AE light gun configuration

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Pepsikrazy
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AE light gun configuration

Post by Pepsikrazy » Sat Dec 03, 2022 5:14 pm

I just recieved my AE light guns the other day and was wondering if anybody had any experience in setting the calibration. When i plug the guns in and attempt to aim the crosshair is all over the place, and more off screen then on. On the gun there is a calibration button. When u press the button it will stop where it is on the screen so u can target it. Then it will move to a corner of the screen for u to tatget then to the opposite corner to target. But when i do this the crosshair is only 25% on the screen for all 3 calibrations. Making it hard to target properly. Then when i am done the target is just as irratic as before. 100 % unplayable. I am able to program all the buttons on the gun, just cant get the calibration right. I am sure i am missing something simple in this setup and was wondering if anybody had suggestions.

Where do you recommend placing the sensor bar, above or below the screen? I currently am using this setup in a custom aracde unit with a 19" LCD. I have a trackball and spinner and both work great. Any suggestions are more then welcome. I have been waiting 30 yrs to kill the T-1000

Thanks
Jody

dee2eR
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Re: AE light gun configuration

Post by dee2eR » Sun Dec 04, 2022 7:00 am

While I don't have any experience with the AE lightgun it should be possible to use one way or another as I have used Aimtrack, GUN4ir, Sinden and a bunch of others on RPi before. As I don't have the AE I'll do my best to help but it may take some figuring out.

What Pi version do you have? What ARpiCADE version are you trying to use? Also what res is your monitor running at? (high res is likely to be easier to setup as it doesn't change resolution) And does the gun you're using need any special drivers? (as far as I know only Sinden needs special drivers).

In my experience gun level calibration is best done from within X on Linux, direct fram buffer output tends to make it harder for whatever reason. For some guns I've had the best luck calibrating it on the same monitor but on a different operating system. If you're using ARpiCADE 4.4 (the last one I've played with guns on) there's a option in the service menu to launch X to calibrate gun(s).

Once calibrated you still may need to adjust sensitivity on a game by game basis within MAME but should only need to happen once for each game. This can help adjust for things like T2 actually used an analog joystick in a gun case and not a lightgun, makes a good light gun game though...

Pepsikrazy
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Re: AE light gun configuration

Post by Pepsikrazy » Mon Dec 05, 2022 2:28 am

Thanks for the reply and I will do my best to answer the questions u have. So I have a Pi4 running Arpicade version 4.3, and I have a high res only version of your board. The AE lightgun does not require any additional drivers, just plug and play. Calibration and button assignment is the only thing should have to do. I have no problem programming all the buttons to do what I want, just cant get the calibrating to work just yet.

Do you recommend using version 4.4? This is not strictly a lightgun game build as I have all my mame, and dreamcast games in this build. I am running a trackball, spinner, 2 joysticks, and soon 2 working guns.

I also noticed today as I was programming the buttons on the 2nd gun that the 2 guns were both programming the same. So when u look in the config menu it would say player 1 and 2 have the same trigger. So one gun is controlling both players. Is there a way of renaming the buttons instead of mouse 1, mouse 2, so that i dont end up with 2 guns the same, or re number them.

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Re: AE light gun configuration

Post by dee2eR » Mon Dec 05, 2022 4:12 am

Normally I don't recommend 4.4 (unless your Pi won't run anything else) but for light gun use it has some advantages and in high res a lot of 4.4s issues are avoided. Cheifly, more of the emulators can handle 2 guns as sepperate inputs. On 4.3 (or earlier) I think only AdvMAME (MAME 106) will recognize different individual mice inputs.

Unfortunately 4.4 is a 'pre-release' so may have some surprises, if you have a spare SD card you may want to not overwrite your 4.3 build straight away... I released it just for the new Pi4s that are not compatible with older software as a workaround but originally it was the build I was making for lightgun use.

Pepsikrazy
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Re: AE light gun configuration

Post by Pepsikrazy » Sun Dec 11, 2022 3:31 pm

So I have made some progress. I have 4.4 installed and working with the bug fix. After alot of attempts I have the guns tracking much better, but not perfect. I was having major issues mapping the directions of the gun, but found a way of doing it with my trackball so it gave me the direction value.

But the other big issue I can not figure out how to do is re-name the mice I have plugged into my Pi4. As of now I have a trackball, spinner, and to guns. Typically it is not an issue as I am only using mouse at a time. But with the guns I really wanna use 2 at the same time but all 4 mice program the same. Is there a way to have each mouse have its own name? Just like joy1 and joy2, can we do mouse 1, mouse 2 and etc?

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Re: AE light gun configuration

Post by dee2eR » Tue Dec 13, 2022 7:09 am

It varies from emulator to emulator.

AdvMAME should see them as unique mice without any extra settings. Which is mouse 1 seems to depend on which USB ports are used on the Pi... it's probably more complicated with your extra mice but I imagine it should still assign each mouse it's own identifyer and if you don't swap USB plugs they're probably going to be consistant accross multiple boots.

Retroarch can also see multiple mice in many of its cores (although setup is a bit fiddly, you need to assign the mice to the player(s) in the RA menus).

I haven't figured out newer dedicated MAME versions, although it's supposedly possible...

If you haven't already done so try AdvMAME, it should see the 2 guns as different mice. RA cores that should work with 2 guns are Playstation, Dreamcast/Naomi, MAME 078 and FBA. Nintendo emulator only supports 1 gun, only 1 homebrew game used 2 guns on NES anyway - no original games did.

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