Light Gun Support?

Questions about the RaspberryJAMMA adapter.

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Kamshaft
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Light Gun Support?

Post by Kamshaft » Thu Oct 19, 2017 11:44 am

Does or will the unit support traditional light guns? (Not the light guns from Ultimarc https://www.ultimarc.com/aimtrak.html)

Or will or does it currently support the ultimarc aimtrack guns.

I honestly would prefer support for both, but if I had to choose, it would be traditional light guns.

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Re: Light Gun Support?

Post by dee2eR » Thu Oct 19, 2017 1:26 pm

Aimtraks work*, I don't know with anything else as I don't have it to try. The issue seems to be emulator support as much as anything else. If you know of any traditional light guns that work under Linux please let me know. There is not currently, nor do I see it being added in future, support for true arcade light guns as used by Namco or Konami or SEGA as they would require custom drivers to be written (as far as I know there isn't any drivers/ adaptors for these). Stuff using the USB protocol like the Aimtrak guns should work with Linux but may not be recognised in software, I just don't know. Maybe Playstation 2s Guncon2 could work (I think that was USB but I could be wrong). Wii-Motes are supposed to work similarly to Aimtrak with an aftermarket sensorbar (the something Dophin something or other I forget...) - this could be a cheaper alternate to the Aimtrak which is pretty pricy (but seems to be good).

*work in AdvMAME 1.4 & 3.0 with some config, I need to reprogram my gun to adjust some settings but so far my testing has been good. Also work in some systems (so far in my testing only NES had the menu to change controller type but I believe more are supported - sadly not MegaDrive/Genesis or Master System) in AdvMESS with config but there's no way that I can find to set and save the type of controller in the emulated systems inputs so that has to be done when you load a game. Daphne is supposed to work but I don't have a light gun game for it to test. Beyond that I don't know what works yet, I've read Retroarch won't work with the guns but haven't tried myself yet, I think MAME172 and 181 should be able to work but haven't figured it out yet, it's possible nothing further will work with the Aimtraks. Getting a Playstation emulator going with them would be good too, I may need to find a non Retroarch version to do so.

More testing to come but I'm pretty impressed with the Aimtrak so far, although I'm not as confident in the technology as the older style CRT only lightguns they seem pretty good. Years ago a friend showed my Time Crisis something on PS3 with Move controller gun and it was awful, the Aimtrak is not bad and is much more playable. The calibration works across games and resolutions too which is nice, by which I mean you calibrate once and after that it just works even when you change game (although I've broken calibration a couple of times hence wanting to adjust the guns settings a bit).

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Re: Light Gun Support?

Post by Kamshaft » Thu Oct 19, 2017 9:18 pm

I just wish those Aimtrak light guns were a little cheaper in price! LOL

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Re: Light Gun Support?

Post by dee2eR » Sat Jun 16, 2018 3:17 am

I've done some more work on this this week. Still with Aimtrak guns. Also have ordered some Wii-mote bits and pieces to see if there's a cheaper alternative that can work reasonably well using a Mayflash Dolphinbar and Wii-motes with gunshells (with the downsides being not as accurate and my research suggests Wii-mote/Dolphinbar will only support 1 gun).

WORKING PROPERLY WITH 2 AIMTRAKS:
advmame

WORKING partially with 2 aimtraks (playable with one, 2 are recognised but interfearing with each other)
mame 172 (I think I've had 2 working properly here too)
mame 192
mame2003
mame2003-plus (not installed on current ARpiCADE)

WORKING WITH 1 AIMTRAK:
advmess (nintendo entertainment system)
genesis-plus-gx (genesis/megadrive and mastersystem) (not installed on current ARpiCADE) (megadrive part may support 2 guns, not sure yet)

I'm now thinking I'll do a special lightgun release sometime soon in case others have the hardware and would like to try it. Or maybe I'll work the settings in to the vanilla release if I can get them and trackball working together without causing issues. This is still very much a work in progress.

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Re: Light Gun Support?

Post by dee2eR » Fri Jun 22, 2018 8:24 am

More follow up:
Wii-mote and Dolphinbar also works, however the Dolphinbar only supports one Wii-mote when in lightgun/mouse mode so only 1 gun will work (it is possible 2 dolphinbars and 2 wii-motes would work - I'm not sure). There's no way to calibrate the Wii-mote so it is not as accurate as the Aimtraks but it works pretty well considering the price difference. Without a gun shell it doesn't feel right but there are tonnes of cheap gun shells on ebay, I have a couple of different ones - if anyone is interested I can review them.

I haven't been able to actually find any but there were also a few "light guns" (not really light guns) released for the Wii as well that are basically a Wii-mote built into a gun shape (instead of putting a regular Wii-mote into a gun shell), the Walther P99 one looks great (no idea if it works with the Dolphinbar though as it's a third party Wii-mote it may do something differently). It's possible one of these "light guns" could be a better option than a Wii-mote in a shell, although as I haven't found any to buy they could be rare and now only available second hand or at high prices (and third party Wii-motes may not work with the Dolphinbar).

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Re: Light Gun Support?

Post by dee2eR » Fri Jun 29, 2018 4:41 am

More more follow up:
2x Wii-motes works if you use 2x Dolphinbars. Only one Dolphinbar needs to be setup for the Wii-motes to see the IR LEDs, the second is just for the second Wii-mote to sync to as a Dolphinbar in lightgun/mouse mode only works with one Wii-mote.

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Re: Light Gun Support?

Post by FrizzleFried » Sat Jun 30, 2018 2:28 pm

Very interesting. How far does one have to stand from the sensors for things to work? Where is the best location for the bar in relation to the screen. Is this something I would have to mount inside behind the glass near the edge of the screen or can, for example, sit temporarily on the control panel while I play gun games?
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Re: Light Gun Support?

Post by dee2eR » Sun Jul 01, 2018 4:59 am

Good question. I'm not sure really, until now my testing has been with the sensor bars (either Dolphinbar or Aimtrak) on top of my 14inch test monitor and they seem to work well when I'm 5 to 6 feet away from the screen (maybe 4 feet from the front of the gun, I'm guestimating here as my measuring tape is in the car...), less than 3 feet and I have trouble with some parts of the screen becoming un-shootable. The Dolphinbar has a top or bottom of screen switch on it and comes with a little stand so would probably work reasonably set on a control panel as long as the cabs joysticks were not obscuring the line of sight to the Wii-mote (I have even read some people find it works best below the screen), if you were using 2 Dolphinbars the second can be inside the cab or otherwise out of sight entirely. I don't believe Aimtraks can be setup with the bar at the bottom of the monitor (they don't come with a little extra stand like the Dolphinbar either) but I could be wrong or maybe it would be changeable in a future firmware update or maybe the calibration is flexible enough to make it work.

According to Ultimarc the minimum distance (not sure if that's for gun to sensor or gun to screen) should be about 2x screen width, at least for the Aimtraks (Aimtrak guns have a 3 meter (roughly 9 or 10 foot) long USB cable). For Wii-motes the only calibration you have is moving yourself backwards or forwards from the screen (sensor position would also make a difference and maybe fudgable to an extent by placing the bar forward or backwards of screen position) and I assume there will be a sweet spot on any setup.

Just tried a kind of worst case scenario, Dolphinbar below and 2 feet forward of the 14 inch screen on the desk(with the position switch set to bottom of screen), it was playable and reasonably accurate (best with the gun at about screen height which short of shooting from the hip is not comfy at my desk but probably about right for an upright cab). I will have to move my testing onto an actual cab I think, I'm curious what happens with a bigger screen.

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Re: Light Gun Support?

Post by DESTRO » Mon Jul 02, 2018 8:23 pm

I'd definitely love to try this. I have an Aimtrak just sitting in the bottom of a box.

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Re: Light Gun Support?

Post by jmac » Sun Sep 02, 2018 12:37 am

I just ordered an Aimtrak though am wondering a few things. It looks like the utilities that help make calibrtion adjustments are windows utilities, not Linux. Is the position of the LED light bar relative to the calibration (i assume it is). If so, i am wondering if i would need to get a Windows VGA signal into my CGA CRT for the calibration process, then switch back to Linux and hope it works well? Also, how much tinkering will it take to get an Aimtrak functional with 3.82? Really looking forward to adding a light gun to my multicades.

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