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Arcade1up Light Gun MOD - mame light gun games !!

RetroRalph·video·14m 37s·analyzed·Apr 9, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.017

TL;DR

RetroRalph shows how to mod Arcade1Up with Ultimarc AimTrack light gun for classic arcade shooter games.

Summary

RetroRalph demonstrates how to set up the Ultimarc AimTrack light gun on an Arcade1Up cabinet with LCD screens to play classic arcade light gun games via MAME. He covers calibration, configuration quirks, button mapping, and showcases gameplay from several games including Time Crisis, Area 51, and Duck Hunt. The video emphasizes that while light guns can be finicky and expensive ($100+), they enable nostalgic arcade experiences at home.

Key Claims

  • Ultimarc AimTrack light guns can work on LCD screens via USB with an LED tracking bar

    high confidence · RetroRalph demonstrates working setup with multiple games playing successfully

  • Calibration must be done from the playing distance where the gun will be used, not closer

    high confidence · RetroRalph states he made this mistake early on; accuracy degrades when playing position changes

  • Light guns can be finicky; unplugging and replugging can create new device IDs requiring reconfiguration in MAME

    high confidence · RetroRalph describes this issue and mentions it can be hard-coded in MAME.ini to prevent it

  • The Ultimarc AimTrack solenoid/force feedback feature has reliability issues

    medium confidence · RetroRalph notes his solenoid isn't working consistently and plans to contact Ultimarc about it

  • Ultimarc AimTrack costs about $100, with solenoid version costing more

    high confidence · RetroRalph directly states pricing in closing remarks

Notable Quotes

  • “CRTs are a little hard to come by these days. Well, they're around, but most of us have LCDs. So how do we get this to work with that?”

    RetroRalph (Jon)@ 0:44 — Establishes the core problem the video solves: LCD compatibility for light guns

  • “These guns can be finicky. So I'm not saying that the Ultimarc AimTrack is the only one. There's others out there.”

    RetroRalph (Jon)@ 2:40 — Sets expectations about light gun reliability and acknowledges alternatives exist

  • “If you unplug it and plug it back in, it can create a new device ID for it at times, which will mess up some of the settings.”

    RetroRalph (Jon)@ 2:57 — Key technical caveat about a common problem users will encounter

  • “You will have to calibrate these every now and then. You'll go in and it won't be as accurate.”

    RetroRalph (Jon)@ 3:29 — Maintenance burden for maintaining light gun accuracy

  • “So I'm actually going to do this real quick. It's good that it did this... There's an option here that says force aspect ratio on. We want to shut that off.”

    RetroRalph (Jon)@ 8:42 — Practical troubleshooting tip for full-screen display issues with light guns in MAME

  • “You'll have to be a little bit of trial and error on your part... certain gun games, if you go to the Ultimarc website, they have special sort of lists of compatibility.”

    RetroRalph (Jon)@ 13:17 — Acknowledgment that compatibility varies by game and MAME version

Entities

RetroRalphpersonUltimarc AimTrackproductArcade1UpproductMAMEproductTime CrisisgameArea 51gameDuck HuntgameTerminator 2gameWiimoteproductDolphin Barproduct

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: RetroRalph providing practical tutorial content on light gun setups, including troubleshooting tips and game recommendations to lower barrier to entry for retro arcade enthusiasts

    high · Structured demonstration with multiple games, calibration walkthroughs, and references to additional tutorial resources in description

  • ?

    technology_signal: Ultimarc AimTrack enables affordable home arcade light gun gaming on modern LCD displays via USB, opening modding possibilities for compact cabinets like Arcade1Up

    high · Full working demonstration with multiple games; notes that LED bar can be tucked away for cleaner aesthetics on cabinet conversions

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.044

0:00
Hey guys, welcome back. I bet there's times during the day, multiple times a day, where you're sitting there daydreaming about the times when you were in the arcade being a total badass, right? You could rock that light gun like no one's business. Problem is, we're out of shape now. We're a little bit older. But you know what? We're going to need some serious training if we're going to get back to this.
0:30
Okay, okay, maybe we're not going to get that good, but I know we can get good again. But the only way we're going to do that is if we figure out how to get the light gun to work at home. Now, in this episode, we're going to see how to get this to work on an LCD screen, because you know what? CRTs are a little hard to come by these days. Well, they're around, but most of us have LCDs. So how do we get this to work with that? Well, in this episode, or this proof of concept, we're going to get this puppy working so we can get back to being badass again. Because that's right, we're still badass. We just need a little bit of training. So sit back, relax, and let's do it. all right guys so let me tell you a little about this ultimark aim track so it's meant to plug directly into usb i am using a pc build for this uh it is something you could set up on a retro pie I'm this isn't a tutorial video about how to set it up I just want to give you some basics so you can see what's possible so we can get back to that training we talked about okay so when we get this gun in place and we put it in the USB you're gonna see that it also comes with this bar this LED bar and this LED bar is what tracks where this gun is on the screen and if you see I don't know if you can see that with the lights the mouse cursor is going up and down and left to right. Now that will do that in the initial plug-in. So when you initially plug it in without doing anything, it should start to track that to some degree. It may not be perfect because it hasn't been calibrated yet. And the one thing I will tell you, when you open up the AimTrack software to do the calibration, you're going to want to calibrate the gun from the place that you're playing. I made that mistake early on. I'd calibrate it close and then all of a sudden and I'd step back here to play the game, and it wasn't working well. The other thing I'm going to tell you is if you go down this path, there are several caveats to this.
2:40
These guns can be finicky. So I'm not saying that the Ultimark Game Track is the only one. There's others out there. And again, this isn't meant to be an instructional video because there's many videos like that, and I'm going to leave links in the description of some videos to help you guys set it up. But they can be finicky. If you unplug it and plug it back in, it can create a new device ID for it at times, which will mess up some of the settings. It might show up as a different gun, and then you'll have to go into MAME and configure that specific settings for that gun, because maybe it was recognized as gun 2, and now it's recognized as gun 3. Those are all things that can be manipulated in the MAME.ini file, so you can hard code the gun to be a specific device ID. That way, if you did unplug and plug it back in, it doesn't mess it up. You will have to calibrate these every now and then. You'll go in and it won't be as accurate. So that just something to be aware of They do sell a holster for this that you can put in the side of the machine which I think is really cool You can have two of them running at once You can probably have more than two I haven actually played with more than two This one does have a solenoid in it, which gives you that force feedback. I've noticed with this one in particular, it's acting up. It's not working all the time. So I don't know if that's a common thing with the force feedback guns, but this one I'm having some issues with that. So I don't know. I have to go back to Ultimark and ask them if that's something that's common. But the other thing too is it has, at the end of this cable, it has a separate cable for power. So it has one for USB and one for power. That power is to power the solenoid that gives you that sort of force feedback type of an effect. So anyways, back to what I was saying. You get to the screen, initial calibration, vertical, horizontal. And at that point, once it's calibrated, you can get into your games. and there is going to be set up there too. But I'm going to showcase a couple of the games that I think are fun to play on this and seem to play pretty good. So you guys get an idea of how well does this work. And the reason why I did this on an arcade one-up, I wanted you to realize that with this LED bar, it would work on a one-up. No problem. So if you wanted to make a gun-themed one-up, you can totally do that. Now, what I'm showcasing here could also be done on a large arcade cabinet. Typically what you do then is the light bar gets disassembled and you'd hide that assembly somewhere. You can do the same thing with the arcade one up. It just makes it more streamlined, it'll look nicer, and you can tuck this out of the way in an area where maybe you wouldn't see it as much. So that's kind of the basics. Let's jump into a couple of the games and see how this thing looks. Alright, let's do it. Let's get back to that training.
5:27
As you can see, it's playing pretty good. And these bombs are super satisfying to use. To use these, you use your, I already told you this, but you use your, this little left button right here. These things come in waves. This game is very tedious. It definitely wears on your patience level. Alright, here's a closer look at the gameplay. I love this game so much, it's not even funny. I pumped so many quarters into this game back in, I don't know, maybe 1991. I can't remember when exactly this game came out, but you'll notice I use those bombs quite a bit. That red button on the side that I talked about earlier, you do need to configure that. So in the Ultimark aim track setup, you set what you want those buttons to do. So in this case, I set that button to do just this, and then in the main configuration of this particular game it has a configuration and then I set that button to do the bomb so pretty cool stuff but yeah let's let's jump on to the next game but I love this game I could play it for hours so one of my other favorite games is time crisis because it used that foot pedal so you could duck and then get back up and shoot what I did was I mapped that duck button to this this red button right here so you'll see when I press the red button it'll dock and it'll get back up so pretty cool so I'll show you that right now all right check it out so I'm behind press the red button
7:06
red button he also reloads when you duck behind there too which is good Love this game If you never played this game it super fun You should definitely check it out. Some of the graphics, admittedly, in this ROM aren't perfect, but it's pretty good. Still very playable. Alright, so you guys get the point. There's your duck. That's the button you use to release. In this game, it actually reloads every time you do that. So, it works really good, man. I'm a big fan of this game, and I think you'd have fun with it if you set up a gun cabinet. I suggest you put this on, because it's a super fun game. Let's check out another one. So a rather iconic shooter from 1991 would absolutely be Area 51. So kind of a fun game. I'm sure everyone on here has either played it or seen it. It runs pretty good on here too. I'll give you a quick demo and then we'll move on to one more game. Oh actually, you know what? This is good. So actually, what you're seeing here is the screen is not taking up the full resolution of the monitor. This is actually something that you can go change in MAME. So I'm actually going to do this real quick. It's good that it did this. So we're going to exit out. When you go to, when you're at the main screen right here, actually sometimes the mouse is going to be finicky because it's using the light gun. So if I right click on Area 51, you're going to see some video options. There's an option here that says force aspect ratio on. We want to shut that off. Alright, now we should be able to return to the game without any issue and we should be good to go. Let's go back in Area 51. And it should now take up the whole screen. We should be good. As you can see it now, it takes up the whole screen. So I've had that problem before. Easy fix.
9:31
Alright, we want to do... We're going to do beginner. In this particular game, you need to shoot off the screen to reload.
9:41
And that was the same in the arcade. Reload, reload. I always kind of sucked at this game. This game does have a little bit of screen tearing.
9:59
Don't shoot the innocents, man. Ah, shoot. Didn't reload on me. That's pretty dope. Alright. So that's area 51. Just a quick walkthrough.
10:28
Super cool, guys. I'll do one more and then we'll wrap it up. Okay, so I noticed that last game the gun calibration was a bit off. I think it's because I moved quite a bit. I moved further back than when I originally calibrated it. So a little tip here is you can hold this red button on the side. It's usually mapped to this button. and if you hold it down for about five seconds, it'll actually start the calibration process. What the calibration process does is it takes a mouse cursor moves it up to the left you shoot that moves it up to the right you shoot that and then moves it up to the bottom and you shoot that it can be a little finicky at times though there be times where you be shooting the bottom one over and over again or the top right and top left and it doesn seem to be taking that's when you just need to make small no not drastic but small gun changes and you'll get it right and every now and then you might have to calibrate it multiple times and then once you once you feel like it's dialed in i'm using the crosshairs some people don't like the crosshairs the game i'm about to play is duck hunt which is kind of cheating with the crosshairs. I suck at duck hunt anyway, so it really doesn't matter. But I'll give you guys that last one and then we'll wrap things up. Man, this dog is annoying as heck.
11:38
All right, you're going to see me miss every single one now from here on out. It goes so fast, out of the gate. All right, respectable. Don't worry, it's going to get bad soon.
11:52
See, told you. It's toast from here. Yeah! Oh! Looks like that training is paying off guys. See, we may be old. Oh, never mind. Never mind. See? Now the dog's gonna do his stupid laugh. Okay guys, so hopefully you enjoyed this video. The whole purpose of this is just to show you what's possible. Whether it be an arcade one-up, a full arcade machine, these guns are really fun to play with. But I just want to let you know, they just can be a little finicky at times. So just keep that in mind. The Ultimark gun is actually quite expensive too. It runs you about a hundred and I think the one with the solenoid runs you a little bit more. So I'll leave links in the description of that. there are other more cost-effective gun options you can also use dolphin bar and a Wiimote too so you can definitely get that working here I just think to recreate the experience this thing looks pretty damn cool and come on now we were badass remember we're trying to return back to our roots so if you want to be badass you need a badass gun but but but you don't actually have to get something this expensive there's other more cost-effective ones I'm just gonna let you know you know as a final thoughts at closing it although very fun just expect that the gun games are not going to always work. There's certain gun games, if you go to the Ultimark website, they have special sort of lists of compatibility. You're also going to deal with different versions of MAME to get different gun games to work. And you know how that goes. If you've ever done the MAME game with ROMs, you absolutely know sometimes you get them to work, sometimes you don't. It just really depends. So creating your own personal build of gun game favorites, you'll have to be a little bit of trial and error on your part. So that was the whole purpose of this. I hope you had fun with it. I had a blast. Terminator 2, I was actually playing it for like at least an hour before I filmed this. Super fun game, but very difficult game. I forgot how hard it was. All right, guys, that's a wrap. So if you like this video, please like it. Please subscribe to the channel. Please hit that little notification bell and give us a thumbs up if this is something that you enjoyed. And, you know, maybe this turns out that I build a full arcade cabinet with guns. I don't know. We'll see where this goes. But thank you guys so much for watching, and we'll see you on the next one.