Sega Model 2 Emulator | EVERYTHING Pre Configured inc Controls. For PC, Controller, Mouse & Light guns. Test Menu's Configured. Analogue Inputs Calibrated. Free Play. All Games in English. 2 Player Mouse Support. No Screen Flash 1.0.4

Many thanks for sharing this comprehensive setup guide,very much appreciated indeed

I could really use some help. I tried everything to get the light guns games to work and I have the same issue in every game. The crosshairs are locked to the edge of the screen, and they seem to only go in one of 8 spots in the cardinal directions, usually stuck upper left.
One comment on the youtube video had the same issue has no response.

I tried changing my DPI scale 100%, no luck.
I tried changing mouse devices in the INI file, no luck, and I know I'm on the correct ones already because the trigger and reload doesn't work when I switch.
I tried the calibration menu, and the best I can manage to do is get it to go dead center instead of a cardinal direction.
I tried one game with Demulshooter and it worked, BUT the crosshairs where still on the edge of the screen.

I am using Gun4IR and trying to get 2P lightgun games to work. I have tried house of the dead and virtuacop2 and both are the same. I know I gotta be missing something simple, PLEASE tell me what that is. I got other games working on other emulators, so its not the guns. THANK YOU for any help you can provide.

I need help, I've tried everything I could find but nothing works, not even your config files.
I'm trying to play Virtual On on this emulator. The game launches fine, everything is fine, except for controls.

No matter what, the emulator won't accept two simultaneous controls, meaning I can't use two analog sticks on a gamepad as twin sticks. All controls work, they just don't work simultaneously.
I checked this via the "test" menu, in the input test tool it's clear to see, if the left stick is doing anything on the X axis, the X axis of the right stick is ignored. Same for the Y axis. The only time both axes are "recognized" simultaneously is if one is doing something along the X axis and the other along the Y.
This happens with a PS4 controller over USB, with an Xbox One controller over USB, and it even happens with the keyboard if I configure the sticks as 2 sets of keyboard keys. If the left one is doing something along an axis, the right one won't be recognized.

Found a couple posts about this on the internet, the discussion always concluded with "use version 0.9 of the emulator" and people giving feedback saying that solved everything. No clue what they're talking about, I've tried every version back to 0.4 and it's always the same.
I've tried Howard's "Troubleshooter 2", but I get a runtime error.
And I've tried both your configuration packages.

I've tried all these things in multiple combinations, nothing works. The fact that even the damn keyboard doesn't elicit the correct behavior from the emulator at least makes me think it's not a specific device issue, but I'm at wit's end here.

 

Did you struggle with anything similar? What solved it? I'm desperate, I have nothing else left to try.

 

 

EDIT: nevermind, for anyone else out there pulling their hair out: the emuDownloadCenter page on Github seems to have the wrong download links. To get the true version 0.9 that works with Virtual On, go to SegaRetro and get it there.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Deimos_F

Can you update the Virtua Cop widescreen script? The 2D textures are stretched

Thanks for doing this, i really appreciate the time you've put into it.

Do you think it would be possible to improve the gamma on some games? So many games don't look correct with the Model 2 emulator because there's always been problems with gamma, and you can somewhat correct it in the EMULATOR.INI which can significantly improve things, but it never looks perfect. Never as good as real hardware. For example, if you get the black levels looking correct, then the midtones and highlights become too dark, making the whole image appear dark, but increasing the gamma will then ruin the black levels and darker areas but mostly fix the rest of the image. You just can't win. I see you've obviously worked on correcting the gamma and the black levels are looking good, but now of course many games look too dark (Last Bronx and other fighters are particularly bad).

I don't think it will be possible to get these games looking perfect because the problem goes deeper than just gamma. It seems like the devs made each game specifically for each type of arcade cabinet monitor. But could you add keys to increase/decrease gamma? Like how F5 enables/disables widescreen. Ideally some brightness, colour and contrast controls would be great, although i doubt Model 2 supports those adjustments...

But still, most of all i think Model 2 needs brightness and contrast adjustments, similar to how Photoshop handles them. Because Photoshops brightness setting doesn't raise the black levels when you increase the brightness, so the blacks don't become greys, instead the whole image just gets brighter like when you increase the brightness on an OLED TV/monitor. You can see what i mean by simply opening some Last Bronx screenshots in Photoshop (that were taken with your configuration) and then increasing the brightness to around 35 and reducing contrast to -20. It's not perfect but closer to how real hardware looks and just looks better overall.

Edited January 12 by PoloniumRain

Thanks for setting me on the right track @Warped Polygon. I just recently discovered the Sega Model 2 Emulator, since Mame falls short on the model 2.  Two of my son's favorite Sega Model 2 games were House of the Dead and Dynamite Cop.  I wanted to get House of the Dead working with my AimTrak and struggled with some solutions for reloading off screen. As a take on your HOTD LUA script and for more authentic game play, I tied reloading (and health) to the AimTrak buttons 2 and 3.  For anyone interested, here is the modified LUA script...

require("model2")
function Init()
end
function Frame()
	Model2_SetWideScreen(1)
	Model2_SetStretchALow(1)
	Model2_SetStretchBLow(1)
	Model2_SetStretchAHigh(1)
	Model2_SetStretchBHigh(1)
	Evaluate_Inputs();
end

function health_1p_cheat_f(value)
	I960_WriteWord(RAMBASE+0x1EC10,5); -- 1P 5 health
end
function ammo_1p_cheat_f(value)
	I960_WriteWord(RAMBASE+0x1EC41,6); -- 1P 6 ammo
end

function Evaluate_Inputs()
    if Input_IsKeyPressed(JOY1+JOY_BUTTON2) == 1 then
       I960_WriteWord(RAMBASE+0x1EC41,6); -- 1P 6 ammo
    end
    if Input_IsKeyPressed(JOY1+JOY_BUTTON3) == 1 then
       I960_WriteWord(RAMBASE+0x1EC10,5); -- 1P 5 health
    end
end

Options =
{
	health_1p_cheat={name="1P Infinite Health",values={"Off","On"},runfunc=health_1p_cheat_f},
	ammo_1p_cheat={name="1P Infinite Ammo",values={"Off","On"},runfunc=ammo_1p_cheat_f}
}

 

thank you, really nice work. Is it me or xinput tends to have player 1 bound to keyboard? I'll need a bit more of fiddling because i'm using this on an arcade cabinet and i'll need to adapt controls, but it's a really solid start.

Can you pls provide a lua code to set scanlines on by default. I've tried with chatgpt but answers were hilarious XD 

Does it work on chromebook?

On 1/12/2024 at 4:48 PM, PoloniumRain said:

Thanks for doing this, i really appreciate the time you've put into it.

Do you think it would be possible to improve the gamma on some games? So many games don't look correct with the Model 2 emulator because there's always been problems with gamma, and you can somewhat correct it in the EMULATOR.INI which can significantly improve things, but it never looks perfect. Never as good as real hardware. For example, if you get the black levels looking correct, then the midtones and highlights become too dark, making the whole image appear dark, but increasing the gamma will then ruin the black levels and darker areas but mostly fix the rest of the image. You just can't win. I see you've obviously worked on correcting the gamma and the black levels are looking good, but now of course many games look too dark (Last Bronx and other fighters are particularly bad).

I don't think it will be possible to get these games looking perfect because the problem goes deeper than just gamma. It seems like the devs made each game specifically for each type of arcade cabinet monitor. But could you add keys to increase/decrease gamma? Like how F5 enables/disables widescreen. Ideally some brightness, colour and contrast controls would be great, although i doubt Model 2 supports those adjustments...

But still, most of all i think Model 2 needs brightness and contrast adjustments, similar to how Photoshop handles them. Because Photoshops brightness setting doesn't raise the black levels when you increase the brightness, so the blacks don't become greys, instead the whole image just gets brighter like when you increase the brightness on an OLED TV/monitor. You can see what i mean by simply opening some Last Bronx screenshots in Photoshop (that were taken with your configuration) and then increasing the brightness to around 35 and reducing contrast to -20. It's not perfect but closer to how real hardware looks and just looks better overall.

Yeah this is an issue with model 2. Some games have a 'projector' and 'crt' mode. Neither look absolutely correct on most games. I honestly wouldn't know where to begin to integrate gamma options via keyboard inputs, I'm not that good lol. I would normally do this with per game configs but Model 2 emu doesn't have that. The only other way around it is to create an ini file for 1 game with the gamma how you want it, then use batch file set to use that rom with the game specific ini and launch the game, instead of setting up the emulator in LB. This would need doing for every game.

If you get the correct gamma values, I can make the batch files and ini's. Deal?

Edited February 16 by Warped Polygon

just one contribution:
I don't know if I misunderstood, but I think I found a wrong line in your description:
One part says that Widescreen is by default, and underneath it says that Wide scripts are optional and need to be placed in the folder.
Maybe it's old text that needs to be removed from the description.

Would it be good if you changed the configuration in emulator.ini to leave the "FilterTilemaps" on by default to "1"?
to make the letters on the screen less jagged,
other emulators have this feature by default, like Supermodel and Demul.
It makes the image more pleasant and similar to what we remember from the old days.

Loving these preconfig files you do.

Is there a way to change how the emulator is exited?  I'm using a Dualsense controller and the defaults to quit are holding L2 and R2 which when playing racing games can cause unwanted quit outs as they are being used as accelerate and brake.

 

Update: silly me, it was Launchbox all along.  I had quit mapped to L3 and R3.

Edited March 4 by b4ddie

On 1/17/2024 at 5:58 PM, defmaka said:

thank you, really nice work. Is it me or xinput tends to have player 1 bound to keyboard? I'll need a bit more of fiddling because i'm using this on an arcade cabinet and i'll need to adapt controls, but it's a really solid start.

Can you pls provide a lua code to set scanlines on by default. I've tried with chatgpt but answers were hilarious XD 

yes, that'd be great! I couldn't find a way to enable scanlines by default... thanks for all the work. This whole thing is just great!

how did you manage to change the region for sega water ski

it says something about an "engineers code" in the table but it doesn't say anything after that

Edited May 9 by platinumb3rlitz

Hi Warped Polygon (and anyone that might be able to help), thanks for your setup guides they've been great and saved me so much time.

I'm having a little trouble with this model 2 setup though, I can't get House of the Dead to use the Xbox 360 controller analogue stick for moving the cursor though. I've set "use raw input" to 0 so I can get to the settings. In the settings the Xbox controller is recognised for assigning directions and buttons, but when I play the game the mouse is always used and the analogue sticks don't do anything.

Is there anything obvious I'm doing wrong? (the analogue stick works fine in the model 2 racing games by the way).

Ah, looks like joy2key (or similar) is the answer to my issue after all. Just though I'd post back here in case it helps any one that later views this.

On 2/23/2024 at 5:02 PM, wokacam said:

just one contribution:
I don't know if I misunderstood, but I think I found a wrong line in your description:
One part says that Widescreen is by default, and underneath it says that Wide scripts are optional and need to be placed in the folder.
Maybe it's old text that needs to be removed from the description.

Yes that is a mistake on my part. The widescreen luas are used by default. Thanks for catching that one, need to update the documentation.

As for Tilemaps, that one can cause issues in some games. We can figure out which ones it does work with and set them to use it via the scripts. However, some prefer the jagged look. Its a tough one. Leaving it off gives everyone the option I suppose, in which case we can force it off for the games it causes artifacts in excluding them when it's on  Hmm....that's probably the better way actually. 

Great stuff! What is the recommended merged rom set for Model 2?

For example, I tried the most recent (.266 merged), but 'daytona' threw the error below. So I went back to an older version of the merged rom.

Hiya

I just wanted to say a huge thanks to Warped Polygon, your packs and videos are AWESOME, I'll try and Buy You A Coffee, when I get a mo, you've saved me so much time and effort!

I also wanted to share my experience, as I've managed to get Warped Polygon's control layout pics in use as Pause Screens, so I thought I'd drop the info on how I managed that here - Caveat - I've not extensively tested this and I'm no Launchbox  or theme expert - following what I'm suggesting might break something for you, for which I'll take no blame!

Firstly I downloaded and extracted Warped Polygon's Control Layout Pics (attached to the first post), then I downoaded and extracted this (brilliant!) theme - Game Controls FS (Full Screen - Beta) by Retro808

The extracted theme gave me two folders. I moved the first, "Game Controls FS" folder to my "\Launchbox\PauseThemes" folder.

Once that was in place I then popped into the "\Launchbox\PauseThemes\Game Controls FS\fonts" folder and installed the font by double clicking prototype.ttf file and selecting install on the window that popped up.

I then dragged the second folder, "Images" to my "\Launchbox" folder.

Once that was in place, I renamed the folder that I'd extracted Warped Polygon's Control Layout Pics to, to "Sega Model 2" to match my M2 platform in Launchbox, I then dragged this folder over to "\Launchbox\Images\Game Controls\".

I then used the instructions in this video:

to set up the "Game Controls FS" theme as my Pause Theme and to add a joypad shortcut for 'Pause' on my (Xinput) Xbox Elite 2 pad (dpad-up+button 4 (Y)).

It worked, but only mostly. Retro808 has set up this theme to look for a game's layout pic named the same as the Launchbox ID for your game, he explains his good reason for this:

3) All game specific control images must be named exactly as the game is named in your set-up or as the LB Database ID (the LB Database ID is best used for games with symbols in the name as currently the coding has trouble pulling game files since LB will display ":" in the title but Windows will convert it to "_").

e.g. you'd have to change the image for Daytona USA from daytona.jpg to 181808.jpg, however, multiple Daytona games scrape as 181808 and would all display the same control layout, so... I tweaked a line in the Default.xaml for the theme to pick up the file name for the selected game, so that we can use all of Warped Polygon's brilliant images (fingers crossed this doesn't accidentally trigger the apocalypse!).

If you wish to do this too, the theme Default.xaml should now be located in your "\Launchbox\PauseThemes\Game Controls FS" folder, right click it and 'edit' (or preferably and if you have it installed 'edit in Notepad++').

Change line 120 from:
 

<Binding Path="SelectedGame.LaunchBoxDbId" />

to:
 

<Binding Path="SelectedGame.ApplicationFileNameWithoutExtension" />

Now assuming a hell-mouth doesn't open, you can bask in the glory of those beautiful pause screens!

Now I'm off to try this on Model 3 👍

Well, after watching Warped Polygon's Model 3 vid (and setting it up successfully!), he does cover in that one about using the control layout pics in Launchbox, but I think my comment above still has merit.

Edited October 9 by grimbola

You've done an amazing job with these setups! Thanks so much, been using them for a while now.

I'm currently testing running two instances of the M2Emulator on the same PC linked, and all is working great with the link so far for. Plans are to set this up on a Daytona twin cab.

The problem I'm having is, the M2 emu wont let me run each instance in fullscreen on different monitors, going fullscreen always kicks to the primary screen in windows. Also if I run one instance in Full Screen and click away to do anything like load the other in window mode, the fullscreen M2 freezes until i get that one out of fullscreen mode. If I keep both in window mode from the start everything does run smoothly though, so window mode x2 may be the best way forward. The problem there is, window mode always seems locked to 656x443, and just stretches that res if i increase the window size.

SO, I was wondering if you know of some way to either:

1. Run an instance in fullscreen on a secondary monitor (I've looked around to windows hacks for this but havent come across anything solid, apart from going down the VM route, but want to avoid that if I can! edit: I've also tried the window command of shift+win+right to move the fullscreen to another monitor but that also kills the m2 emulator instance running).
OR
2. Configure the INI or a script for window mode to be rendered in a specific resolution (and maybe a specific monitor?/position?)

I've been scouring the internet to try to find a way, but have come up empty. Any help would be much appreciated!

Edited yesterday at 11:47 AM by Aussiesil80