Wii Remote as LightGun?

[Sire]

I remember myself looking at those arcades with guns (area 51 for example) where you were pointing on the screen to shoot at those aliens.I also remember myself playing at a friends house "ducks sth..." where you were shooting at ducks taking off!

I have installed GameEx and some Mame roms (it's a work in progress setting everysingle rom/emulator up)!

I saw that there are some games under the lightgun category and thought that it would be great to play those games i couldn't when i was young (because they were extremely expensive here in Greece).

To the point:

I have a wii and of course a wiiremote.

I have also this:

Wii Wireless SensorBar (sorry for the greek site/just look at the product)

I have connected two more ir leds i bought and attached a usb cable so it can be powered via usb (5volts)!

Connected wiiremote via bluetooth to the pc!

I have also downloaded a program for using wiiremote to pc!

It works great as pointer/mouse for my pc!

Is there a way to play those games with a fully calibrated wiiremote for pc?

[bkenobi]

Okay, so your question is really "How do I use a mouse in MAME for gun games?", correct? The answer is that you need to read the MAME docs. However, there's a lot to read, so I'll summarize.

MAME changed the input scheme in v0.117u1 so that programs can't create inputs for MAME. That means that Joy2Key, XPadder, WinGun, AHK, etc. can no longer be used to provide custom inputs to MAME the way they used to. What you need to do is use an older version of MAME like v0.117.

HOWEVER, if the software you are using for you WiiMote is actually a driver that makes the the WiiMote a mouse (as far as Windows is concerned), then you can use a current build of MAME just fine. I don't know whether this is the case or not, but I figured I would point that out.

To set up MAME you first have to turn on the lightgun. Either edit the mame.ini and put a '1' next to lightgun or use the -lightgun switch. Now, to configure the gun, you simply go to the gun setup in MAME. Then select the X Analog direction and move the WiiMote horizontally. Then select Y Analog and move the WiiMote vertically. If the gun is set up as a gun and not a mouse, you will actually have to click the trigger before and after your movement.

You should be good to go at this point!!!

[Sire]

Thanks for your reply!

Here are some photos:

When i find some time i will check it and return for the results!

[bkenobi]

So you took a wireless Wii receiver/transmitter and made it wired? Why not just put it directly in the cab if you are going to go with a wired one anyway? Ehhh, looks good though. Nice work!

[sWampy]

I load the bluetooth drivers, load that BlueSoleil crap, load glovepie, load script, click run, blue screen of death. Wish like hell I could get it to work right.

[Sire]

  bkenobi said:

So you took a wireless Wii receiver/transmitter and made it wired? Why not just put it directly in the cab if you are going to go with a wired one anyway? Ehhh, looks good though. Nice work!

Yup!

1) why going with a wired one?Sensorbars are ment to be build for the wii.I would have to cut the wire and attach another.

2) i added 2 more leds cause the leds it had fucked as hell

3) because i added 2 more leds i needed more power!5volts instead of the batteries volts!

4) i don't have a cab.I have an hdtv. ;-)

  sWampy said:

I load the bluetooth drivers, load that BlueSoleil crap, load glovepie, load script, click run, blue screen of death. Wish like hell I could get it to work right.

it's kinda weird!

Have you tried with another script?Not that this will change things!

It sounds like a hardware failure for me.

Try another bluetooth receiver.

[bkenobi]

Ahhh, without a cabinet, there wouldn't be anything to build it into! Btw, why not change the batteries to something with more kick to get you up to the 5v if that's what you need? For instance (since you had to modify it anyway), why not go with a 9v and a voltage regulator (if needed) or use some of the other area in the sensor bar and put a couple more AA's in there to keep it wireless. Eh, if it works, it works!

[Sire]

U r right!

I thought about it but there was the posibility to forget to close it and have to change the batteries every 2-3 days.Now when i turn on the pc i have a working sensorbar!

I 've put it on the top of my HDTV above the other wii sensor bar and it looks pretty good!About your 9v idea: it's pretty good but my HDTV is thin enough and i have the sensor bar on top so no room to hang it out! ;-)

I've ordered yesterday the nyko wireless bar which is more poweful than the wii's sesnodrbar + the fact that it looks just like the wii so there aren't great differences!

I want to try what you've told me in your first post but i dunno if i will make it cause i just came home after 16 hours on my uni, i am pretty tired and the tv is occupied!!!

Has anyone tested it to confirm that it works?

I am sure many people will have thought the same thing!

[lingpanda]

  Sire said:

I remember myself looking at those arcades with guns (area 51 for example) where you were pointing on the screen to shoot at those aliens.I also remember myself playing at a friends house "ducks sth..." where you were shooting at ducks taking off!

I have installed GameEx and some Mame roms (it's a work in progress setting everysingle rom/emulator up)!

I saw that there are some games under the lightgun category and thought that it would be great to play those games i couldn't when i was young (because they were extremely expensive here in Greece).

To the point:

I have a wii and of course a wiiremote.

I have also this:

Wii Wireless SensorBar (sorry for the greek site/just look at the product)

I have connected two more ir leds i bought and attached a usb cable so it can be powered via usb (5volts)!

Connected wiiremote via bluetooth to the pc!

I have also downloaded a program for using wiiremote to pc!

It works great as pointer/mouse for my pc!

Is there a way to play those games with a fully calibrated wiiremote for pc?

Or you could just use this

http://www.golive2.com/

[sWampy]

I got one of the go2live things at target for $5 after xmas, I hooked it up and played a few of their games online. It kept shutting off during play, wasn't accurate, and only seemed to work while in a web browser. Maybe there is a mouse driver for it I missed.

[Sire]

  lingpanda said:

Or you could just use this

http://www.golive2.com/

First time i hear about it!

We don't have it here in Greece or even if we have it it should be saled on JUMBO stores which i don't visit anymore!

But i want to play the mame games, the ones that we were playing when young!

[bkenobi]

Those are cool, but do they report as a mouse or do they require some special software to run?

[Sire]

I tried yesterday to play mame lightgun games but i didn't made it!

I couldn't find how to change the mame settings.

How mame settings are changed?

PS:if i never make it work, is there any other way to play the lightgun games?

[bkenobi]

You either need to use command line switches or edit the mame.ini file (if you use one). I highly recommend generating and using a mame.ini file. They make things SO much easier to setup and maintain your configuration.

If you don't have one, open a command prompt and navigate to your mame directory. Then type 'mame -cc'. Then, edit the newly created mame.ini file with any text editor. What you are looking for is a line that says 'lightgun 0'...change it to 'lightgun 1'. DONE!!!

[ReFleX]

I fought with this for a long time to make it work on my cabinet... so I'll share my info here with you guys!

First of all you need to have the Wiimote hooked to your pc with some kind of Bluetooth driver. Bluesoleil works the best in my opinion. Secondly, if you want to make it work in Mame, you have to use a program called PPJoy. This allows input devices to look like a joystick. Lastly you need Glovepie to script the Wiimote to look like a joystick with PPjoy.

As was pointed out before the reason for all of this is the changes in version 0.117u1. In this version they changed it so Mame looks for raw input now. This means that you can't use Glovepie to make the Wiimote look like mouse and have it work because Glovepie does not make raw commands (I don't think this is even possible). But because of the way so many joysticks work, the Mame devs left that part of the code alone. So we can still fake it to look like a joystick!

One huge problem with this though is that PPjoy only works on Windows 32bit. So for me I now have a dual boot 64 and 32 bit machine. 64 for almost everything and 32 just for lightgun games

So there you have it... all the info you need. It took me a good week of experimenting to make this work.

[Sire]

  bkenobi said:

You either need to use command line switches or edit the mame.ini file (if you use one). I highly recommend generating and using a mame.ini file. They make things SO much easier to setup and maintain your configuration.

If you don't have one, open a command prompt and navigate to your mame directory. Then type 'mame -cc'. Then, edit the newly created mame.ini file with any text editor. What you are looking for is a line that says 'lightgun 0'...change it to 'lightgun 1'. DONE!!!

I just tried what you told me in the above post!

It works but there are some probs.

I am using a GlovePie script in order to use wiiremote like a mouse.Everything works fine: a)100% accurate b)buttons working like a charm in the windows and gameex's enviroment but there are 2 major probs:

1)When in the game there are two aiming crosses although there is only one player.I am controlling the blue one but the red one is in the middle of the screen,which is really disturbing.

2)The Fire Button Doesn't work and i have to press the ctrl button on the keyboard.Also annoying and no point for the lightgun to be used like that!

I haven't tried ReFleX's way cause i don't understand it!

I downloaded PPJoy and i have Glovepie but i don't find a way/script to accomplish what you're saying!

Could you please guide me with a how - to + some scripts?

[bkenobi]

1) Press 'F1' to cycle between cross hair display settings (Off, P1 only, P1 + P2)

2) Like I said before, you have to use MAME v0.117 or earlier if your controller isn't treated like an actual mouse. If it's software converting it to mouse inputs, then you must use an earlier version of MAME. The only other alternative is to modify the source code for MAME to remove the usage of the RAW input system. I posted a link on how to do that, but I suggest just using an older version for gun games (that's what I do).

[Sire]

Thanks a lot for ur reply!

Downloaded the 0.117 and 0.116 versions of mame but atm i am at my uni so when i get home i will update my post...

[Sire]

  bkenobi said:

1) Press 'F1' to cycle between cross hair display settings (Off, P1 only, P1 + P2)

2) Like I said before, you have to use MAME v0.117 or earlier if your controller isn't treated like an actual mouse. If it's software converting it to mouse inputs, then you must use an earlier version of MAME. The only other alternative is to modify the source code for MAME to remove the usage of the RAW input system. I posted a link on how to do that, but I suggest just using an older version for gun games (that's what I do).

You ROCK!!!

It worked FLAWLESS!!!

YOU ARE Mr.AWESOME!!! !!!THANKS A LOT FOR UR HELP!!!

Some questions though:

1) Is there a problem if i have 0.129 roms with 0.117 mame version?

Propably there is so:

2) Is there any way to have 2 different versions of mame(one 0.129 with all the roms except the lightgun ones, which will have under 0.117) in the same GameEx installation?I thought adding a mame under the other emulations properties (where we put N64,Nes etc) but i couldn't test it cause i didn't want any conflict to arise and ruin my other configuration.

3)I had ordered a nyko wireless sensor bar but instead they send me a venom one (nyko are out of stock and there was a prob with the product code),should i return it or this will make it?

Once again thanks a lot for your help!

Highly appreciated!!!

[bkenobi]

1) MAME roms get updated from time to time due to changes in the source or updates due to bad dumps. If that happens, then MAME won't load the rom at all. It's always best to keep your version of MAME and your romset matched, but it's not 100% required. In this case, you are looking at running a small subset of games in an older version. I have actually just reviewed these games on MAWS to see what would be affected. I found that there's around half a dozen that won't work. The rest *should* be fine.

2) Running multiple versions of MAME for different games has been a common request for a LONG time. This is actually the same thing that I wanted around a year ago, but there was no way to do it. As a result, I coded up a script that could load different versions of MAME for different games. Check out MAME_Loader here. The other choice is to try MultiMAME. This code is better IMO, but I think it takes more effort to set it up. Either way should work though.

3) Sorry, I don't know much about the Wii and it's accessories. Perhaps Reflex or someone else can help.

[Tempest]

Bk,

You need to stop beating up on yourself... Not only was Mame_loader a good idea, it works great!

How about a GUI for Mame_Loader? It wouldn't be that hard to do.... Get the .exe, and Rom paths from the user in the order that Mame_loader would want to use them. Instead of a list, just check the rom folders, and have only the roms you want to run in each folder. You could have a fullset in the last folder, because it would run on the first Rom found. You could get the command line for each version from GameEx.ini, (you could get the rom paths too). What do you think? I could do it if you want me too...

[bkenobi]

Bah, it's not that I couldn't do that, it's more that MAME_Loader works for what I wanted it to do. I don't have a problem with you expanding on it if you want, though!

I mention MultiMAME because I think it's a better technical solution. The problem is that it's a lot more complicated to get working IMO. If MAME_Loader didn't exist, I would definitely use the other code. I wouldn't consider that beating myself up, more giving an honest opinion of the available options and my critique of them.

[Sire]

Once again thanks for ur replies bkenobi, u r awesome!

1)I haven't looked at ur mame_loader and the multimame program cause i haven't understood anything!!!

You gave a code in the mame_loader thread and i cannot find a walkthrough, a "how-to", in order to have it running!

I saw that the multimame has some documentation but nothing special.

I have to admit that i hadn't enough time to read it, i just bookmarked it for future referrence!

2)What script are you using for GlovePie in order to have wii remote as a lightgun?The script i am using is pretty good but has some flaws that are disturbing in the navigation through the menus!

[bkenobi]

I use Namco GunCon2 lightguns for the PS2 and use WinGun to interpret the inputs into mouse movements/clicks. WinGun won't work with the RAW input system that MAME now uses (as of MAME v0.117u1), so I use the MAME_Loader script to load gun games in an older version of MAME.

I didn't write a tutorial on setting it up since most of the people here have at least a little AHK experience and could understand what was going on enough to get things going. If you are interested in using MAME_Loader and you don't have any experience with AHK (or AutoIt), I can help get it going. Basically it just comes down to knowing what games you want to run in what emulator, knowing the paths for those emulators and roms, and knowing how to call the emulator from the command line. Given that info, it's not that difficult to modify the code once you've seen it done once.

Let me know if you want my help!

[Sire]

By AHK you mean AutoHotKey?

I am not a total n00b, but this is the first time i hear about this.