MiSTer FPGA Forum

Hello, I opened a ticket on the snes github regarding the cursor alignment in the Superscope game X-zone. I wanted to try out some games after seeing the recent MLiG video (where Try also reports the same Mister behavior as below).

Contrary to other superscope games, working fine on my end using Wiimote, in X-zone the emulated crosshair does not match the in-game cursor. This results in the cursor not being able to fully reach the right edge of the screen.

My question: can someone confirm whether this is normal behavior in x-zone using original console with superscope, indicating a game problem rather than Mister SNES lightgun implementation error?

Ps I have tried recalibrating the lightgun (F10), but it does not fix the issue.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/issues/301

Don't you think Try with the original hardware would have confirmed himself if he had an easy way to do so? As I recall his suspicion was that it was the game that was broken, not Mister, but Mister was the only tool he had for measuring it.

The O.G. hardware shows no cursor for these games. All you got is the feel of where you are pointing the lightgun, and that isn't super precise unless you are some kind of lightgun god. You would need to come up with a technique for measuring where the super scope is pointing on real hardware. (Maybe somehow affixing a laser pointer to the super scope barrel, and comparing other games vs X-zone?)

On the other hand, maybe a "lightgun offset" would be a nice menu option, so you could manually correct games like x-zone that are off.

FoxbatStargazer wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 10:09 pm The O.G. hardware shows no cursor for these games.

That is incorrect actually. Push the button on the front handle and an on-screen cursor appears. Remember, the superscope operates differently than e.g. the NES light gun.
https://www.gamesdatabase.org/Media/SYS ... _Kemco.jpg

I would have to check the video again to confirm his wording, but as I recall he mentioned only the offset in respect to the MiSTer cross-hair, not how it looked on the OG hardware.

So yeah I'm quite ignorant, but this still doesn't answer the question!

As far as I can tell the cursor button is just another button. It's up to the software how to interpret what that does. Which means that x-zone can draw the "lock-on" cursor displaced from where the gun is actually pointing in the exact same way as with shots, or displaced in an entirely different way.

Looking again Try did seem to think that the sniper scope was accurate enough to show that shots were landing off-center of the gun, so maybe some others with real hardware could confirm that much. But I still think you would need something like a laser pointer to really check accuracy. It needs to be something external to the game logic, because as mentioned, the game is under no obligation to paint its own cursors exactly where the gun is pointing.

Update: paulb-nl confirmed this was not an issue on original hardware. He adjusted the superscope emulated lightgun signal timing, which greatly improved the cursor alignment. You can download the test build using the link in my OP above.
Correction: He recently showed, in the github thread, the real superscope works perfectly on MiSTer via SNAC. So what he changed was the timing of the emulated lightgun function.