Saturn light gun problems (on a CRT)...

[Phantar]

Hey fellas, I have encountered a little problem with both of my light guns for the Sega Saturn; maybe someone could help me out here.

I own two different light guns for the Sega Saturn: One is the standart, official (Black) Saturn Virtua Gun published by Sega. The other is a grey Nyko Super Cobra Controller (with autofire, GunCon-Mode and both a Saturn- and a PSX-plug). Both spent the Last five years or so in Storage, since I didn't own a CRT - Tv anymore and therefor didn't have much use for them (as these guns don't work on flatscreen LCDs).

That is up until recently: I've recently gotten access to an old (ten years or so) CRT and decided to celebrate the occasion by dusting off the old Saturn and Play a round of Virtua Cop. However, after trying out both light guns, I regrettably had to find out that both don't seem to work properly anymore.

The Cobra is right on target most of the time, but every third or fourth shot goes wild - a Shot is fired, but it doesn't seem to hit anything (not even on the Gun Adjust-screen). I tried fiddling with the switches on the thing, but the problem occurs even in Autofire-Mode).
The Virtua Gun is even worse of: No Shot appears to hit where it's supposed to. In particular it seems to be impossible to Hit anything on the left side of the screen. Gun Adjust doesn't seem to do a thing (and leaving that Screen is near impossible since no matter where I aim, no matter how far away from the screen I am, I always hit the center (which most of the time is the "Cancel"-button).

Does anybody know how to fix these issues? I'd really love to finally be able to play these old lightgun games again (the Virtua Cop games were always among my Saturn favorites and one of the reasons I kept the console around for so long...).

[Joe Redifer]

What kind of CRT is it?

[Phantar]

Philips 28pt7109/12 (28'')

[gamevet]

I'm pretty sure you did this, but have you cleaned the lens on those guns? They have been sitting around collecting dust for quite a while.

[Phantar]

Yeah, that was the first thing I did. Didn't help much.

[SpaceFlea]

I suggest you hit it repeatedly against a wall, then sleep with it passionately wrapped around you. Let it know, depending upon its behavior, it can be punished or rewarded.

[Phantar]

Mmh, intriguing suggestion... I was considering to opt for a more ironic punishment, like threatening to shoot the Virtua Gun for keeping my Fun & gameplay experience hostage. But before I do that, I'd rather love to try something that actually fixes the issue...

[SF78]

Wait a minute! Isn't that a 100hz screen? Guns only work on 50hz TV's.

[TmEE]

I checked a manual of that TV and it does seem to be 100Hz TV. The guns would not work right on such TVs.

[Phantar]

Well crap, seems like you two are right! According to the manual the TV indeed has a 100 Hz screen. Though if I understand the documentation correctly, it seems like the 100 Hz-mode is a digital function that can be switched off (an option the german manual calls "Rasterflimmerunterreduktion"... don't you just love the german language ). Guess I'll try that next time and see how that'll work out (if not, I have to see whether I can get hold of another TV...). Thanks for the hint, anyway!