Light Gun!!!

dankcushions

@a7mag3ddon

On the Raspberry Pi, I've only ever been able to get my Aimtrak/DolphinBar guns functional in RetroPie's UAE4ALL2 and RecalBox's ScummVM. Throughout everything I've read on the matter, a program needs to be written with specific support for input devices using absolute coordinates, like that of touch screen support. If you do manage to get it working in some way, there's going to be plenty of happy people, including myself.

Edit: Meant to reply to a7mag3ddon

have you tested with the latest version? if it needs trackpad support I can add that :) but I'd be interested to hear what happens at the moment.

mediamogul

@dankcushions

Sure, I'll test both devices later this evening. I can't remember if I had two mice hooked up last time, so a7mag3ddon's current test could say a lot in the mean time.

a7mag3ddon

Ok, light gun works!!! if i unplug the keyboard dongle and plug back after the pi has booted.

So question, how to get the keyboard mouse to always detect as 1 so that gun always comes in at 0 ?

mediamogul

@dankcushions , @a7mag3ddon

Holy hannah! great work. Isn't there an order in which the USB ports are acknowledged by the system?

dankcushions

@a7mag3ddon wahoo! that's awesome :)

not sure how to swap what is mouse0/mouse1 - if you swap the USB sockets they are plugged into, does that sort it? that works for joysticks/pads, so hopefully!

caver01

I am curious why it even matters. I have multiple mouse devices connected and the order does not matter. Is this something that applies uniquely to direct XY input devices?

a7mag3ddon

It matters because if the keyboard is plugged in (which on my pi always is) trackpad becomes mouse0

for some reason mame 2003 only allows mouse0 to be used in the emulator as an input device, when i take out the keyboard, gun becomes mouse 0 and works in games. :-)

mediamogul

@a7mag3ddon said in Light Gun!!!:

or some reason mame 2003 only allows mouse0 to be used

This is what tripped me up. I've had multiple mice hooked up in the past and they've all functioned together. I didn't even consider Mame needed it's intended input to be Mouse0. I'm just glad it works at all.

mediamogul

I'm probably getting ahead of myself in the excitement, but isn't there a NES core that supports mouse input in RetroArch as well? It seems like it was Nestopia, but I might be mistaken.

caver01

@a7mag3ddon said in Light Gun!!!:

It matters because if the keyboard is plugged in (which on my pi always is) trackpad becomes mouse0

for some reason mame 2003 only allows mouse0 to be used in the emulator as an input device, when i take out the keyboard, gun becomes mouse 0 and works in games. :-)

So, this isn't actually true. I don't plug and unplug my devices. I have a trackball on one mouse interface and a pair of spinners on another. Linux detects them mouse0 and mouse1 and they both work in mame2003 simultaneously.

mediamogul

@caver01

Have you tried them both in conjunction with any light gun titles? I'm dying to try all this now, but am away from home.

dankcushions

@caver01 said in Light Gun!!!:

@a7mag3ddon said in Light Gun!!!:

It matters because if the keyboard is plugged in (which on my pi always is) trackpad becomes mouse0

for some reason mame 2003 only allows mouse0 to be used in the emulator as an input device, when i take out the keyboard, gun becomes mouse 0 and works in games. :-)

So, this isn't actually true. I don't plug and unplug my devices. I have a trackball on one mouse interface and a pair of spinners on another. Linux detects them mouse0 and mouse1 and they both work in mame2003 simultaneously.

mame2003 for sure will only read mouse0 only. retroarch only understands one mouse device. i'm not sure what could be going on.

a7mag3ddon

True or not, that logic has worked for my aimtrack and i am no linux expert by a long shot so cant explain it.
Are you talking about full linux or retropie linux? or does it not matter?

i tried NESTOPIA and the only options were Gamepad and Gapade + analogue

the ultimarc is detected as i can scroll under device and see it.

how i enable a "gun" addon to be turned on in nestopia i have no idea.

caver01

@mediamogul No, I never bothered, but I can do a test if that helps. My cab is a cocktail design so not exactly positioned right for shooters.

Regardless, AdvanceMAME allows for managing just about any combination of mouse inputs. The innovation here that a light gun is actually being used to generate mouse input.

mediamogul

@a7mag3ddon said in Light Gun!!!:

how i enable a "gun" addon to be turned on in nestopia i have no idea.

It's probably just not an option. I really wasn't sure.

Edit:

@caver01

No, I never bothered, but I can do a test if that helps.

There's no need I really. I'll be playing around with this a lot this evening.

Thanks for finding this @a7mag3ddon and thanks again @dankcushions for your excellent work in enabling the support to begin with.

edmaul69

@a7mag3ddon it is supposed to just work with the NstDatabase.xml file in the /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-nestopia which it is in retropie but it doesnt do anything. I have the nes shooting roms and the playchoice 10 and the vs. system ones and i cant get any of them to recognize even a mouse click let alone the movements.

caver01

@dankcushions said in Light Gun!!!:

mame2003 for sure will only read mouse0 only. retroarch only understands one mouse device. i'm not sure what could be going on.

Hmmm. Well, I just double checked. I can do a cat /dev/input/mice and see input when I play with my spinners and when I touch the trackball. Then, I can do a cat /dev/input/mouse0 and only the spinners cause input. Then I do a cat /dev/input/mouse1 and only my trackball inputs are displaying.

Then, back into ES, and I launch Blasteriods with lr-mame2003. 2-player game (XY sharing enabled) and I can move both ships, one with each spinner and with the two directions on my trackball.

Trying Centipede and I can move with the trackball and with the spinners (like an etch-a-sketch).

I am delighted with how it works, but I have to conclude by this that lr-mame2003 on my system is taking mouse inputs from the "mice" device and not simply mouse0.

dankcushions

@caver01 that makes sense. the retroarch Linux mouse driver must just return any mouse input as coming from a single mouse device. so it's picking up mouse0 and 1 but since it presents them to the core as a single device, it can't separate them out for p1 and 2 (other than through hacks like my spinner fix).

or something like that. not worth investigating IMO as retroarch needs to handle it better in any case.

caver01

@dankcushions said in Light Gun!!!:

or something like that. not worth investigating IMO as retroarch needs to handle it better in any case.

Agreed. Anything more than the capabilities you have enabled would require a complex method of assignment similar to what you can do with AdvanceMAME. I can imagine core options that could be set in per ROM configs, but they would have to be carefully designed so as to cover the many possible combinations that might come up across all of the ROMs supported and hardware possibilities. It could be a big mess, even if retroarch could see more than one aggregate mouse.

ajhorst

I'd just like to chime in and confirm that I recently bought two Aimtrak guns connected to my RetroPie arcade cabinet setup. They both work well with advancemame. My overclocked pi 3 runs Area51 full speed along with most lightgun games that came out before it.

Both Aimtraks automatically worked after I unplugged my trackball. The only irritating aspect of the setup is that calibration is just about impossible using retropie, so I'm left plugging in a windows laptop to do a generic calibration (which is saved in the guns). The problem with that is different games have different resolutions and aspect ratios, which alters the calibration. It's no deal breaker, as the cursor can always be on-screen allowing you to accurately shoot whatever you want. This is perfectly fine (and is a lot of fun) playing in a "shoot from the hip," style; but if you like to play by looking through the sights, the aim will be off.

I haven't been able to get any of the other systems to work. While I would love to be able to play some of the ps1 lightgun games, I feel the purchase was more than worthwhile. A huge part of arcade gaming back in the day involved lightgun games, so being able to enjoy the experience blasting away on Area 51, Lethal Enforcers, Point Blank, Operation Wolf, Hogan's Alley, and Duckhunt fills a huge hole in my retrogaming heart.