Dreamcast Light Gun Issues

[VideoGameCritic]

So I pulled of House of the Dead 2 for my friends which is pretty much a yearly tradition. However, as hard as we tried we could not get the light guns to work. I have two different types and both were behaving erratic! I tried adjusting the brightness and closing the blinds but to no available. When I could get the aiming cursor to appear at all, it was all over the place.

Any thoughts? It's connected via s-video; maybe I should try composite.

[VideoGameCritic]

Got an update already. Cable swapping didn't help.

Tried the system on another CRT TV - a very small one I have in the corner of my display room. The gun worked. Not great, but those Dreamcast guns were never very accurate to begin with.

So I'm pretty sure it's my TV, which was one of the later model CRTs. If I could get an RF cable for my Dreamcast, maybe I can try the game on one of my super old TVs I have lying around.

[VideoGameCritic]

I purchased a Dreamcast RF cable for a few bucks off Ebay.

By the way, I tried Virtua Cop for my Sega Saturn and the gun worked like a champ on my TV. Did Sega lose the technology??

I should also mention playing House of the Dead 2 with a normal controller isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Actually it's a lot easier to hit barrels and jars with pinpoint precision.

[Sonicx9]

Critic if you want info on Dreamcast Light Gun stuff look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast ... light_guns

Because the reason why Sega Dreamcast USA light guns where not great was because they where made by Mad Catz's via the Dream Blaster which was not all that reliable. But it does exist the official light gun but only in Japan/PAL regions as Sega did not want to release the official light gun in the US due to the now infamous Columbine High School massacre incident which happened months before the US launch. So that why we US fans got a bad export for us.

[VideoGameCritic]

It looks like there were a number of unofficial Dreamcast light guns, but no info on if they are any good or not.

[Sonicx9]

It looks like there were a number of unofficial Dreamcast light guns, but no info on if they are any good or not.

Sad but true.

[snakeboy]

I have a late-model Toshiba CRT, and I'm almost positive that I have had troubles trying to play light gun games on it. It has a flat screen on it so I wonder if that has something to do with it. But then again I used to have a Sony flat-screen CRT that played light gun games just fine so who knows.

[Alucard1191]

While this probably isn't overly helpful, the accuracy for my Saturn between my 2 old CRT TVs is pretty significant. The only difference is the size, one being in the mid 20 inches in screen and the other having a 42+ inch screen. (It's big.) My light guns are much, much more accurate on the small screen. It actually is a bit of a bummer, my saturn guns are usually so accurate, but my big TV isn't very good.

[VideoGameCritic]

So we tried House of the Dead 2 on an OLD CRT TV with an RF adapter I just ordered. Didn't help.

So I think it looks like there are two problems:
- the light gun components are wearing out. Might need to crack one open and crack.
- maybe there's some kind of interference in my game room? I remember an old wireless third-party controller stopped working because of my wireless phone, so who knows?

[Shapur]

I have two light guns and I’ve noticed the MadCatz has always been less accurate than the Interact brand. That said my big CRT TV has a lower left hand corner dead zone where my Genesis light guns can’t register either.

I would doubt any interference in the room would be to blame given how light guns operate. Worth opening up and trying to clean everything you can in the gun itself. If it can’t “see” the TV that could definitely be a problem. Some lens cleaner may help.