@Oldguy so because my son started to get into lightgun games I decided to revisit this on my system. Here are the steps that wound up working. Like me you already have a mame2003 .78 romset. Although this “breaks the rules” because we should be using a .106 romset for advancemame I found using those .78 Roms seem to work. More power to you though if you can somehow find just the lightgun game .106 Roms. Only thing is, grab the “Mame-2003-plus romset” version of the lethalen.zip rom for lethal enforcers and the area51mx.zip for Area 51 maximum force (contains Area 51 original too) and the additional folder for area51mx which contains area51mx.chd.
Anyhow hope this helps. It is no way official advice and some of these steps may not be necessary but is what worked for me.
I downloaded advance Mame 1.4 from I believe it was optional packages from the retropie menu and updated from binary
I went through all the light gun games I wanted to try in my romset and using the regular controller I had already configured, started them and used the runcommand menu to select advmame1.4 as the default emulator for the rom. Then chose the option to exit instead of launching from the run command menu. I did this because you find otherwise it can sometimes be difficult to navigate the runcommand menu with a wiimote.
I plugged in the dolphin bar and a usb keyboard into the pi
I synced the wii mote to the dolphin bar NOT to the pi’s own Bluetooth, and set it so the lights on the wiimote that are lit are the first and fourth ones (I forget what “mode” that is)
I did the “configure controller” in emulation station for the wiimote. My particular config though I don’t think it matters a ton, the plus button is start, the minus button is select/hotkey, button 1 is button a, button 2 is button b, and the trigger I think I made r1. The dpad is dpad up down left right.
then I shut down the pi. I removed my regular controller so now only the keyboard and wiimote were attached with the wiimote/dolphin bar usb in the top left usb slot.
I started my pi (now when I know I am going to play a light gun game this is how I start up my pi, without a regular controller connected).
now I go to one of those light gun games, lets use Jurassic park as an example. Start the game. hit the tab key on your keyboard. This should bring up a menu. Select “input this game”. Find the coin button input, hit enter then the button on your wiimote you want to use. I usually use 1 or A on the wiimote for that. Find the start button input, hit enter, then the button you want to use. I usually do the plus key. Then find buttons 1-3 input if they exist. Some just have button 1 some have others. I usually set the wimmote trigger for button 1 or fire whatever it is called for the particular game. Now I say all this but this process can be the most frustrating part. The reason is because if you move the wiimote slightly it will make the menu options move or if you are moving the wiimote after you hit enter on the keyboard to configure an input it may configure the wrong thing. So have patience and a steady hand and keep yelling/cursing at the screen to a minimum at this step and just repeat “I am going to get to play a cool light gun game soon” to yourself quietly as necessary.
exit the input menu by scrolling down to the last option that says something like exit to menu.
hit the tab key on your keyboard to go back to your game. Everything should work now. Have fun! Although in theory you should not need a keyboard connected the next time you play and should just be able to use a wiimote it is always possible you will have to reset the controls.
to exit out of advancemame you have to hit your select key (mine is minus) which will bring up a quit menu then you can select exit (which I do with the plus/start key).
now that the rest is working time to get lethal enforcers 2 and area51 mx working. For lethal enforcers 2 this will be downloading and enabling cheats. For area51 mx this will be making sure the CHD is read.
(I) Go to terminal, sudo nano /opt/retropie/configs/mame-advmame/advmame-1.4.rc
(II) find the line for misc_cheats line and set to “yes”
(III) find the dir_image line and set to the directory where your folder “area51mx” containing the area51mx.chd is. Control X to exit and Y to save changes.
(IV) download the advancemame 106 cheats.dat file:
Make sure you have cheat.dat located at /opt/retropie/configs/mame-advmame/. File here: http://cheat.retrogames.com/download/cheat106.zip. Unzip and rename to cheat.dat and put in the directory noted.
(V) Area51 MX should work now. For lethal enforcers 2, open the game. Press tab for the menu on your keyboard. Go to cheats, enable cheats and select infinite ammo for player 1. Unfortunately so far it looks like you have to do that each time since you can’t reload your gun otherwise and the cheat does not automatically enable. Still investigating.
now play a bunch of your lightgun games!
