HDTV COMPATIBILITY AND LIGHT GUN GAMES

[nirron]

Hi

This is by way of a Heads Up for anyone who cares and sorry if this is already known but I couldn't find anything about it. this is likely to be my only post as I just had to tell people.

I was about to sell my old games and peripherals because I couldn't get my DREAMCAST to work on my HDTV and didn't want to get into the whole VGA adapter route which seems complicated.

However I plugged it into my Samsung 4k TV and it worked fine and looks amazing.

The really good news is that HOUSE OF THE DEAD works with the light gun. The on screen sight doesn't move naturally but you can use the up/down/left/right control on the gun and it moves perfectly. It is a bit awkward but IT WORKS. I am not sure if this is an issue with the gun/game/console or TV. There was a message onscreen that the gun wasn't compatible in North America but I am in the UK and all my peripherals were from the UK

I have no way of proving this ( don't know how to upload to YouTube/the web etc) bu hopefully someone else with a 4 k TV ( and DREAMCAST) can confirm it.

Hope someone with more tech savvy than me can explain/confirm this as it may bring a lot of light gun fun to everyone.

Happy days

[Turd_Ferguson]

Pretty sure light guns only work on standard CRT TV's. Because the flatscreens always emit light.

But a VGA cable from ebay is cheap, no more complicated than composite. Might look great on 4k.

[nirron]

Hi Turd

That has been the conventional wisdom until now about CRT screens. That's why I posted this thread to find out from the community of their experiences or if the community can confirm it.

I don't need a VGA at all now as it works incredibly well and is only connected with scart ( forgot to mention that earlier)

Thanks

[Dreamcastgaga]

Interesting, are you saying you can actually aim with the gun and fire with the trigger, or are you just using the D-pad on the gun, like a controller?

[BlueCrab]

That has been the conventional wisdom until now about CRT screens. That's why I posted this thread to find out from the community of their experiences or if the community can confirm it.

There's really nothing to need to confirm. From a technical perspective, old light guns (basically everything that doesn't take the Wii Remote approach of using a sensor bar for consumer goods) will never work with LCD/LED/etc TVs.

If you want to know the hows and whys of that, feel free to continue reading. Old CRT TVs essentially work by using a beam of electrons across the screen. The beam goes across the screen a fixed number of times per second (it makes approximately 60 or 50 round trips across the whole screen from top-to-bottom every second). Light guns essentially worked by signaling to the console when the gun could "see" the beam of electrons coming across the screen. That's why games would typically flash the screen white or some other bright color when you pulled the trigger -- it's much easier to see, especially in rooms that aren't completely dark.

LCD/LED TVs don't work on the concept of an electron gun. The whole screen changes at once, thus the way that old light guns worked will no longer work with these types of displays -- there's no refresh for the gun to see! That's why you have "sensor bars" and other annoyances with newer guns for consoles. These types of devices detect IR light from the "sensor bar" and then leave it up to either the console or the hardware in the device to triangulate a point in the 2D plane directly above/below the bar that you're pointing at -- all very basic geometry, which is pretty easy to do. Sensor bar is really a misnomer for what almost all of these devices do, since they just blindly output IR light -- they don't sense anything, that's all left up to the gun itself.

And now, I cut off my rambling, because I'm sure it'll make zero sense if I continue.

[lastcallgames]

That's how the Wii works, and yeah, the sensor bar is just a couple IR emitters, which is why you can use two properly placed candles instead.



I love that, but the Wiimote triangulates its position above/below the sensors and how far over they are to determine where the pointer is.

The PS move works differently, the camera detects where the glowing ball on the end of it is and sends that info to the system. Which is why you need to calibrate it so often.

[rjay63]

It sounds as if the gun has reverted to "controller mode" where you use the D-pad on the gun to move the crosshairs.

[nirron]

Hi

In answer to the various points raised

Dreamcastgaga: I am using the d-pad to move the on screen cursor and the trigger to fire. I mentioned I have no idea if that is due to the lightgun having a problem as it hasn't been used for years.

Blue crab: Your explanation was great (not saying I understood much). You say light guns will never work with LCD/LED TV's etc. If so what is mine doing as I can shoot the zombies. I have seen video of people trying light gun games and the only effect is a screen flash with no onscreen effect. In my case there is no flash just kill a zombie and move onto the next one.

rjay. Controller mode sounds perfectly reasonable but the fact the gun shoots normally shouldn't really happen based on all the previously noted issues about light guns and HDTV

The other thing is that I am able to link the Dreamcas to my TV using scart and it just works whereas most people have to get a VGA connection or some other workaround. Is that something to do with the TV?

As I said, just wanted to put this out to let people know about the possibilities. I am going to try and get another lightgun and see if it works without using the dpad in case there is a fault on the gun. Unless someone else can try it out

Thanks for all your responses

[Wombat]

....You say light guns will never work with LCD/LED TV's etc. If so what is mine doing as I can shoot the zombies. ...

The light(-gun) part of the gun is not working, so from a practical players standpoint the Dreamcast lightgun will not work with LCD/LED etc. The fact that you're able to use the buttons speaks for it self, heck you are even able to "play" these games on a projector. But that being said, it would make more sense to just use the gamepad instead of aiming with your thumb on the d-pad of the gun.

[pcwzrd13]

But that being said, it would make more sense to just use the gamepad instead of aiming with your thumb on the d-pad of the gun.

Exactly. The light gun is basically just acting like a gun-shaped controller. It's impossible for a light gun to work on a modern TV because the technology was designed for CRT TVs.