be different players.

[yotsuya]

No, it doesn't retain settings per player. They'll need to calibrate per play if the player changes.

[BadMouth]

You could mount them to your control panel with ball joint mounts so their position doesn't change. 

....or you could just accept their limitations and play by using the on-screen crosshairs.
Your kids aren't going to know any different.  I imagine everything they've ever played has worked that way.

[Rockstead]

You could mount them to your control panel with ball joint mounts so their position doesn't change. 

....or you could just accept their limitations and play by using the on-screen crosshairs.
Your kids aren't going to know any different.  I imagine everything they've ever played has worked that way.

I'll pass on the mounting, but I hear ya, there is a price to pay for perfection

It's a small limitation, I'm not hung up on the crosshairs, but even with crosshairs, it would be odd to play on something if it were poorly calibrated. Anyhow, I will have to experience this all first hand, I understand the limitations, it won't be a surprise at this point. Anyhow, those videos looked like a blast.

[argonlefou]

If you didn"t test yet, calibrating the aimtrak is done with 2 quick steps :
1) Enter calibration mode (you can choose what button to use and how long to let them pressed with Aimtrak software)
2) Shoot at the cursor on screen (cursor will move to 3 specific location)

So, I don't know what can be done with frontends, but you can imagine something like this :
1) Create a false game called something like "calibration", and make it show any black screen with 3 spots corresponding to where the cursor will move
2) Enter calibration mode with aimtrak and shoot at the 3 spots
3) aimtrak returns to normal mode autoatically, so go back to main menu and select any real game to play

Or you can do this before launching the frontend, maybe with a choice (calibrate or not if you want).....according to what you can do yourself with software tweakening/programming 

[Slippyblade]

You could always just make a batch file that would run the calibration and then run the chosen game.  Setup your frontend to call the batch file instead of the game directly.  Then it would calibrate each time the game was launched.

[Titchgamer]

I have dual aimtraks set up on my cab.

I run games through Mame and Sega M2 emulators and they work well but I can only get 1 gun to work with the M2 emulator.
This is due to the way the emulator handles dual light guns not the guns themselfs.

I always have the  crosshairs turned on for all games, I would prefer not to however they can loose calibration slightly mid game (Usually a few inches) and then it can go back to normal rinse and repeat.
Having the crosshairs on just lets you keep going without having to re-calibrate

As for the games I play my personal faves are Time Crisis, Point Blank, House of the Dead, Virtua Cop, T2, Carnevil and Crypt Killer.

Hope thats some help to you

Are you using the extra large sensor bar that is available from the Aimtrak seller, would that help at all in maintaining calibration and not using the cross hairs, I don't think I have seen any threads where someone mentions they are using this specific sensor bar.

The extra large bar is for use with large screens and projectors etc as when pointing to  the edges of the screen the sensors loose track however my screen is only 21" so not a problem for me.

You could always just make a batch file that would run the calibration and then run the chosen game.  Setup your frontend to call the batch file instead of the game directly.  Then it would calibrate each time the game was launched.

The calibration does not work that way sadly, It varies depending on light levels, Angle, Height etc.
Basicly you have to calibrate every time you play but it only takes a few seconds and can be done in game without having to leave the game or front end.

[Titchgamer]

Demulshooter will solve all of rheae problems.

I have dual aimtraks set up on my cab.

I run games through Mame and Sega M2 emulators and they work well but I can only get 1 gun to work with the M2 emulator.
This is due to the way the emulator handles dual light guns not the guns themselfs.

I always have the  crosshairs turned on for all games, I would prefer not to however they can loose calibration slightly mid game (Usually a few inches) and then it can go back to normal rinse and repeat.
Having the crosshairs on just lets you keep going without having to re-calibrate

As for the games I play my personal faves are Time Crisis, Point Blank, House of the Dead, Virtua Cop, T2, Carnevil and Crypt Killer.

Hope thats some help to you

I will look into that thanks.

[argonlefou]

The calibration does not work that way sadly, It varies depending on light levels, Angle, Height etc.
Basicly you have to calibrate every time you play but it only takes a few seconds and can be done in game without having to leave the game or front end.

It's just a little less easier when you play games without any cursor, you can't know if the calibration has begun, if the shot has been registered and if the process has moved to the next calibration location. Hence the idea of a simple screen inside the fronted where cursor is shown to have visual feedback

For the very same reason, I highly advise not to use "Left clic" aimtrak button to launch calibration, as it will be executed when playing game like gunblade, time crisis 2 with machinegun-like weapons (finger staying on the trigger for a long time)
And with no visual feedback, it's really weird when controls are not working anymore because you're in calibration mode 

[dgrace]

I wish someone could post a quick tutorial video on how to set up demulshooter from start to finish including how to set it up in Hyperspin / RLUI.  That would be awesome because i'm super lost.  Thanks

[Titchgamer]

You dont have to set it up in hyperspin, but you do have to modify some code to start it with the correct games in RL.

There is a thread on here somewhere that I made about it, sorry I cant link atm as I am on phone but it depends on the emu etc you are wanting to use it with.

[TimeCrisis]

Hey Folks, Im building a Hyperspin cabinet replete with an AimTrack. Has anyone here got good recommendations for games/platforms to use it with?

list of games I have are

Time Crisis 1
Time crisis II
Time Crisis 3
Time Crisis 1: Special Story
The House of the dead 2
The House of the dead 1
Crisis Zone
Confidential Mission
The house of the dead overkill
Time crisis: Project Titan
Ghost Squad
Vampise Night
The house of the dead III
The Lost World
Ninja Assaultd
The maze of the kings
Virtua cop 1 / 2
Silent hill
Blue estate

[dgrace]

Time Crises 1: MAME raw input version
Time Crises 2, 3, and Crisis Zone: pcsx2 emulator with nuvee plugin. Haven't tried yet. Heard works but a bit complicated to set up.
HOTD: Sega Model 2 Emulator
HOTD2: Demul emulator using Sega Naomi
HOTD overkill: Dolphin emulator. Dolphin should recognize Aimtrak. Use Demulshooter to get dual mode working
Confidential Mission: Demul Sega Naomi
Time Crisis Project Titan: Heard expse emulator and nuvee plugin should do the trick. Difficult to set up
Ghost Squad: Dolphin- Aimtrak gun should be recognized
Vampire Night: Same as time crises 2,3, Crises zone
HOTD3: PC player 1 should automatically recognize aimtrak gun
Lost World: Supermodel emulator. You'll need to player around with config ini file settings. Usually mouse or mouse1 should work for plater 1. Remember to hit alt+I to get the crosshair to show
Ninja asault: Demul sega naomi
Maze of the Kings: Demul Sega naomi. Remember to go into game settings and calibrate the game in game. I think it's f2?
Virtua Cop 1 & 2: Sega Model 2
Blue Estate: pc - aimtrak should automatically recognize as a mouse
Silent Hill: pc- Google forum should have instructions on how to get working. It's a little tricky. Read comments at bottom for troubleshooting tips