Guncon 3 on Raspberry Pi

lymando

There seems to have been quite a few products and projects emerging lately for light guns on modern display's. As a light gun fan who's been missing some Time Crisis it got me thinking.

I remembered that the Guncon 3 for PS3 was USB, IR based, and could work with modern displays. Well long story short I've made a guide for building drivers for it on the Raspberry Pi running RetroPie. This is all thanks to a few other's work who are mentioned in the guide. The gun isn't completely working in games yet but I thought I'd share it here in hopes to spark some interest.

I think this could be a great alternative to some of the other options as the Guncon can be found pretty cheap and requires no modding. It does require IR leds but those can be built or Wii sensor bars can be used.

Let me know what you think!

Crush

@lymando said in Guncon 3 on Raspberry Pi:

you

Am i correct in understanding that the movement registers as an analog joystick instead of a mouse?

lymando

@crush Yes, at the movement it does register as a joystick and not a mouse. I'm fairly new to all of this, should it register as a mouse instead for compatibility?

Thankfully this is compiling the driver so changes could be made to correct that.

mitu

Most emulators accept a mouse or a pointing device to simulate a lightgun, so yes, using the Guncon as a mouse would be better for this kind of games.

Crush

@lymando The Mayflash Dolphin bar for the Wii gun also has this setting, i tried to play around with it, but the sensitivity is a major issue, although perhaps it could be adjustable in your build, but compatibility is the other major issue, simply most systems do not support analog controls and most emulators can actually emulate mouse as light gun.

This is how people also play lightgun games using the Wiimote and i think the Sinden lightgun also translates movement into mouse movement.

Very cool project, if the guncon3 becomes a viable lightgun option that would be so awesome, definately an improvemtn over the Wiigun

lymando

@crush I thought about the Dolphin bar but I wasn't sure that the Guncon would work with it. Does it work with controllers other than the Wii? I only have the Guncon 3 at the moment but would pick up a Dolphin bar to test if it could work.

Crush

@lymando said in Guncon 3 on Raspberry Pi:

than

The Mayflash Dolphinbar is more than a Wii Sensor bar, as in it has a chipset which you also pair your Wiimote to it, then it translates the Wiimote into (depending on the mode you set it on) keyboard and mouse, so the raspberry see's it as a keyboard and mouse.

Basically it does what you aim to do, but because it is on a chipset in the mayflash instead of code on the raspberry it is not configurable. for instance, in gaming mouse mode, 2 of the buttons are the volume up and down buttons on a keyboard, which are not recognized on retropie, thus cant be bound.

What you would need is just a regular (usb) sensor bar (you find third party ones going for $5), cause all you're after is the IR leds for the gun to orient on. You're effectively connecting the gun to the raspberry.

lymando

@samco as a fellow Guncon enthusiast I'd love to know your thoughts.