ACT-Labs -
Gun System
ACT-Labs :
www.act-labs.com
Monday, October 25, 1999
Hilbert Hagedoorn
Hardware used
Pentium II 350Mhz 100Mhz Bus
128Mb PC 100 SDRAM
Software used
Windows 98 SE
DirectX 6.x
GS Drivers v 1.2
Gun Frenzy software
General
A while ago i
received a press release from ACT-Labs stating that they have been
hard at work to release the nifty Gun System that we tested today.
Over the years we have seen dozens of controllers but to my knowledge this
Gun System is the first to reach the PC and what a job they did.
Two cool high-end guns straight from the 'Men in Black' movie with a 3
pixel accuracy.
Before you open up
your box you should head over to the ACT-Labs site and grab their
latest drivers. I got a driver version 1.0 included on the CD and
they would not even recognize the gun system.
After spilling some
oohs and aahs while opening up
the nifty box you'll find your Gun System (base unit, two guns,
handheld unit and power supply) together with a VGA pass-through cable
and a well written manual, driver CD with TopShot game.
Installation is quit simple. You connect a gun and your handheld to
the Base unit, connect your monitor and vga card to the VGA
pass-through cable, connect the VGA pass-trough to the Base unit,
connect a cable to your game-port and finally insert some juice
(power) to the Base unit.
To be honest I was a
bit skeptical about the VGA-Pass-through connector. I don't like these
kind of solutions since they will bring you nothing more then
signal-degradation .
But, ACT-Labs knows what they are doing, they
have use high-quality materials to keep the signal good without any noticeable
signal degradation, and with a resolution of 1600x1200 2 75 Hz (which
I use that should have been obvious to see).
The next step is to install the necessary drivers. Make sure that you
stop by the ACT-Labs site and download the latest available drivers.
You can also grab the drivers from our download section. We support
all manufacturers with driver support on our server on products that
we have the opportunity to review.
Anyway, at this time the latest driver version is 1.02 After
downloading and installing them you should head on over to your
Game-controller properties (found in your Properties) hit add
and choose ACT-Labs Gun. Within a few secs your Gun System is now
available in 'game-Controllers' Highlight the ACT Labs GS and choose
properties. Now the final installation procedure has begun,
calibrating the guns.
- Make sure that in
either 2D and in 3D the screen refresh rate is the same. So
set it always in all options to optimal.
- set your screen to
640x480 and calibrate
- set your screen to
800x600 and calibrate
- set your screen to
1024x768 and calibrate
- (if you play in
higher resolutions or other favorite resolutions then calibrate
those also)
BTW. the new drivers support in-game
calibration, so 'if' supported by the game this whole procedure will
become quite easier to handle.
That's it ! Let's
shoot somebody now !
But first .. go to the next page ...
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