CRT monitor and Light Guns

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jamesone
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CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by jamesone »

Hello guys;

I have a project to get connect my Playstation 2, Dreamcast and Wii to a CRT monitor. My preference is to be a monitor of less than 22 "for the space it occupies, I want to have these 3 systems connected to this same monitor through a vga box and be able to use the Playstation 2 and Dreamcast guns. I do not know if this will be possible.

- Could I connect Guncon (Playstation) and Light Gun (Dreamcast) guns to these monitors via VGA? Would they work? Is there an adapter?

- How could I play Dreamcast games that are not compatible with VGA?

The monitor that I have selected is the Lacie Electron Blue IV: https://www.cnet.com/products/lacie-ele ... ies/specs/
I know that it has very good quality in Dreamcast. However I am looking for more options, including some monitors with BNC inputs, which I do not know if it would solve the problems of guns and games incompatible with Dreamcast VGA. Do you know any monitor where this is possible?

As for the vga box I want to get is this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Monoprice-Comp ... B009GUQYBO Similar to the HD Box Pro that gave very good results on Wii and PS2. The Dreamcast vga box and I have it resolved.

I would like to get all this to work on a single CRT monitor, would it be possible?
jamesone
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by jamesone »

Has anyone tried to operate the light gun with a CRT monitor? It occurs to me through Sync Strike with this rgb cable: https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/son ... T-GUN-PORT

With some signal scaler would it be possible?
Dochartaigh
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Dochartaigh »

You have to understand that most light guns ONLY work on Standard Definition (SD) CRT's which are 15kHz. These are the type of TV's people had in their living rooms from the 50's until the 90's (in the ~2000's many CRT TV's were still SD, but there were also High-Definition or Enhanced Definition TV's as well which do NOT work with light guns).

Your Dreamcast is the outlier of the group, it's the ONLY light gun I know of which will work over VGA on a 31kHz CRT monitor - this is not the norm.

That being said, you won't be able to use your PS2 lightgun on your 31kHz VGA monitor I'm sorry to say - no matter what hook-up connection and/or scaler/adapter you use.

The only monitors which can do both resolutions are some select Sony BVM and PVM monitors (and some by JVC, Ikegami, and maybe Panasonic too) - which are "MultiFormat" monitors which can switch from SD 15kHz to HD 31kHz (and above) on-the-fly...but these routinely go for $300+ for a 14" to $800+ for a 20" on eBay...
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Triple Lei
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Triple Lei »

I was able to play Duck Hunt on my HD CRT (Panasonic Tau) with my OSSC set to Line 2x, and it wouldn't work on that TV otherwise. I'm optimistic there is actually some hardware chain that would allow TC to do what he wanted, except for Guncon games.

There's still no way I know of that'll let me play Guncon games with the OSSC. I even tried putting the yellow plug into the green port of the OSSC and that didn't do anything. That's why I'm still waiting for the OSSC Wolf Edition which is supposed to be able to support composite as well.
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Kez
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Kez »

Duck Hunt's technology is very different from other light guns.

If my understanding is correct, most later light guns measure position by calculating the exact amount of time taken for the CRT's beam to reach the point at which the gun's sensor is activated (e.g. 27% of the way through scanline #100). I suspect this will present inherent timing issues that are difficult to work around.
Dochartaigh
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Dochartaigh »

Triple Lei wrote:I was able to play Duck Hunt on my HD CRT (Panasonic Tau) with my OSSC set to Line 2x, and it wouldn't work on that TV otherwise.
That's the first I've heard of this... but people can also beat Duckhunt by aiming the zapper at a bright lightbulb too.... so who knows ;)
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Syntax
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Syntax »

PS2 gun titles have the option to play in progressive scan mode, in fact when the tv is displaying progressive 480p the gun picks it up instantly and Namco titles will say PROGRESSIVE SCAN on the calibration screen, it also means calibration is a 2 shot process instead of one.

Edit*this is incorrect **

One thing that ill try today is running the ps2 into a VGA CRT via RGBHV and connect csync to the gun to see if it syncs, I have a feeling ill have to use rebuilt csync from HV as the PS2 outputs the 2 differently.
Last edited by Syntax on Sat Sep 29, 2018 7:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
jamesone
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by jamesone »

Syntax wrote:PS2 gun titles have the option to play in progressive scan mode, in fact when the tv is displaying progressive 480p the gun picks it up instantly and Namco titles will say PROGRESSIVE SCAN on the calibration screen, it also means calibration is a 2 shot process instead of one.

One thing that ill try today is running the ps2 into a VGA CRT via RGBHV and connect csync to the gun to see if it syncs, I have a feeling ill have to use rebuilt csync from HV as the PS2 outputs the 2 differently.
I understand that Time Crisis has that option to run it at 480p, but I do not have the light gun to check it. Vampire Night if I know that it runs at 480p. What I do not know is how it can work in a crt through vga. Maybe with this cable: https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/son ... T-GUN-PORT with another one that sends that signal scart to vga, do you think it would be possible?
jamesone
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by jamesone »

Dochartaigh wrote:You have to understand that most light guns ONLY work on Standard Definition (SD) CRT's which are 15kHz. These are the type of TV's people had in their living rooms from the 50's until the 90's (in the ~2000's many CRT TV's were still SD, but there were also High-Definition or Enhanced Definition TV's as well which do NOT work with light guns).

Your Dreamcast is the outlier of the group, it's the ONLY light gun I know of which will work over VGA on a 31kHz CRT monitor - this is not the norm.

That being said, you won't be able to use your PS2 lightgun on your 31kHz VGA monitor I'm sorry to say - no matter what hook-up connection and/or scaler/adapter you use.

The only monitors which can do both resolutions are some select Sony BVM and PVM monitors (and some by JVC, Ikegami, and maybe Panasonic too) - which are "MultiFormat" monitors which can switch from SD 15kHz to HD 31kHz (and above) on-the-fly...but these routinely go for $300+ for a 14" to $800+ for a 20" on eBay...
Thank you for your clarification, I understand, however I would like to know if through the progressive scan modes that have some guncon games you could operate the light gun.

In the case of Dreamcast I think there would be no problem. That's televisions are not within my reach, I do not pretend to obtain the maximum quality but I would like a good result and be able to execute all this together with the light guns in a same screen.
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Einzelherz
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Einzelherz »

I don't know if this is useful information but my Guncon and Guncon2 have difficulty registering on my 20L2 monitor whereas they have no trouble on my 27" Phillips shadowmask TV.
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Syntax
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Syntax »

Ive been caught out a few times now grabbing old rear projections tvs thinking they were CRT but are in fact DLP.

Cannot RGB mod them or run light guns, but you can pull the screen lens out and melt some rocks on a warm day :D
jamesone
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by jamesone »

Einzelherz wrote:I don't know if this is useful information but my Guncon and Guncon2 have difficulty registering on my 20L2 monitor whereas they have no trouble on my 27" Phillips shadowmask TV.
So I think this is a lost battle, what connection do you use in your pvm? I think I'll consider getting a CRT TV just to use the guncon games and use the monitor for everything else. I can not find more information about this, just that some of those games have a 480p mode but it seems that nobody has been able to run it on a monitor through VGA.
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Syntax
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Syntax »

jamesone wrote:
Syntax wrote:PS2 gun titles have the option to play in progressive scan mode, in fact when the tv is displaying progressive 480p the gun picks it up instantly and Namco titles will say PROGRESSIVE SCAN on the calibration screen, it also means calibration is a 2 shot process instead of one.

One thing that ill try today is running the ps2 into a VGA CRT via RGBHV and connect csync to the gun to see if it syncs, I have a feeling ill have to use rebuilt csync from HV as the PS2 outputs the 2 differently.
I understand that Time Crisis has that option to run it at 480p, but I do not have the light gun to check it. Vampire Night if I know that it runs at 480p. What I do not know is how it can work in a crt through vga. Maybe with this cable: https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/son ... T-GUN-PORT with another one that sends that signal scart to vga, do you think it would be possible?

To run a PS2 light gun natively on a 480p screen you have to have a SOG compatible monitor and have the guns sync cable connected to the green component out.


I don't have SOG compatible monitors so I modded my ps2 to output RGBHV or RGBS and disabled SOG.

You cannot use the yellow component RCA or luma out of the ps2, all the lower 15k modes are disabled during vga output to protect old equipment.
In vga mode sync is only available on the green channel.
Dochartaigh
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Dochartaigh »

Syntax wrote:To run a PS2 light gun natively on a 480p screen you have to have a SOG compatible monitor and have the guns sync cable connected to the green component out.
Have you tried this yourself or just read about it? I swear I've tried this when I use 480p through SCART (which is normally only a 15khz connection type) on my PS2, which I believe is RGsB since I have to turn the normally-RGBS-hooked-up monitors' sync from external to internal...and I still couldn't get the light gun to work on Vampire Night in 480p. I was using the type of PS2 SCART cable with the light gun port on it...which I have a feeling might have been the problem if it wasn't synced on the green line but the regular external sync line.

Regardless, there's only 18 light gun games listed on the Wiki for PS2. If you take away the hidden minigame inside another game, ones which only have part of the game with a light gun stage, and limit it to North American games...you're at ~10. Only 1 of those is listed on the 'PS2 Alternative Display modes' wiki as being capable of 480p: Vampire Night (although I've heard before that Time Crisis has a 480p mode too). So even if there's two games, the OP's wish-list to play a bunch of PS2 light gun games on his VGA monitor simply isn't going to fly if the games don't have a 480p mode to begin with (like the vast majority of PS2 games are 480i only).

I think some of this confusion may also because many light gun games can be played with a controller instead - in 480p. Like Xbox's House of the Dead III has a 480p mode as well...but light gun games don't work on that (only 480i) but I believe the controller still does in 480p mode.

Anyway, I own all the North America light gun games for PS2 and have multiformat BVM and PVM's to test this some more if people are really interested. I guess I would have to work out some adapter to change my green BNC connector to RCA to connect the light gun to, then back to BNC to hook it up to the BVM....but honestly I can't see the engineers at Sony going into all this trouble to have a dual-khz light gun designed for one single (maybe 2) light gun games in 480p... Also can't see them not ever documenting this anywhere (which I think I remember reading a cryptic line about calibrating the monitor for 480p - maybe that was the Time Crisis 2? manual, but it said absolutely nothing to my memory about having to use a SoG VGA monitor with a special break-out cable/dongle to plug the light gun into, so again, I still find this really weird if it actually worked...)
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Syntax
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Syntax »

I am yet to test this out myself, ive been waiting on some caps to replace some bulging ones on my ps2 in an attempt to fix sync wobble.
Caps came in today and have been fit so ill have a play with it and get back with the results.

Its more of a "It works both ways" thing, wether you can pull it off easily or not with supplied cables is another thing.

I remember when I was only a tiny shmuppet that The House of the Dead had a lightgun option for the PC version, but we only ever played with a mouse.

I cant even find one of those guns now or how they connect.. I did confirm the option menu has a lightgun option tho.
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Syntax
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Syntax »

Well it seems the internet (and myself as a result) was wrong again!

Vampire Night is a 480i title, the progressive scan feature seems to be a 100hz workaround for gun tracking I'm pretty sure.

If you fire up the game, point the guncon 2 on the screen then off screen, hold the trigger and press select PROGRESSIVE SCAN displays on the screen but its a 480i image.
Tracking moves double pace left and right but same up and down.

So I tried running component and syncing to the green rca which works fine its just there was really no point, I could of used composite for the same result as the game just can not put itself in 480p mode natively.

I forced 480p via GSM and the gun will not sync to the pc crt monitor.
The monitor is being fed csync and the gun the same, I checked csync works fine for the gun if using a standard crt (fine enough to pass initial tests)

So yeah, unless I'm missing something PS2 lightgun games are strictly 480i or 240p. And Vampire Night should be taken off the various 480p lists around.
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Dochartaigh »

Thanks for checking that out. It's a PITA, right? Here's the (likewise) confusing page from the Time Crisis 2 manual I was talking about which has "progressive scan" plastered like 5x times in that section (even talks about widescreen TV's) which REALLY makes you think you can play the game on a Progressive Scan TV (assuming in 480p) with a lightgun.

Image

I still don't know what the heck they're talking about!
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Syntax
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Syntax »

Guncon does not support projection Tvs.... LMAO 90% of the screens used in arcades for lightgun games of that era were rear projections, and I use one for my PS2 lightguns regularly.
Here's a short video of me giving a mate a try of Vampire Night with rapid fire Arcade Namcos on a Sony Rear Projection screen. Was a bright day sorry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwgUSdd6jpY

I'm keen to see if it has an effect on the Sony 240p 480i tvs with that deinterlace/progressive feature. I have one here but it may be some time before I can be bothered setting it up.

Pretty bummed that the 480p PS2 list was wrong about Guncon titles..
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Einzelherz
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Einzelherz »

jamesone wrote:
Einzelherz wrote:I don't know if this is useful information but my Guncon and Guncon2 have difficulty registering on my 20L2 monitor whereas they have no trouble on my 27" Phillips shadowmask TV.
So I think this is a lost battle, what connection do you use in your pvm? I think I'll consider getting a CRT TV just to use the guncon games and use the monitor for everything else. I can not find more information about this, just that some of those games have a 480p mode but it seems that nobody has been able to run it on a monitor through VGA.
I have a guncon breakout to tap the composite signal from but the video out is both RGB and Component (works the same for both).
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by neorichieb1971 »

Why don't TV manufacturers just make a LCD TV which has a mode that draws lines like CRT's?

Even just one model.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
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Einzelherz
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Einzelherz »

Because it'd be a waste of money and still probably not work correctly.
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by SNK-NEO-GEO »

"Like Xbox's House of the Dead III has a 480p mode as well...but light gun games don't work on that (only 480i) but I believe the controller still does in 480p mode"

Is this accurate for the Xbox? Are we saying that house of the dead III on the Xbox only works on 480i with the light gun and 480p only with the controller?


Bonus Xbox questions - the chihiro light gun game(s) that has been converted to work on the Xbox with the memory upgrade,does the MadCatz light gun work with those game(s)? How about Mame emulator on the Xbox, does the MadCatz light gun works or any other Xbox light gun? Thanks for the feedback:)
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Dochartaigh
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Dochartaigh »

SNK-NEO-GEO wrote:"Like Xbox's House of the Dead III has a 480p mode as well...but light gun games don't work on that (only 480i) but I believe the controller still does in 480p mode"

Is this accurate for the Xbox? Are we saying that house of the dead III on the Xbox only works on 480i with the light gun and 480p only with the controller?
I wrote "I believe" because I forget if I ever played HotD III with the controller or not (because who in their right mind would play a light gun game with a controller???). I just know that in 480p mode, with both the Mad Catz xbox light gun and the Pelican one meant for the total-fail Silent Scope Complete game – that those light guns do NOT work in 480p on HotD III. So I assume 480p works with a controller unless why would they include that video mode?


SNK-NEO-GEO wrote:Bonus Xbox questions - the chihiro light gun game(s) that has been converted to work on the Xbox with the memory upgrade,does the MadCatz light gun work with those game(s)? How about Mame emulator on the Xbox, does the MadCatz light gun works or any other Xbox light gun? Thanks for the feedback:)
I don't know about the Chihiro, but I know I spent a LOT of time researching if the Coin-Ops Massive (think I have 8 ) MAME games work with the Xbox light guns, and from what I found they do not. I have however scoured the internet and found two people (might have been one TBH) who said that the EMS Topgun/whatever model of USB guns do work. I couldn't find anybody to confirm this and wherever I posted to have somebody fill me in on the details, those forums (and Reddit groups) had been dead for years and years...still don't have a conclusive answer to that. I do know I don't want to even touch MAME on the original Xbox though as everything is converted to 480i, and I'm surely not dropping $60+ to order that light gun just to test it out (nor do I have the knowledge to mod that CoinOps Massive installation to use a light gun which I'm pretty sure would have to be done).
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SNK-NEO-GEO
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by SNK-NEO-GEO »

@Dochartaigh - thanks for the feedback...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X ... play_modes
House of the dead III =480p is supported with this caveat.. "working by force default.xbe to display the game in 480p (by using hex codes) and also widescreen" nothing mentioned regrind the hex codes.. also nothing mentioned regarding 480p and the light gun.
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Dochartaigh
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Dochartaigh »

SNK-NEO-GEO wrote:House of the dead III =480p is supported with this caveat.. "working by force default.xbe to display the game in 480p (by using hex codes) and also widescreen" nothing mentioned regrind the hex codes.. also nothing mentioned regarding 480p and the light gun.
Mine might not have actually been in 480p mode then since I always changed it through the Xbox's video menu (the one you get to when there's no disc inserted) - definitely didn't mess with the code on the ISO or anything like that (and think I tested this back when my Xbox wasn't modded so I was using the actual disc itself). Regardless, I'm pretty positive we can say the Xbox doesn't have a 31khz compatible lightgun! ;) And with others testing the PS2 in this regard, I think (as most of us originally thought) that only the Dreamcast has a 15/31khz compatible lightgun.
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by SNK-NEO-GEO »

MadCatz light-gun test, Xbox and PVM L5..

OEM Xbox Component cable
House of the dead III xbox 480p - works with light-gun
house of the dead II xbox 480p - does not work with light-gun..HotDII might be running on an emulator because there are quite a few slow downs during gameplay..You want the DreamCast version anyway.

OEM SCART cable -
House of the dead III xbox 480i - works with light gun
house of the dead II xbox 480i - works with light gun

note - 480p looks very good:)
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Dochartaigh
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Dochartaigh »

SNK-NEO-GEO wrote:OEM Xbox Component cable
House of the dead III xbox 480p - works with light-gun
So you modded the ISO for HoTD III since it doesn't have out-of-the-box 480p as you pointed out? I will have to try this! (and might PM you if I can't find out how to mode the ISO lol - if you don't mind ;)

And this is a shame that there's literally only like 3 light gun games for the original Xbox (and really only two as I STILL haven't found a single person who has been able to play Silent Scope Complete without the brightness being jacked up so high it looks like crap).
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by SNK-NEO-GEO »

I did not have to mode HotD3, works out of the box. On dash I select 480p, inserted the HotD3 disk and it boot to 480p, the L5 shows as 480p and so does my eyes:).

Side note - I have the OEM components cable and not the AV pack.. the testing from my previous link where it says that HotD 3 is supported at 480p with a hex, the testing seems to imply AV pack. My Xbox is original and not soft moded.
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Dochartaigh
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Dochartaigh »

I'm trying this again! I've used everything from S-Video, to YPbPr, to VGA, to RGBS out of my original Xbox - don't have the OEM component cables though (just the plug in pack - HD? AV Pack? with the optical out I think). Actually, might have a cheap horribly made chinese pair of component cables floating around I can try (or might be thinking about my PS2/PS3). Thanks for the info.
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Re: CRT monitor and Light Guns

Post by Dochartaigh »

I wanted to bump this up again and see if anybody can get any PS2 or OG Xbox games to work with a light gun in 480p mode.

I've been messing around with this again tonight and can't seem to get a single one to work despite people mentioning it can work all around the web. I have all the light gun games for PS2 (even the imports), and HoTD III for OG Xbox....nothing seems to work on my PVM-20L5 or BVM-D20F1U (both 480p compatible monitors). I have a Sony 20" PC monitor I can try as well.

Any tips? Special ways to hook it up? I'm pretty much ready to write it off as simply not possible, but wanted to try one more time if I've been doing something wrong...


P.S. Also STILL looking for ANY way to play Silent Scope on OG Xbox without having the brightness jacked up so high you literally can't see 80% of the screen...still can't fathom that they would release a game, with an expensive (back in the day) specific light gun to use for said game, and it simply doesn't work at all. Whatsoever.
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