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REPOSTED FROM THE OLD FORUM - ORIGINALLY POSTED BY DEE2ER - JAN. 2021

I've been testing "lightguns" on Pi4 lately. Figured it would be a good idea to have a thread for them. Note, none of the "lightguns" I've tested lately are actually lightguns. There are some ways to use actual lightguns using an Arduino but I have yet to try any to comment. Also none of my guns have recoil so I won't be comparing their optional recoil solutions.

In the picture above you can see 4 different "lightgun" solutions: Sinden Lightgun, Aimtrak (x2), Dolphinbar + wiimote + gunshell, and the little black one is using an Arduino and the 4 IR point Samco sketch. All were bought retail and not given to me to review, except the Sinden which have been lent to me by a friend to help him set them up.

First up we have the Sinden Lightgun. It uses a camera and software based on-screen white border. Unlike the other solutions seen here the Sinden needs to run a software driver (or 2 instances for 2 guns) to function, it's possible the extra overhead of the extra software could cause issues with something but I haven't noticed anything so far.
Once setup the Sinden is able to be used with line of sight and no onscreen crosshair, it handles change of position well and can be passed around multiple players without it losing it's line of sight accuracy. The Sinden is the only gun here with a pump action, a few games used a pump action to reload or fire a second weapon so that may be important to someone, my kids think the pump action is really cool.
I have experience the odd hiccup and some other quirks with the Sinden but its early days for it's software, it's possible it will be further improved through updates. The Sinden software is closed source and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to include the drivers with ARpiCADE, their license says do not distribute it but their instructions also encourage users to make software compilations for the Sinden Lightgun...
The border required by the Sinden must be setup in the emulators (on RPi), which can add a layer of complexity that the other solutions do not have to worry about. (The Windows driver allows setting a button to add the border around software but as far as I know there isn't a way to do this (yet) with Linux). It's very easy to add the border for Retroarch emulators, can be a bit more complex for MAME/AdvMAME.
The Sinden gun feels very high quality in hand and seems well made. The gun handle is a bit square for my taste and is less comfortable in hand than it would be with a rounder shape, your milage may vary - this is probably personal taste or hand shape related as much as anything.

Next up, the Ultimarc Aimtrak. It uses an IR camera and a IR LED bar (not the same bar design as Wii) that needs to be placed on top of your monitor. The Aimtrak is a very good solution but has one major weakness, it is only accurate from the position it is calibrated from so it is not well suited to passing around multiple players. If you use it from the position you calibrate it from it is line of sight accurate and you will not need cross hairs on screen. I think if Ultimarc released a 2 IR bar driver for the Aimtrak it's major weakness could be improved or possibly fixed entirely but I do not think they are still updating the driver (if you have 2 aimtraks you have a second IR bar that goes unused, unless you set it up on a second monitor). The Aimtrak is closed source so if Ultimarc don't do it it won't likely happen.
The only other downside to the Aimtrak is the quality of plastic molding on one of mine. They have used the old PS1 Namco Guncon shell moulds (or a very good copy) and the design is good and comfortable but my red one feels (and even sounds) noticably lower quality than the blue (or an original Guncon). My red Aimtrak flexes and squeeks in the handle making it feel like a cheap knock off of the blue one.
I have recently figured out the other problems I had in the past with calibrating the Aimtrak on RPi. It needs to be calibrated from X11 to not have the calibration cursor go wacky. At this point I quite like the Aimtrak, if you only use it from one spot it's a really good and accurate solution.

The combination of Dolphinbar, Wii-mote and gun shell is quick easy and cheap but not line of sight accurate. On screen cross hairs are basically mandatory with this solution. 2 Dolphinbars are required for 2 Wii-mote guns, although only one needs to be visible. The Dolphinbar comes with a little stand so it's possible to use it sitting on your cabs control panel (and remove it when not in use) instead of permanantly mounting it.
I only recommend this solution if you already have Wii-mote(s) and gunshell(s) and don't care about having on screen cross hairs and no true accuracy. Otherwise, avoid these for lightgun use as it doesn't really give a lightgun like experience. The gun plastic quality and comfort varies based on the shell used so I won't discuss it but I would recommend a gun shell that doesn't put the Wii-mote too far forward as the guns balance will be poor making it more fatiguing to use.

Finally we have a DIY option, the Samco. The hardware is a Arduino micro (several types can be used, must be 5v) + DFRobot IR camera (a salvaged Wii-mote cam can also be used with a few extra parts) + aftermarket Wii IR bar(s) (not Dolphinbar(s) as it will go to sleep without a Wii-mote attached to it with blutooth)+ shell of your choice. Mine is built into a broken Wii-mote shell I had lying around, I will probably find a nicer donor shell for it in the future but I used what I had to try it. The Samco is open source and the designer makes and sells PCBs on eBay to mod original Namco Guncon 1 and 2 lightguns without modifying the shells in any way. It is essentially similar to the Aimtrak but has the advantage of being able to use 2 IR LED bars, one at the top of screen and one below (the Samco can also be made to use only 1 IR bar which I haven't tried but I think would perform silmilar to the Aimtrak). Using the 2 IR bar solution the Samco is accurate even if you move or pass the gun around.
I only made the Samco this week so have spent the least time with it. It's definately accurate. I like that it is open source. Of the DIY options that are popping up the Samco is possibly an easier project than some others as it uses off the shelf IR bars and the Samco PCBs would make modding a Guncon very easy (and Guncons can be found easily at reasonable prices and are very well made and comfortable). Currently the Samco doesn't support recoil but the creator says they are working on it so it may be added in the future. I enjoyed making mine and can recomend it as a project.

I'm waiting on some IR LEDs to try 2 more DIY options, both use 4 ir points - one at the center of each edge of the screen requiring a custom IR point build.
One is xwiigun which uses a Wii-mote connected to the RPis blutooth and a custom Linux driver and is supposed to give line of sight accuracy as well as being wireless. I'm not sure if this supports more than one gun.
The other is JayBees Gun4IR, very similar to the Samco but also supports recoil (either or both solanoid and rumble). Gun4IR is not open source. (JayBee is also working on an adaptor for using actual lightguns as mice on CRT that I believe is intended to be a comercial product.). The Gun4IR is supposed to be great, it's very popular on BYOAC at the moment.

There is another DIY option I want to try that is actually a real lightgun converted to a mouse with an Arduino "GunconDuino". This will only work on low res CRTs.

With the exception of the real lightguns all the mentioned solutions work on both high and low res monitors.

If I was forced to rank these options it would currently be a tie between Aimtrak and Sinden with Dolphinbar way behind. The Samco is too new to me to rank, if it works as well as it looks so far it will be on the top of the heap (at least for these 4 solutions). If the Sinden is improved with driver updates it could also become the top dog, it may be easier or better on Windows than Pi too (I'm not sure). My experience is the Sinden and the Aimtrak both have good and bad points - both are good options. I expect the other options I have mentioned wanting to try are all great options too.

REPOSTED FROM THE OLD FORUM - ORIGINAL POST BY DEE2ER - JAN. 2022

I haven't got the new version out yet... been a wacky few months (or longer...). Unfortunately some of the updates required for multi player analog support in Retroarch cores broke/changed some other bits effecting 480i pixel doubling, which in turn required some tweaking/testing of slightly different interlaced low res and subsequent tweaks to other scripts... The other remaining task for the release is an overhaul of the hotkey system (also as a workaround to Retroarch limitations). I'd hoped it would have been done by now but other aspects of life are getting in the way (eg. I currently have a broken wrist).

I was building myself some NAMCO recoil guns until an eBay sale went sour last year. They're DIYable using JayBees Gun4IR Arduino based system. I didn't get to doing the recoil part (due to the f'wit eBay seller) but otherwise they're working well enough. Doing genuine NAMCO arcade shells winds up really expensive unless you can find cheap second hand bits that are not completely ruined, you may want to consider the knockoff Named guns (or use SEGA arcade gunshells or Playstation NAMCO shells which don't have the slide but are cheaper and can still fit some form of recoil inside the shell). Accuracy wise I actually slightly prefer the crappy Wii-mote gun shell mod gun I made to the NAMCO shells as the NAMCO sights are not as close to the position of the IR camera - I feel like I can tell it's vertically offset but it is prob possible to compensate for it in calibration or MAME settings. Comfort wise the NAMCO are the best shells I have, they're also definately the 'coolest' looking guns - I always wanted my Aimtraks to be light blue and pink like the arcade ones rather than red and dark blue.

If your room lighting doesn't affect them I'd recommend the Sinden over the Aimtrak. Aimtrak is great if you use it from one position, not so great if you try to move around or pass it to a freind. Sindens work great when well setup and there's no strong source of light (eg. sunlight through a window) to interfere with the camera.

The Sinden will also (likely) need some extra software setup when I do the next release, as they don't want their driver software included with distros... it shouldn't be anything too hard though, I may even make a helper script or something.

I have been lent some Sinden recoil guns but haven't tried them yet - it's simple as it doesn't have any extra wiring or power supply but that also makes it extremely likely the feedback is not nearly as good as the NAMCO arcade 24v solanoids.

If you DIY it the Gun4IR system works very well but I think you need a Windows PC for the (paid and closed source) setup program. I think JayBee is also making a non DIY version that could be worth a look.

Some notes on using GunCon2 lightguns compared to the newer tech "lightguns" mentioned in the older above posts.

GunCon2 is a very good lightgun.  It was made in Japan by Namco nearly 25 years ago for the PlayStation 2.  While it has no feedback solanoid or rumble it is very well made, solid feeling and comfortable.  It is also very accurate once a game is calibrated.  Some people on the internet have used the guts of the GunCon2 and most of a PointBlank/TimeCrisis Namco arcade gun to make a USB arcade lightgun if you wanted to go mad with it.  Thanks to the popularity of the PS2 these are common enough and can be found priced below any of the new options.

Unlike many of the highres options you are better off using GunCon2s as joysticks than mice.  Pretty sure this is down to the kernel driver (and a different version of it may change things) but I had trouble trying to use them as mice.  As joysticks they work very well in lightgun games.  As joysticks they can cause issues with joystick order in some emulators, at the moment I recommend only plugging them in when you are about to run a gun game and unplugging when you're done with gun games *(you can leave the sync cable connected) to avoid having the reorder all the joysticks in MAME.

In games that are similar to lightgun games that play very well on the highres gun options (games where the gun is a analog joy with Uzi shell, games that actually used sensors around the screeen rather than real lightguns) you often need to turn up the brightness for the GunCons to track well, especially if the game is dark.  In MAME the slider settings can be used to do this and 140% brightness seems to work well, In RA cores you can use the GLSL image adjustment shader to do similar.  The 'not really lightgun' games can be a mixed bag due to lightguns needing a fairly bright image to track well.  Increasing the brightness also helps in calibration screens that arn't designed for actual lightguns (and some that were). 

I have had no issue using the composite sync signal from the RaspberryJAMMA with the GunCon2.  I have just the sync wire split into a Y, RCA jack on one side and the monitor on the other.  The GND is connected via the USB so I didn't connect it to sheild of the new sync RCA, it worked fine on my test bench like this but I don't know if there's a use case where it wont.
 
Can recommend for low res use, they won't work for high res use.  Will require ARpiCADE_5 v2 to use them.

EDIT: there's also a RCA splitter cable that came with some of the GunCon2s (I think), it maybe worth grabbing one of these if you want more than 1 gun (although one of mine has a built in split connection).

Would the guncon's be a good solution for a dedicated gun setup on a low res cabinet?   Could the guns be kept plugged in then?

How do the guncons plug in?  I'm looking at using my showcase cabinet (very large).

Would the guncon's be a good solution for a dedicated gun setup on a low res cabinet?   Could the guns be kept plugged in then?

How do the guncons plug in?  I'm looking at using my showcase cabinet (very large).

If it's a dedicated gun setup it wouldn't hurt to leave them plugged in.  They use USB, I've found with guns that using the USB3 (blue) for player 1 and the USB (1 or2? I can't remember, the black ones) for player 2 keeps player 1 player 1.  It gets more complex if you want to switch between joystick games and USB controls (except pure mouse and/or keyboard based inputs) as SDL can change the joystick order... which is hopefully fixable but I haven't got figured out yet.

EDIT: each GunCon also has a RCA plug for sync.  The USB and RCA wires are joined from the gun handle up to near the connections end so it's only really one wire from each gun to the cab.  Extensions could easily be used to get to convenient places if needed (although USB extensions could make it work worse too, haven't tested and may vary with extension cable used).

BTW... that monitor connection... how does that work exactly?   I assume the center wire of the RCA jack goes to the monitors sync pin and the outside foil to ground?

Exactly.  Although in my case I left the outside of the RCA jack unconnected (it's still connected at the gun end and via the USB so the shielding is still shielding) and only used one wire.

GunCon2 follow up: the trigger design is a bit weak... one of mine broke today, it already felt bad compared to the other one so it was probably worn long before I owned it.  Fixed it with super glue for now but may try this: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3145643 or mod in a micro switch in the future.

I finally ordered a Guncon 2 from ebay... should be here by this weekend.

I guess it would behoove me to put together a shooter ROMlist...

Before I mess with any of the MAME CHD games... are there any CHD games that are known working with the Pi5?

A51,  for example?

EDIT:  I can confirm that Area 51/Maximum Force work fine (at least without the light gun).  Testing more games...

I haven't tried on Pi5 (as far as I remember) but on Pi4 Cryptkiller and Carnevil were close, they're probably good on Pi5.

Having trouble getting Carnevil and all the Incredible Technologies games to work.  I'm guessing I have the wrong ROMs or something.  Carnevil will load... I'll get the cross hairs... screen will go black and I'll see a single pixel appear then disappear... then nothing.  The cross hairs will work but nothing else.

All IT games go through the whole text loading process then when it gets to something to the effect of "LOADED FROM DISK" it sits... forever.  

All these games aren't working at all in .275 or .274... they all have this same behavior in .251.

Just started playing around with them though.

On Pi4 I was using .078 for A51 and had Carnevil and Cryptkiller in there too.  Could be worth trying earlier MAME versions, I haven't spent a heap of time with lightgun games on Pi5 yet, I've only ran a few games in 275 when I was testing.

I think I had that same issue with IT technologies games when I tried some newer Golden Tee games.

Gun arrived last night.  I've not had time to install.  I figure I'll make a Y up near the JAMMA harness and wire in a female RCA jack.   I assume when I get a 2nd gun it would be just a matter of getting an RCA splitter to plug the 2nd gun in...

These tests are are with the ultimate intention of adding another unit to my multi-shooter showcase cabinet.  I only worry in that cabinet doesn't have the absolute brightest of monitors (though it works fine for actual hardware)...

to some extent you can tweak how "bright" the image is in MAMEs sliders using the GAMMA option.  It saves per game so was useful when I was trying stuff with the lightguns.  If the game is designed for lightguns it will likely be able to work, if it used analog sticks inside gunshells GAMMA up and it may work.

A splitter for the RCA will work, one of my guns has one built in (it's a Guncon2 with USB and PS1 plug and a mode switch).