Author Topic: split topic : lightgun issues  (Read 10450 times)

Offline StormedBubbles

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split topic : lightgun issues
« on: January 01, 2022, 02:05:22 PM »
Hello,

Thanks again for adding Super Russian Roulette! It runs very well in the Libretro port of FBNeo on my Raspberry Pi 4B. I do have a couple questions about the lightgun support for NES. Please pardon my ignorance if there is an easy solution to this that I missed. I browsed the documentation but didn't notice these particular issues.

The game recognizes my Sinden lightgun's trigger, but the gun doesn't move the crosshairs like it does in arcade games when in "Lightgun" mode. It seems that the emulator requires "Port 2" to be where the gun is plugged in (like real NES hardware typically does) for the trigger to be recognized, but only in "Mouse" mode will the crosshairs move. The movement there is a bit erratic. In "Lightgun" mode, the crosshairs seem to be stuck to the middle of the screen and then disappear after some inactivity.

Further, I can't seem to get the game to register an offscreen shot. The "Gun Reload" RetroArch input mapping doesn't seem to function in this game, while "Gun Aux A" also registers an onscreen shot. Unfortunately, the game requires offscreen shots to advance, as onscreen shots only really serve as Easter Eggs. You can destroy stuff in the foreground or agitate/kill the cowboy character.

I was thinking that perhaps I was missing a BIOS file, but it seems that only FDS requires a BIOS for NES-related stuff on FBNeo.

Offline barbudreadmon

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2022, 05:36:54 PM »
Thanks for the report ! There was indeed a problem with nes+lightgun on the libretro port, it should be ok now.

Offline dink

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2022, 06:07:09 PM »
StormedBubbles,
Please bear with us, this game is being feisty.. :)  I'll try to have this offscreen shot issue fixed by later today or tomorrow.

best regards,
- dink

Offline StormedBubbles

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2022, 06:12:21 PM »
Thank you both so much! Take your time, and I'll be happy to test it out when it's ready.

EDIT: I also noticed that offscreen shots don't seem to work with arcade games either. I typically jump around with different emulators when trying various games and didn't think much about this issue before, but perhaps this is a wider issue than just with NES.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2022, 06:15:05 PM by StormedBubbles »

Offline dink

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #4 on: January 01, 2022, 08:17:41 PM »
Thank you both so much! Take your time, and I'll be happy to test it out when it's ready.

EDIT: I also noticed that offscreen shots don't seem to work with arcade games either. I typically jump around with different emulators when trying various games and didn't think much about this issue before, but perhaps this is a wider issue than just with NES.

Can you tell me some of the arcade games w/lightgun that have this problem?  also, can you try it with a mouse or gamepad and see if it works?
Most games register offscreen for reloading when the gun retical is all the way to the top, bottom or sides, in some games we've even added a fake "reload" button to make things easier for controller users.

best regards,
- dink

Offline StormedBubbles

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #5 on: January 01, 2022, 09:36:15 PM »
Sure; I will go over my notes over the next day or two and test the various scenarios.

Offline barbudreadmon

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #6 on: January 02, 2022, 04:09:39 AM »
Can you tell me some of the arcade games w/lightgun that have this problem?  also, can you try it with a mouse or gamepad and see if it works?
Most games register offscreen for reloading when the gun retical is all the way to the top, bottom or sides, in some games we've even added a fake "reload" button to make things easier for controller users.

best regards,
- dink

It might be yet another feature that poorly translates from the libretro port to the emulation backend, what would be the correct value to inject through BurnGunSetCoords to emulate the offscreen reloading feature ?
Currently the value i'm injecting is probably 0.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2022, 06:56:18 AM by barbudreadmon »

Offline StormedBubbles

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2022, 11:21:26 AM »
After going through a list, it seems that most of the gun games in the FBNeo romset use a pump-action reload or do not require reloading at all. Here are the three games that gave me issues with off-screen reloading:

Lethal Enforcers (lethalen): With a controller, I can reload by shooting at the very top or bottom of the screen. With a Sinden lightgun or a regular mouse in lightgun mode, I can only seem to get the reload to work consistently by firing off the top of the screen.

Lord of Gun (lordgun): With a controller, it works perfectly. I can reload off of any side of the screen without issue. With a Sinden lightgun or a regular mouse in lightgun mode, I can only reload by firing off the top or left side of the screen.

Zero Point 2 (zeropnt2): Regardless of using a controller, Sinden lightgun, or regular mouse, I can only occasionally get reload to work by firing multiple times along the edges of the screen. I do not notice a pattern. This game does have a dip-switch to disable reloading and make it play like Zero Point 1, but the FBNeo default has reload on.

A note on the games in which reload only works on some sides of the screen: when the Sinden gun is pointed away from the screen, the cursor will move to the correct border side, but if that movement is exaggerated even a little, the cursor will sometimes jump to another side of the screen. For example, in Lord of Gun, if I move off the left side of the border with my gun, the cursor usually stays on the left part of the border but will occasionally warp to the bottom of the screen and fail to reload. The lightgun system seems to know that the border was touched and does keep the cursor on the border, so there is no danger of firing an on-screen shot. It's like Pointing a Wii Remote away from the screen. The remote and game both know that the cursor is not being pointed at the game area, but neither knows which side of the border to put the cursor on. It would be a non-issue if all sides of the border activated reload when using the gun controller.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2022, 11:55:04 AM by StormedBubbles »

Offline StormedBubbles

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2022, 12:35:15 PM »
I also want to mention that the updates for Super Russian Roulette pushed to the Libretro version of FBNeo within the last couple of hours fixed the off-screen issues for that game!

The only issue I notice with that game now is when you try to activate the Easter Egg of killing the cowboy. In normal gameplay, if you are in control of the gun and try to shoot at the cowboy, you will miss, and he will pull out another gun and shoot you dead. This portion works in FBNeo.

However, the game has an Easter Egg if you try to shoot again before he shoots you. In normal gameplay, if you fire another shot at him as he is pulling out his gun, you will kill him. It seems that if you try to pull the trigger again at this point in FBNeo, it will skip to him already having his gun out, and pulling the trigger again at that point will skip him shooting and go right to the death screen for the human player.

Offline dink

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2022, 04:36:55 PM »
I also want to mention that the updates for Super Russian Roulette pushed to the Libretro version of FBNeo within the last couple of hours fixed the off-screen issues for that game!

The only issue I notice with that game now is when you try to activate the Easter Egg of killing the cowboy. In normal gameplay, if you are in control of the gun and try to shoot at the cowboy, you will miss, and he will pull out another gun and shoot you dead. This portion works in FBNeo.

However, the game has an Easter Egg if you try to shoot again before he shoots you. In normal gameplay, if you fire another shot at him as he is pulling out his gun, you will kill him. It seems that if you try to pull the trigger again at this point in FBNeo, it will skip to him already having his gun out, and pulling the trigger again at that point will skip him shooting and go right to the death screen for the human player.

Thanks for the infos!  Focusing on SRR for now:
I tried killing the cowboy in another emulator which also supports the game, but I also can't kill him.  I'm thinking that there must be something else to the egg, perhaps progress in the game before he can be killed, or something like that, what do you think?

best regards,
- dink

Offline StormedBubbles

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2022, 05:08:59 PM »
🤣 I think that you are exactly correct! I don't know the exact pattern, but it seems that you can get him if he's not staring/pointing directly at you. I got it to work in lr-fbneo when he was leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the table. He also blinks in a way that makes me suspicious that he has some Punch-Out-esque tells.

One thing that I noticed in this latest round of testing is that the bottom of the screen still registers an on-screen shot. I missed that before. The other three sides seem to work every time. The cursor sometimes hits the bottom of the screen when I'm, uh, holding the "USB camera controller" to my head for maximum immersion.

By the way, the cowboy's reaction if you are unlucky enough to die on the first turn is pretty funny.

Offline dink

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2022, 08:53:11 PM »
🤣 I think that you are exactly correct! I don't know the exact pattern, but it seems that you can get him if he's not staring/pointing directly at you. I got it to work in lr-fbneo when he was leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the table. He also blinks in a way that makes me suspicious that he has some Punch-Out-esque tells.

One thing that I noticed in this latest round of testing is that the bottom of the screen still registers an on-screen shot. I missed that before. The other three sides seem to work every time. The cursor sometimes hits the bottom of the screen when I'm, uh, holding the "USB camera controller" to my head for maximum immersion.

By the way, the cowboy's reaction if you are unlucky enough to die on the first turn is pretty funny.

hehe nice find, I do believe there are much more things hidden here :)  Here's a funny clip:
https://youtu.be/Q5itiKorPic 

The NES hardware has a "tell" for all the things that are going to respond to the gun: after you pull the trigger, the screen will flash a bright color (usually white) on all the targets - the desk lights up all the way to the bottom of the screen.

best regards,
- dink

Offline StormedBubbles

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #12 on: January 03, 2022, 09:34:49 PM »
LOL! That must have been quite the exit wound for him to end up grasping at his chest.

That is unfortunate with the desk flashing. Hmm, I suppose the only possibility then is to play with the overscan in hopes of there being lines of non-flashing pixels below the desk. Thanks for all of the help!

Offline dink

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #13 on: January 03, 2022, 11:19:42 PM »
Well, there's 2 things that could happen with that scene, if you shoot him as he turns around from being hit in the butt, he'll die, but if you're not fast enough, he'll shoot you after doing a funny scene :)

p.s. do you have any good NES game suggestions that we don't have yet?

best regards,
- dink

Offline StormedBubbles

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Re: split topic : lightgun issues
« Reply #14 on: January 04, 2022, 12:17:58 AM »
In keeping with the lightgun theme, I do have two more that are oddities.

One is "Hit Marmot," which is a whack-a-mole game. The other is "Fantasy of Gun," which is part of a multi-cart titled "Super 4 in 1" that also contains games called "Space Fight of Gun" (Zapper), "Abyss of Gloom" (Zapper), and "City Adventure" (controller).

These games do work in other emulators that I have tried in RetroArch, but they don't seem to work fully in those emulators. Their unique trait is that they were apparently made for a clone Famicom system that used a proprietary way of getting two independent gun inputs. My guess is that the clone system either (a) had two expansion ports or (b) used daisy-chained controller/Zapper combos that looked like N64 controllers. It is difficult to find information on these, but it seems that a two-controller, two-gun setup was meant to be possible (Fantasy of Gun appeared in at least one other mega-compilation that mixed controller and gun games).

I know of two dual-Zapper games for the NES that work with 2 independent Zapper inputs both on real hardware and in at least one RetroArch emulator. Those two games are "Chiller" and the pong game in "Zap Ruder." Their configuration is straightforward: a Zapper goes in each controller port of an NES. Each player gets an independent score, so it's not just two guns duplicating one shooting input. Hit Marmot and Fantasy of Gun don't work with that setup, but they definitely have independent score/ammo counters for a second player that cannot be controlled by a controller.

Hit Marmot and Fantasy of Gun aren't great games, but it has become a curiosity for me to see if it is possible to emulate the 2-player behavior. Other RetroArch emulators I have tried treat the Famicom's expansion port as "port 5," so I have just been under the assumption that that port 5 would need to be assigned to some new "dual gun" in order for the whole setup to work.