Aimtrak gun loses alignment when I aim off the screen. <tag> Aimtrak <Tag>

dureq83

I'll have to check this later when I'm in front of my game. Has no one else on this forum (300 views) ever had this problem? It would be great to have additional details or ideas from others.

mitu

I don't have an Aimtrak, so I don't know how it can be configured, but I suppose that - like other lightguns - it emulates a mouse in Linux.
The only idea that pops to mind for the behaviour you're seeing is that the emulator is reading the mouse movements as relative coordinates and once it's off screen it looses the correct position. I know that some Libretro cores have an option to use 'absolute pointer' (for instance mame2003-plus), but I don't know if Advmame has this kind of option - or maybe it's not only up to the emulator, but there's something that can be configured for the gun itself.

dureq83

@mitu thank you for the reply, I will explore this when I'm more awake.

dureq83

I'm currently installing Mame 2003 Plus from source and am going to mess around with the settings for the emulator.
I did have a question that might help troubleshoot the issue. I'm seeing the same issue in multiple emulators, is it possible that there might be a setting in Retroarch that is causing the issue seeing as how Retroarch is what handles the emulators? Or am I way off?

Efriim

@dureq83
Nah retroarch only handles lr-emulators.

mame2003plus had a build failure for me, I think it ran out of virtual memory somehow. I don;t know what to do about.

The advmame.rc settings above are still worth trying. From what I read in aimtrak posts they worked but most of it was pretty bleak.

dureq83

Understood, Mame2003 is still installing at the moment, so I'll have to wait for it to finish. I did contact Andy with Ultimarc and bounced some ideas off his head.

Efriim

ping

dureq83

I did a light search last night for pre-programed retro pie images made by others, I didn't want to use one but I did want to check their setup and see if the lightgun was still having the same issue so I could compare settings/files. I didn't find anything hopeful. Also, I really want to get to the bottom of this rather than cop out and look at someone elses work. I really think this issue is going to come down to a simple line of code/text in a settings config

Efriim

@dureq83
Its good for experience, I don't think I've tried any other RetroPie distribution they are unsupported by the way, I imagine they use the same packages.

The non retropie:
Lakka is cool, it was the first I tried, and I think they are developing well it might be known as the official RetroArch emulation distribution as it only has lr-emulators.
Batocera was my second and I liked it a lot, it introduced EmulationStation and emulators outside the retroarch such as Reicast.

There is a lot less to do with Lakka and a lot less to configure but it is a solid retro platform. It may be overly difficult to get an aimtrak driver on it so maybe search for that first.

Batocera was based on recalbox, it has gone its own way, there is less to do than retropie because there is no raspbian underneath, so it is very streamlined, but I think it will have advmame.

Efriim

With your keyboard you know you can exit emulationstation to the CLI by pressing "F4"
to return to ES type "exit".

to edit this file
sudo nano /opt/retropie/configs/mame-advmame/advmame.rc
I wrote down the defaults in case we need to revert.

device_mouse raw
device_raw_mousedev[0] /dev/input/mouse0
device_raw_mousedev[1] /dev/input/mouse1
device_raw_mousedev[2] /dev/input/mouse2
device_raw_mousedev[3] /dev/input/mouse3
device_raw_mousetype[0] ps2
device_raw_mousetype[1] ps2
device_raw_mousetype[2] ps2
device_raw_mousetype[3] ps2

If this configuration doesnt work
mouse0 would be exchanged above to the corresponding event# of the mouse control.

I wish I knew of a better Mouse event test.
ls /dev/input/
I think the mice will have a corresponding event, so mouse0 = event0 to some degree.
There might be a lot listed here type this and then get your gun
evtest /dev/input/event0
Ctrl+C is a kill to exit.
and try the rest of the events to understand what they are and the number they are assigned.

if evtest is not installed
sudo apt install evtest

joystick can be tested like this
jstest /dev/input/js0

I know this is sort of redundant, while I don't want to rule it out completely yet.

dureq83

Thanks for the information, I'm on my way to work and will try this when I return home.

dureq83

I just got off work and am going to fiddle with the settings you suggested, I'll report my findings shortly.

dureq83

I changed my block of code from:
device_mouse auto
device_raw_firstkeyhack no
device_raw_mousedev[0] auto
device_raw_mousedev[1] auto
device_raw_mousedev[2] auto
device_raw_mousedev[3] auto
device_raw_mousetype[0] pnp
device_raw_mousetype[1] pnp
device_raw_mousetype[2] pnp
device_raw_mousetype[3] pnp

to

device_mouse raw
device_raw_mousedev[0] /dev/input/mouse0
device_raw_mousedev[1] /dev/input/mouse1
device_raw_mousedev[2] /dev/input/mouse2
device_raw_mousedev[3] /dev/input/mouse3
device_raw_mousetype[0] ps2
device_raw_mousetype[1] ps2
device_raw_mousetype[2] ps2
device_raw_mousetype[3] ps2
as a test and still am having the same problem with the drifting crosshair.
I ran Evtest/ dev/input/event0 and then tried using my gun and still am having the same issue.

dureq83

Update: Not sure if this will help.
I changed the action in GunConf from mouse to joystick emulation and am having the same drifting issue when I move off screen, this would tell me that it's not isolated to the mouse it's self.

Efriim

@dureq83
I had realized that I could use my USB mouse to test some things. I'm looking for something that allows the cursor to be brought off screen completely. Maybe this isn't the way it loses alignment, maybe I can I find something for relative mouse movements. I'll get started right away.

I don't know about the joystick mode.
Can you link me to the guncon driver that is installed on the raspberry pi?
When the setting were written were there game-specific overrides while testing it?

dureq83

I believe when I installed the gunconf that it showed something about auto configuring the mame 1.4.rc file.
I'm not sure what version of Gunconf I'm using, but included is a link to where I obtained the file.

https://github.com/gunpadawan/gunconf

Also, I went into a gunconf settings folder and it showed a readme about setting up gunconf for the pi. It told me to disable the mouse even though the light gun is supposed to mimic a mouse, I followed the instructions and it still didn't work. I ended up reflashing the SD card and re-installing everything. :(

Actually, to be exact. This is the link that I followed. (I'm not sure if were allowed to post links, if not, please delete this Mod team.
https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&v=ZdRLX-Fhkv4&redir_token=T_Z7pLy4rjMmc_6ViL-8UnYrEiR8MTU1NTEwNTYzM0AxNTU1MDE5MjMz&q=http%3A%2F%2Feazyhax.com%2Fpitime%2FRetroPie%2520Toolkit.zip

dureq83

Also, I just plugged in my Death Adder mouse and thought I'd try and test something.
There almost seems like some kind of over reach setting in place where the pi thinks it's actually a mouse rather then something mimicking a mouse. What I mean is this, I placed the cursor in the middle and did 10 upwards strokes to the top of the machine and then moved the mouse back to the middle and took a note of where my wrist was initially and then where it was when I returned to the middle. I then did the same thing and over-extended my wrist and push the cursor past the top of the screen and brought it back down. My wrist was much further down then it was to start. either I'm on to something or I'm 100% in the opposite direction and am over-thinking the scenario.

Efriim

@dureq83
There's a lot to think about. Hmm, like a bad level sometimes you need to come back after a break.

I think it is okay if you post this, there are other scripts and modules the people write, but they don't contribute to RetroPie directly so it is hard to accept them. This will be most useful in beginning to understand the libraries and scripts involved.

I'm just waking up and setting some guncon games to explore some variables first hand.

Efriim

I think this section is of import.
As I was just concluding that the relative values of the mouse and the absolute values of the light gun should be as seperated.

https://github.com/gunpadawan/gunconf#configuration
~/.advance/advmame.rc (this folder is linked directly to the one in /opt/retropie/configs/...)

device_mouse none
device_joystick event
input_map[p1_lightgunx] joystick[d209_1601_2,0,0]
input_map[p1_lightguny] joystick[d209_1601_2,0,1]

[d209_1601_ is the device Id and it should not need to changed.
_2,0,1] the first number(2) might need to be changed to the usb device interface number since you are using a powered usb hub.

I'll update if I find a way to read the usb interfaces, ID & and numbers

dureq83

@Efriim those are the settings I was messing around with earlier. The readme in the gunconf folder mentioned editing those lines but have mouse_none. I'll play with it again in the morning.