Real Sega Arcade guns for Ghost Squad and HOD3 on Dolphin

[Zebra]

I thought this may be of interest to other light gun fans. This is a video of me using real Sega arcade guns to play Ghost Squad on the Wii with Dolphin (connected to my laptop via a UHID):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-x9bDCvdow&t=1s


The gun set-up is from a House of the Dead 4 arcade cab. It uses 10 IR led boards mounted around the screen plus a sensor in the gun. It's significantly more accurate and responsive than camera-based pointers like the Wii remote or an Aimtrak. It suffers none of the lag or drift.


I only started using Dolphin a few weeks ago but I have to say I'm very impressed with the emulator. I'm usually more of an arcade guy. The Wii has a lot of otherwise great light gun games that were ruined for me by only allowing the use of a Wii remote. Thanks to Dolphins fantastic Wiimote emulation, I can now play these games as nature intended -with real arcade recoil guns!

I wish there was a way to use Dolphin's Wii remote emulation on my real Wii console. Being able to play with decent arcade race wheels, flight sticks and guns would give it new life. The remote has a place but it ain't a ffb race wheel or a gun....

[Zebra]

Here's a video of me using the Sega arcade guns to play House of the Dead 3 with Dolphin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzTnt25j020

The Sega gun sense board used to control the gun and LEDs around the monitor is the same part used in all Sega arcade shooters since House of the Dead 3 and all Namco shooters since Time Crisis 4. Unlike tradition light guns, these work on HD flat screen monitors. I could take a HOD3 arcade shotgun and use it with my set-up without any mods.

This is the gun I'm using in the video:



I'll post another when my new Ghost Squad rifle arrives next week.

[skid]

Looks great.  If you don't mind, would you please make a video of a walkthrough of the set-up - how does it connect to the PC and any converter boards that you are using, any parts that you made?  Are the leds and harness from the arcade machine?

[Zebra]

Looks great.  If you don't mind, would you please make a video of a walkthrough of the set-up - how does it connect to the PC and any converter boards that you are using, any parts that you made?  Are the leds and harness from the arcade machine?

The gun, cables, gun sense PCB and the IR LEDs around the monitor are all from an arcade cab. You can use any of these parts from any Sega light gun cab since House of the Dead 2. They are all the same and universally compatible. Or, you can use the parts from a Namco gun cab like Time Crisis 4 or Time Crisis 5 (their shooters from the HD era that don’t use old-school light guns). 

Twisted symphony over on the arcade projects forum did a fantastic write-up on the parts on his blog. It will tell you everything you need to know about the hardware:

http://solid-orange.com/1611

The arcade gun sense boards output like standard analog controllers (just like Wii remotes). I.e it outputs 0-5v for each axis with 5v being one edge and 0v the opposite edge of the screen. There are a bunch of options for connecting analog X and Y axis signals to a PC including pad hacks but I used a UHID nano from Ultimarc. 

The UHID or UHID nano is the easiest method I found. You just allocate the pins you want to be analog axis in their software. Then you simply connect the wires from the gun sense board output. I.e. one for the X axis, one for the Y axis, one for trigger and one for “screen out” (just a digital button for reloading on some games). The pin-out is listed in the blog above so just copy that to know where each pin goes.

After that, you just calibrate it in the Windows control panel as you would with any analog pad or race wheel except you aim at the screen corners when it asks you to rotate the handle.

As an FYI, it’s not an economical solution. It’s just the only gun controller hardware I’ve been able to find that lets you play on an HD screen, stand as close as old-school light guns and get consistent accuracy without constant calibration. People looking for something cheap should look elsewhere. 

This set-up is for serious light gun fans only. But... it’s an investment you only have to make once like how race fans spend $500 on a nice ffb race wheel, pedals, seat and shifter etc. I just like arcade quality super accurate guns with recoil.

[Zebra]

Here's a quick vid of me playing Ghost Squad with Dolphin using a real Ghost Squad arcade recoil gun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gx00X9qgzM


Recoil makes everything better!