MiSTer

This guide is intended for individuals with technical expertise until we refine the details and provide more comprehensive scripts, documentation, and additional resources.

It is well known that the Sinden Lightgun performs its video crunching on the target computer device. This initially looked like it would not be possible to run on the MiSTer as the onboard ARM CPU (800Mhz) is quite underpowered and the Linux operating system is barebones. However, Sinden Technology have spent a lot of time developing a low resource driver that can comfortably run on the MiSTer and also removed many required components so it can run on the streamlined Linux OS.

The MiSTer Sinden Driver

You can get the MiSTer Sinden driver in its repository:

https://github.com/MrLightgun/MiSTerSindenDriver

The driver offers three modes: low resource, medium resource, and normal. When running in low resource mode, the driver only processes video when the trigger is pulled, resulting in high efficiency with only 4% CPU core usage. This mode works well for most 16-bit and under games that have a slow screen flash. Even games like T2 on the Genesis, which require continuous cursor movement, can be played by simply holding down the trigger.

For slightly better lightgun performance, the default (medium resource) mode continuously crunches video, providing ready coordinates when the trigger is pulled. This mode has a larger footprint but still doesn't interfere with MiSTer processing. It doesn't crunch every video frame to save resources.

Running the driver without the low resource and medium resource flags is considered normal mode, which consumes more resources than medium and is generally fine but may potentially affect games like PSX that also rely on the ARM CPU.

We recommend starting with medium resource (default) mode, but you can switch to low resource if needed. Overclocking may improve performance, but it is not required and hasn't been tested yet.

Expect further improvements to the driver in the future.

Prerequisites

> Note: For reference my setup is a MiSTer Multisystem games console as seen here: https://www.rmcretro.com/videos/a-very-first-look-at-the-mister-multisystem-games-console-vDIz8WY6zLE

Having joypad connected and a keyboard connected to your MiSTer is recommended during the configuration process, as well as the Sinden Lightgun.

Your Sinden Lightgun needs v1.09 firmware. To update the firmware or check the current firmware version, follow these steps:

1. On Windows, download the latest windows software from https://www.sindenlightgun.com
2. Connect your lightgun to your PC
3. Open the Sinden software
4. The Sinden software will try to autodetect your lightgun on load, when it has finished click "stop"
5. Go to firmware update tab
6. Select your lightgun from the list on the left
7. Update Lightgun with latest firmware.
8. Restart the Sinden software
9. Select lightgun on firmware update tab
10. Select enable joystick mode and Select OK on the prompts
11. Disconnect the Sinden from the PC and connect it back to the MiSTer

Your MiSTer needs to be connected to the internet, with ethernet it is the simplest way.

We recommend using a fresh SD card.

This guide assumes the user has set up a MiSTer before and can get MiSTer working. If you haven't done this yet, we recommend using MrFusion and following some guides and just getting a general idea how everything works before following this guide.

Installation

The following configuration has been tested and confirmed to work:

1. Install MiSTer using MrFusion 2.7: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/mr-fusion/releases/tag/v2.7
2. Update your MiSTer to the latest version. If using MrFusion:
   • Go to Scripts on the main menu and select "Update". This will add all the cores you need for non-lightgun gaming and includes the folders to put your ROMs. This can take a while (around 10 mins?. Once the process is complete, reboot your MiSTer.
3. Find out your MiSTer IP address (Available on the main settings menu) and note it down.
4. Connect to MiSTer device over ssh (Using putty or your ssh client of choice) or, if you have a keyboard connected to the MiSTer, you can load console on the device pressing F9 on the keyboard.
5. The username is root and the password is 1 on MiSTer mainline.
6. Copy the contents of the repository to your MiSTer. You can use ftp, sftp, Windows shared folders, or any other method that you like. It is the same process as transferring games.
7. You will need to run the Install_MrFusion.sh script from this repository, or run the commands in the script individually. You can either copy the commands and paste them into your shell, manually type them in by keyboard, or copy the script over using ftp/windows file sharing/ssh, then run it. You can copy it in "/media/fat"; if so, you will need to make it executable first:
   • chmod +x Install_MrFusion.sh
8. And then run the Install_MrFusion.sh script:
   • ./Install_MrFusion.sh
9. Reboot MiSTer after the script has successfully completed.

Usage

There are multiple steps for getting lightguns to work in MiSTer, make sure to follow the steps in order:

1. Run the lightgun driver

Go to scripts on the MiSTer main menu, select "LightgunStart-Default" click a button on your gamepad after it has started up.

Or run it manually from the shell console:

- For medium resource:

   ```bash
   cd /media/fat/Lightgun/

   ./LightgunDriver joystick mediumresource
   ```

- For low resource:

   ```bash
   cd /media/fat/Lightgun/

   ./LightgunDriver joystick lowresource
   ```

- For max resource:

   ```bash
   cd /media/fat/Lightgun/

   ./LightgunDriver joystick
   ```

2. Setup lightgun as a MiSTer menu device

Setting up the lightgun as a MiSTer menu device enables the cores to see it.

> Important: THIS STEP IS NOW HANDLED BY THE SETUP SCRIPT, THESE NOTES ARE HERE FOR REFERENCE

1. Scroll through MiSTer settings, using your gamepad access System Settings -> Define joystick buttons
2. When it prompts for the DPAD Test: Press Right, push right on Sinden Lightgun directional pad
3. Press space bar on the keyboard to skip all the tilt settings
4. Assign Right/Left/Down/Up to Lightgun dpad
5. Use KB space bar to skip A,B,X,Y,L,R,Select
6. Assign Start to front left button
7. Skip mouse related prompts with spacebar
8. Assign the Menu action to Pump Action or a different button of your choice
9. Assign Menu OK to the front right button on the lightgun
10. Assign Menu Back to back right button on the lightgun
11. Skip others with spacebar

> Important: Don't wave the lightgun around while doing the above, as the movement of the lightgun can be assigned as actions.

You can now navigate the menus using the lightgun alone.

3. Test the lightgun in a core

1. Add NES Duck Hunt to your MiSTer
2. Load the NES_Sinden core
   • Important: The MiSTer loads the first joystick used in a core as Player# When you first load a core, make sure to use the dpad on the lightgun first. If you use your gamepad first then the lightgun will become player2 which can cause problems. For example, the settings don't save correctly in the NES core and in PS1 you can't play Time Crisis because it wants a Player1 lightgun but Player1 is assigned to the gamepad.
3. Load Duck Hunt in the core
4. Optional if you want to change your buttons. Initial configuration is handled by the script: Open the MiSTer menu; under System, find Define NES buttons, assign these buttons to the lightgun: A to front left, B to back left, Select to back right, Start to front right. Use the spacebar to skip the rest. Assign the Zapper/Vaus Btn to the lightgun trigger while pointing at the screen, you may need to trigger twice if you have just loaded the driver. Use space bar to skip the rest. Answer No to the question, then "Save Settings"
5. Optional, change the core specific lightgun settings:
   • In the NES do Input Options: - Peripheral: Change to Zapper(Joy1) or maybe Zapper(Joy2) if the other doesn't work, might depend on USB order of joypad (if you have) and lightgun. - Zapper Trigger: Change to Joystick. Remember to use the lightgun dpad as soon as you load the core so it gets assigned to Player 1. - Turn the Crosshair on or off.

>Tip: If your border is not showing, clearly because the edges are cut off, change the video settings in the core. It probably changes depending on your resolution and display but we find setting scale to "Wider HV-Integer" helps in most cases. Having black around the outside of the white border helps lightgun performance anyway.

>Tip: If the lightgun is not the Player1 joystick the part where you do "Define NES buttons" doesn't save for me when reloading the core.

Duck hunt should now be working with the Sinden Lightgun

Lightgun Settings and Recoil

Recoil should work by holding down "up" on the Dpad for 5 seconds. This should toggle between Off/Single Shot/Automatic. To change Sinden Lightgun settings, you can run:

nano /media/fat/Scripts/Sinden/MiSTerSindenDriver-main/LightgunDriver/LightgunMono.exe.config

To save: ctrl+o To exit: ctrl+x

Recommend beginners only changing lightgun camera exposure, brightness, and contrast.

Supported cores

So far these are the working cores with a couple of highlights:

Core	Game
NES_Sinden	Duck Hunt
PSX_Sinden	Time Crisis Point Blank
Genesis_Sinden	Terminator 2 The Arcade game
SNES_Sinden	Battle Clash

PSX_Sinden

>Note: Some of these steps have been done by the setup script.

Remember to use the lightgun dpad when you first load the core.

The PSX is a slightly more demanding core and when reading sounds and video of the CD you can see slowdown if the lightgun driver is using too many resources, so we recommend running the driver with the `medium resource` option for most scenarios. If you don't see any slowdown then you can try the `low resource` option.

Set Player1 to Guncon or Justifier depending on what the original lightgun support was.

Define the buttons using the lightgun. The input ones are "Gun shoot", which needs to be trigger, "Gun B" which is good for rear left side button, and "Gun A" as front left side button. The others are most probably not required.

If you tweak the "Fixed HBlank" setting, then you can normally get the game window to perfectly match the white border, this helps accuracy.

2 Players

The 2nd player does work. When you load the PSX core, remember to do dpad on Lightgun1, then dpad on Lightgun2. Point Blank is a good game for testing 2 Player. You need to set Player1 and Player2 to GunCon. If you add a new lightgun probably best to do a hard reboot. You also need to define buttons for the 2nd Lightgun. As 2 player uses more resources and Point Blank does a lot of reading off the CD this is probably a good example where you need to use the low resource lightgun driver option.

>Tip: Remember to add a PS1 BIOS for the PS1 core.

Genesis_Sinden

>Note: Some of these steps have been done by the setup script.

We found we could only get Terminator 2 to work when a joypad was also connected to the MiSTer.

Make sure to use the lightgun dpad when you first load the core, then use the gamepad dpad so it becomes Player2 which seems to be required.

When assigning lightgun controls to the core, A button is a trigger, so assign A to the trigger. B and C to the left side buttons and Start and Select to the right side buttons. The rest of the buttons do not seem to be used.

On the input settings, set:

• Swap Joysticks: Yes
• Gun Control: Joy1
• Gun Fire: Joy
• Cross: Small but remember to turn off once everything is setup.

SNES_Sinden

>Note: Some of these steps have been done by the setup script.

Same as the all the above, remember there was Superscope and Justifier too. Remember to assign turbo to the lightgun properly as a lot of games need it Some games like Terminator 2 have a superscope button as a trigger for some strange reason, so you may want to switch it, but the Genesis version is generally considered the better version.

On the input settings, set:

• Swap Joysticks: No
• Super Scope: Joy1
• Super Scope Btn: Joy
• Gun Type: Super Scope (or justifier, as required)

Other cores and future development

To come hopefully:

• Sega Master System core - just need to add the border
• SegaCD core - just need to add the border
• Saturn core - Does not seem to have lightgun support at the moment. The border needs to be added.

Other cores, maybe some of the computer cores; hopefully a future 3DO core would be good

Special thanks

This project to add Sinden Lightgun support owes a huge debt of gratitude to Nolan Nicholson who assisted with the development and setup and Wiggy from the Sinden Lightgun Discord who help push to make it happen and assisted with the scripts and testing.