Description

Setup instructions

You will need:

• Namco GunCon 2 (compatibles/clones should work)
• Standard-definition CRT TV with SCART INPUT
• Additional VGA to SCART Cable to attach on MiSTer

Optionally, for calibration, you will also need:

• an installed copy of the 240p Test Suite for the core you will run
• a keyboard with a working F10 key

1. Run the downloader script on your MiSTer to keep its main executable and Linux kernel up to date.

2. Plug in the GunCon 2. The USB connector can be plugged into any of your data-capable USB ports (i.e., not the “POWER ONLY” one on the USB hub.) The yellow GunCon 2 RCA connector needs to be connected to the LightGun RCA Adaptor.

You should now be able to use your GunCon 2 as a controller on the MiSTer. The ideal calibration settings for the gun will vary for each display, and for each core.

Calibration instructions

To calibrate the gun for a particular core, follow these steps:

4. Open a core (e.g., SNES), and load the 240p Test Suite.

5. Use the 240p Test Suite’s “White and RGB Screen” pattern to display a full white screen.

6. Open the MiSTer OSD and press F10 on a keyboard. A lightgun calibration menu should appear.

7. Using the menu, aim at the extreme edges of the screen, then press A on the left side of the gun to calibrate that edge. (Note: The menu will prompt you to press “Trigger”; press “A” instead.) Your goal is to get the most extreme numbers you can without the gun losing sight of the screen. When doing this with the GunCon 2, BE CAREFUL not to calibrate the min and max of the same axis to the same value (e.g., both offscreen); if you do, your MiSTer will divide by zero when applying your calibration, and will crash. If this happens, just delete your calibration files from /config.

8. You should now be calibrated. To confirm, try enabling the core’s lightgun crosshair (if it has one) and moving around the white screen. Note that calibration is per-core, so you’ll need to calibrate separately in NES, PSX, the main menu, etc.

GunCon 2 Performance on MiSTer

Overall, the GunCon 2 is an accurate and precise lightgun with relatively little jitter. It requires a certain level of screen brightness in order to detect the CRT beam; some consoles’ lightguns were designed for IR tracking or very tight CRT flash timing, which gives the GunCon 2 some trouble.

• NES (Zapper): NES Zapper is currently not working, pending submission of some code to the main MiSTer framework.

• Master System (Light Phaser): Okay. Works well for brighter games. Darker games, like certain sections of Shooting Gallery, have trouble.

• SNES (Super Scope, Justifier): Good. You may need to brighten your screen for some games, but most Super Scope games are already bright enough to work well. All SNES Justifier games have been thoroughly tested, except for Lethal Enforcers.

• Genesis (Menacer, Justifier): Okay. You may need to brighten your screen for some games.

• PSX: GunCon emulation has been implemented, but the horizontal scale is not correct due to resource constraints. The MiSTer executable in this repo contains a patch that corrects any lightgun-type inputs being sent to the PSX. With this calibration, performance is good overall, though there are some detection issues when shooting at dark areas of the screen.

  Note: The GunCon in the PSX core uses the following buttons from the standard gamepad:

  • Circle: maps to Trigger
  • Start: maps to A
  • Cross: maps to B

  So, map your GunCon 2’s trigger to Circle, your A button to Start, and your B button to Cross. (For the other buttons, feel free to either map them as desired or skip them – they will be ignored when the core is emulating the GunCon 1.)

• Saturn (Stunner): Core is still in development and does not yet have lightgun support.

Notes on using the GunCon 2, and on this driver/setup

• • Like the Wiimote, this gun can report its coordinates as a mouse (with throttling applied) and as a raw joystick. It will work much better as a raw joystick. Hence, when setting up specific cores, choose the “Joy” options for aiming.

  • If you accidentally severely miscalibrate the gun for a core, the core may crash or not start up. If this happens, or if you want to retry calibration for another reason, look for the gun calibration files in /config on your SD card, and delete them.

  • The GunCon 2 is capable of reading a 480p screen, but this driver is not yet capable of that, so it functions only with standard-definition CRTs. NTSC and PAL should both be fine.