Lightgun tester - help wanted

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KanedaFr
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Lightgun tester - help wanted

Post by KanedaFr » Tue Nov 08, 2016 12:22 am

Hi,

I was busy lately.
I mainly worked on lightguns : how they work, how to handle.
The result is a wip library, ready to use, and this ROM is the libray tester.


http://gendev.spritesmind.net/files/md/ ... r_v1.0.zip


While most of the part of the library was checked and validated in end of October'16, on the RGC2016, some improvments were made since then.
Problems is I can't check it again:
- Values are very unstables on Fusion (I suspect it patches values according KNOWN gun games loaded)
- I didn't test it on RetroArch (unable to launch it on my PC).
- My CRT TV died 1 year ago.
Hence this ROM which should help me to detect and fix any bugs !

So please, if you have a gun and a CRT, please launch it and get back to me with


ROM version : 1.0
Genesis model : 1/2/3/Xeyes/wondermega/...
Genesis region : US/EUR/JAP
TV : Brand, size, region and any other info (or url)
ROM player : EverDrive (which one) / MagicDrive / flash cart / repro cart /.....
Gun tested : Justifier / Menacer / Phaser
Title - Gun auto detect ? OK/KO
Calibration - min raw X : postive value you're able reach pointing gun left
Calibration - max raw X : postive value you're able reach pointing gun right
Calibration - min raw Y : postive value you're able reach pointing gun top
Calibration - max raw Y : postive value you're able reach pointing gun bottom
Calibration - color : is there any background color the gun isn't working on ?
Calibration - auto calibrate : did the auto calibration let you shoot 'almost' perfectly on target while testing or not ?
Testing - cursor position : do you feel the cursor is too much on right / top ? a lot (pixels size if you're able to tell it) ?
Testing - cursor movement : is the cursor movement smooth enough ? too much ?
Testing - cursor on top : does the cursor reacts strangely when you aim to screen top ?
Testing - cursor on right : does the cursor reacts strangely when you aim to screen right ?
Testing - cursor on left : does the cursor reacts strangely when you aim to screen left ?
Testing - cursor on bottom : does the cursor reacts strangely when you aim to screen bottom ?
Testing - cursor exit : does the cursor ends at the correct position when you aim out of the TV ?
Testing - cursor shaking : not using average value, does the cursor 'shakes' a lot (not stable enough) ?
Compare : works worst/best/same on Menacer6in1 / Lethal enforcer
Comments : any detail or any feeling which could help me improve my code

KanedaFr
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Re: Lightgun tester

Post by KanedaFr » Tue Nov 15, 2016 11:31 pm

added the .bin version into the zip, since .smd isn't handle by every flash cart

perhaps it will help to rise the number of testers from.....zero to more

it seems we won't see a new lightgun game soon :(

Mask of Destiny
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Re: Lightgun tester

Post by Mask of Destiny » Wed Nov 16, 2016 12:08 am

I don't have a CRT, but the MADE (local video game museum) does. Not sure what they have in the way of light guns, but I'd be surprised if they didn't have any of the Genesis ones. I'll try to remember to bring my MED there on Saturday so I can give this a spin.

Mask of Destiny
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Re: Lightgun tester - help wanted

Post by Mask of Destiny » Sat Nov 19, 2016 8:54 pm

ROM version : 1.0
Genesis model : 1 (appears to be a VA7)
Genesis region : US/EUR/JAP
TV : Panasonic, small (not sure of exact size, probably no more than 13"), NTSC, says TBM2A22309 on front panel
ROM player : EverDrive (unsure, forgot my MED so just using what they have)
Gun tested : Menacer
Title - Gun auto detect ? OK
Calibration - min raw X : 63
Calibration - max raw X : 254
Calibration - min raw Y : 7
Calibration - max raw Y : 217
Calibration - color : red and dark blue seemed to have the worst tracking
Calibration - auto calibrate : Calibration screen seemed very broken. Seemed to advance all by itself (possibly a button detection problem?)
Testing - cursor position : cursor is too far to the left, goes offscreen on leftmost edge and can't reach the right edge of the screen (possibly due to calibration problem)
Testing - cursor movement :OK with certain colors, but not all
Testing - cursor on top : Fine until I hit the top edge of the display, jumps slightly before stopping, but otherwise OK
Testing - cursor on right :Can't reach the right edge of the screen, but otherwise seems mostly fine
Testing - cursor on left : Cursor goes offscreen, but otherwise OK
Testing - cursor on bottom :Fine until I hit the top edge of the display, jumps slightly before stopping, but otherwise OK
Testing - cursor exit : Jumps slightly but otherwise ok
Testing - cursor shaking : Not sure which mode is default, but the non-default mode had the cursor jumping around a lot
Compare : overall seems worse than Menacer 6 in 1
Comments : I assume that the X is supposed to appear when the fire button is pressed. This appeared to be having a lot of false positives.

Min max values were not from calibration screen, but the text on the bottom.
Text was cut off by one letter on left (R in raw and C in Clean) and the line after Clean was mostly cut off on the bottom

Mask of Destiny
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Re: Lightgun tester - help wanted

Post by Mask of Destiny » Sat Nov 19, 2016 9:09 pm

ROM version : 1.0
Genesis model : 1 (appears to be a VA7)
Genesis region : US/EUR/JAP
TV : Panasonic, small (not sure of exact size, probably no more than 13"), NTSC, says TBM2A22309 on front panel
ROM player : EverDrive (unsure, forgot my MED so just using what they have)
Gun tested : Light Phaser
Title - Gun auto detect ? No - had to manually select, reports "NONE / UNKNOWN"
Calibration - min raw X : 37? (too much jitter in raw value to be sure of last digit
Calibration - max raw X : 235? (too much jitter in raw value to be sure of last digit
Calibration - min raw Y : 5
Calibration - max raw Y : 218
Calibration - color : red didn't really work at all, other colors seemed fine
Calibration - auto calibrate : Calibration process seemed fine, resulting cursor position was off (see below
Testing - cursor position : cursor is too far to the left, goes offscreen on leftmost edge and can't reach the right edge of the screen (possibly due to calibration problem)
Testing - cursor movement :OK with certain colors, but not all
Testing - cursor on top : Fine until I hit the top edge of the display, jumps slightly before stopping, but otherwise OK
Testing - cursor on right :Can't reach the right edge of the screen, but otherwise seems mostly fine
Testing - cursor on left : Cursor goes offscreen, but otherwise OK
Testing - cursor on bottom :Fine until I hit the top edge of the display, jumps slightly before stopping, but otherwise OK
Testing - cursor exit : Jumps slightly but otherwise ok
Testing - cursor shaking : Not sure which mode is default, but the non-default mode had the cursor jumping around a lot, but much less than with the Menacer
Compare : generally seems fine apart from the aim being a bit off
Comments : No false positives for firing

KanedaFr
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Re: Lightgun tester - help wanted

Post by KanedaFr » Sun Nov 20, 2016 11:57 pm

overall seems worse than Menacer 6 in 1
ohh...that much ?!
it's totally broken then :(

Thanks for the report, it confirms the strange behavior on top and the red color issue (try to shoot ship on T2, you'll get the same problems)
I was aware of the cursor offset, just wanted to know if it was my guns or standard.

Very surprised it got so much wrong with the menacer, I spent so much time fixing it ...it seems I broke something.

anyway, thanks for these reports, very helpful.

And good news : I found a CRT screen, to test v1.01 myself so I won't bother anyone with my requests in the future.

Sik
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Re: Lightgun tester - help wanted

Post by Sik » Mon Nov 21, 2016 9:40 am

So wait a minute, the Master System gun is more accurate?
Sik is pronounced as "seek", not as "sick".

Mask of Destiny
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Re: Lightgun tester - help wanted

Post by Mask of Destiny » Mon Nov 21, 2016 8:02 pm

KanedaFr wrote:
overall seems worse than Menacer 6 in 1
ohh...that much ?!
it's totally broken then :(
Menacer 6 in 1 seemed to actually work quite well, but to be honest I only tried it fairly briefly to test whether the gun was working properly. It's possible the tracking was generally equivalent, but I noticed the limitations more with your test ROM as I spent more time with it. Button handling was definitely broken though.
Sik wrote:So wait a minute, the Master System gun is more accurate?
The Light Phaser seemed more sensitive to the background color (red worked poorly on the Menacer, but it still was somewhat useable. On the Light Phaser it didn't work at all), but it did seem a bit smoother on colors it worked well with, especially with smoothing/averaging turned off. That is a fairly subjective observation though and it's possible my experience was colored by the issues with the fire button. Additionally, the fire button issues mean that the calibration step was not done properly so that may have contributed as well.

radioation
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Re: Lightgun tester - help wanted

Post by radioation » Mon May 16, 2022 1:16 am

Hi KanedaFr,

I'm responding here since this seem a bit much for twitter.

I took a look at the source at https://bitbucket.org/SpritesMind/gunlab/src/master/ but after looking over the Makefile I doubt I can build it without knowing your version of SGDK or MICK_PATH/libmick.a. So instead I've tried out the v1.0 ROM.

---------------------------------
ROM version : 1.0
Genesis model : 1
Genesis region : US
TV : RCA ColorTrak Plus 27" NTSC
ROM player : Mega Everdrive x5
Gun tested : Sega Menacer
Title - Gun auto detect ? Yes (Menacer)
Calibration - min raw X : 65 (106 with red)
Calibration - max raw X : 254 (240 with red)
Calibration - min raw Y : 40
Calibration - max raw Y : 212
Calibration - color : Dark blue and red had the most trouble detecting
Calibration - auto calibrate : Couldn't actually calibrate. As soon as I aim for the first (upper left) target the calibration run through the rest of the test. I never had a chance to pull the trigger on any target.
Testing - cursor position : cursor is to the left by a lot ( see video : https://youtu.be/aZZ7OsCc-js )
Testing - cursor movement : Red was the worst tracking.
Testing - cursor on top : Can reach the top edge
Testing - cursor on right : Can't reach the right edge of the screen
Testing - cursor on left : seems fine. Can reach left edge
Testing - cursor on bottom : doesn't seem get to the bottom edge.
Testing - cursor exit : If I move the gun too quickly, the cursor doesn't reach the edge of the screen.
Testing - cursor shaking : I couldn't really tell the difference when pressing B. Cursor was jittery in a vertical region of the screen (about 1/3 down to half-way) Smooth above and below that.
Compare : seems farther left than "Menacer 6 in 1". Menacer 6 in 1 seems to get further right than the guntest ROM, but does not reach the right edge of the screen either. (also in https://youtu.be/aZZ7OsCc-js ) I also tried T2 arcade. I seem to get the full range left and right with this game.
Comments : Aiming at the top of the screen seems to cause button A to fire. Which prevents calibration from working at all.


---------------------------------
ROM version : 1.0
Genesis model : 1
Genesis region : US
TV : RCA ColorTrak Plus 27" NTSC
ROM player : Mega Everdrive x5
Gun tested : Modified Radica Menacer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9mCa0__SPQ
Title - Gun auto detect ? Yes (Menacer)
Calibration - min raw X : 65 (90 with red)
Calibration - max raw X : 254? seems to wrap around to 20 after 254
Calibration - min raw Y : 35
Calibration - max raw Y : 213
Calibration - color : Dark blue and red had the most trouble detecting
Calibration - auto calibrate : Like the real menacer, I couldn't complete calibration.
Testing - cursor position : cursor is to the left by a lot.
Testing - cursor movement : Red was the worst tracking.
Testing - cursor on top : Can reach the top edge
Testing - cursor on right : Can't reach the right edge of the screen
Testing - cursor on left : seems fine. Can reach left edge
Testing - cursor on bottom : doesn't seem get to the bottom edge.
Testing - cursor exit : If I move the gun too quickly, the cursor doesn't reach the edge of the screen.
Testing - cursor shaking : I couldn't really tell the difference when pressing B.
Compare : seems farther left than "Menacer 6 in 1".
Comments : Aiming at the top of the screen seems to cause button A to fire. Just like the real Menacer.
THe radica menacer seems to work slightly better than the real menacer. I'm guessing because its newer and/or has better components.

---------------------------------
ROM version : 1.0
Genesis model : 1
Genesis region : US
TV : RCA ColorTrak Plus 27" NTSC
ROM player : Mega Everdrive x5
Gun tested : Blue Justifier
Title - Gun auto detect ? Yes (Justifier)
Calibration - min raw X : 32 (dark blue 72, Red: 82)
Calibration - max raw X : 108 (dark blue: 113, Red 126)
Calibration - min raw Y : 5 (dark blue 25, Red 159)
Calibration - max raw Y : 212 ( dark blue 130, Red 172)
Calibration - color : Dark blue and red had the most trouble detecting
Calibration - auto calibrate : Justifier calibration doesn't skip like the Menacer, but if I aim down the barrel of the gun at the upper left and lower right targets I can't get a good reading ( x and y are -1 ). So I've aimed as far as I can while still getting X and Y values just to get past calibration.
Testing - cursor position : cursor is visibly to the left, maybe about the size of the cursor.
Testing - cursor movement : Seems smooth when I move the gun in a circular motion. Dark Blue and Red were not smooth and could jump around.
Testing - cursor on top : can't reach the top.
Testing - cursor on right : can't reach the right, but closer to the right than the Menacer tests.
Testing - cursor on left : can reach the left
Testing - cursor on bottom : can't reach bottom
Testing - cursor exit : If I move the gun too quickly, the cursor doesn't reach the edge of the screen.
Testing - cursor shaking : I couldn't really tell the difference when pressing B.
Compare : seems a bit father to the left than Lethal Enforcers. It's hard to tell, because the left offset in Lethal Enforcers seems to change with each shot.
Comments : Red backgrounds are terrible. I suspect the min/max values I got for the red calibration steps were the Justifier picking up the text.

Poor red detection matches my experience with SGDK's gun code. In the game I've been tinkering with, I see the justifier drop out on a Red colors ( https://youtu.be/6czwlF59NIc?t=14 Note crosshairs disappear when I aim at the truck around 0:15)


---------------------------------
ROM version : 1.0
Genesis model : 1
Genesis region : US
TV : RCA ColorTrak Plus 27" NTSC
ROM player : Mega Everdrive x5
Gun tested : Phaser
Title - Gun auto detect ? No, had toe select Phaser.
Calibration - min raw X : 40 (dark blue 66, Red: 70)
Calibration - max raw X : 231 (dark blue: 153, Red 123)
Calibration - min raw Y : 12 (dark blue 25, red 154)
Calibration - max raw Y : 213 ( dark blue 181, red 185)
Calibration - color : Dark blue and red had the most trouble detecting
Calibration - auto calibrate : calibration steps seem to work with the lighter colors
Testing - cursor position : cursor is visibly to the left, maybe about the size of the cursor. ( see video : https://youtu.be/aZZ7OsCc-js )
Testing - cursor movement : Seems smooth when I move the gun in a circular motion. Dark Blue and the red backgrounds often lose tracking, so the cursor jumps around.
Testing - cursor on top : Can reach the top
Testing - cursor on right : can't reach the right, but closer to the right than the Menacer tests.
Testing - cursor on left : can go past left edge
Testing - cursor on bottom : can reach the bottom
Testing - cursor exit : If I move the gun too quickly, the cursor doesn't reach the edge of the screen.
Testing - cursor shaking : I couldn't really tell the difference when pressing B.
Compare :
Comments :


The first youtube video I posted also shows the real Menacer using my (naive) calibration code. I'm only using a single point for calibration, but it work well enough in the center. It seems to get a bit off around the edges. I'm betting your calibration will work better than mine over the entire screen once you get it working.

Chilly Willy
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Re: Lightgun tester - help wanted

Post by Chilly Willy » Mon May 16, 2022 6:19 pm

I wrote most of the controller code in the current SGDK. It automatically supports the Menacer and Justifier guns, and will support the Phaser if you set the support type - it's not automatic as MS controllers cannot be detected like MD controllers. The joytest sample included shows how to setup and use all the different controllers, including light guns. All light gun buttons map like controllers. JOY_readJoypadX/Y returns the RAW values from the light gun. There's no calibration done in SGDK. To see how raw values should be handled, you need the light gun doc:

https://gendev.spritesmind.net/mirrors/ ... ghtgun.pdf

If you aren't using the current SGDK, never mind. Can't help with that. :lol:

radioation
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Re: Lightgun tester - help wanted

Post by radioation » Tue May 17, 2022 1:50 am

Thanks Chilly Willy,

I've been using your SGDK gun code and I found the PDF a while back. Your code works great, it made it very easy to add all 3 guns types to my code. The biggest problem I'm having is finding time to work on my game.

I was just trying out KanedaFr's ROM because he mentioned it on twitter. https://twitter.com/SpritesMind/status/ ... 6608485380

Chilly Willy
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Re: Lightgun tester - help wanted

Post by Chilly Willy » Sat May 21, 2022 10:31 pm

The biggest problem with light guns I've run into is hooking up the old CRT monitor. Can't use the guns on my new LCD TVs. :lol:

I hang onto my TIMM 21" CRT for just that reason. It's about the only CRT I have left that I still use.

radioation
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Re: Lightgun tester - help wanted

Post by radioation » Sun May 29, 2022 4:07 pm

Yeah. I didn't have a decent CRT for a long time. I got a few free ones last year, which is nice but I think it'd be less hassle if I could work with my monitors. I'm looking into a couple ideas for that.

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