Where It Runs — The Per-System and Per-Game Table for Linux

7.1 How to read the table

This volume gathers the dive’s findings into one place. Its sources are three, and each column says which it rests on:

• Batocera’s own table of light-gun support by system and emulator, with the release that added it, crosshair support and multi-gun support (wiki, Light gun guide, “Emulator support”). It is the most complete public record for Linux, and it is maintained by the people who wrote the support. It is about Batocera; the same emulator outside Batocera may behave differently, for the reasons in Volume 1, section 1.4.
• Batocera’s build configuration on its master branch (20 October 2026), for which emulator exists on which board (Volume 4, section 4.1).
• The upstream emulators’ sources and the QMamehook README, for desktop Linux without Batocera’s patches and for game-driven recoil (Volumes 1, 2 and 6).

None of it has been tried with the project’s gun yet. The “test first” list in 7.5 is ordered to turn the most of this table into measured fact for the least time.

7.2 The matrix

The same information in full, with the Batocera version that added gun support and the notes from its table:

Table 1 — The same information in full, with the Batocera version that added gun support and the notes from its table

System	Emulator	Batocera since	Multi-gun (Batocera)	x86-64	Pi 5	Pi 4	Upstream desktop Linux	Game-driven recoil on Linux
Arcade	MAME (standalone)	v35	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Two guns with the x11 provider on X11; one with sdl	Yes (output network)
Arcade	MAME core (current)	v40	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (RetroArch udev); set mame_lightgun_mode	Yes (mame.ini)
Arcade	MAME 2003-Plus core	v35	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (udev)	Not documented
Arcade	FBNeo core	v35	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (udev)	Not documented
Arcade	MAME 2010 core	—	No gun support
Atomiswave, NAOMI	Flycast core	v35	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (udev)	No (issue #1189)
Atomiswave, NAOMI	Flycast (standalone)	v35 (NAOMI), v43 (Atomiswave)	“multiplayer unsupported for now”	Yes	Yes	Yes	One gun (SDL pointer)	Raw, unnamed output bits (Broadcast Digital Outputs); recoil bit per game, untested
Dreamcast	Flycast core	v35	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (udev)	No (console)
Dreamcast	Flycast (standalone) / Redream	v35	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	One gun	No (console)
Model 2	model2emu (Wine), SM2-Emu from v44	v37	”Multiplayer unsupported for now”	Yes	v44	No	No	Not documented
Model 3	Supermodel	v37	Yes (from v37)	Yes	Yes	v43 only	One gun (multi-mouse is Windows Raw Input)	No — lamps only, no gun recoil output
Sega Lindbergh	Lindbergh loader	v42 (crosshair v43)	Yes	Yes	No	No	Not documented	Not documented
Namco System 246/256	Play! (v43) / PCSX2X6 (master)	v43	”One light gun only”	Yes	No	No	No	Not documented
NES	FCEUmm, Nestopia (Mesen: no crosshair)	v35	(one Zapper)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (udev)	No (console)
Master System	Genesis Plus GX	v35	2P only with Gangster Town	Yes	Yes	Yes	Same	No (console)
Mega Drive	Genesis Plus GX	v35	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Same	No (console)
Mega-CD	Genesis Plus GX (PicoDrive: no)	v35	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Same	No (console)
SNES	Snes9x (Snes9x Next: no; Mesen-S, bsnes: no Justifier)	v35	2P only with Lethal Enforcers	Yes	Yes	Yes	Same	No (console)
Saturn	Beetle Saturn (Kronos: no)	v35	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes (udev)	No (console)
3DO	Opera	v35	”Multiplayer unsupported for now”	Yes	Yes	Yes	Same	No (console)
PlayStation	DuckStation	v40	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	One gun (no Linux per-mouse source)	No (console)
PlayStation	PCSX ReARMed core	v35	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (udev)	No (console)
PlayStation	SwanStation core	v35	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Same	No (console)
PlayStation	Beetle PSX core	v35	No; “Only works with software renderer”	Yes	Yes	No	Same	No (console)
PlayStation 2	PCSX2	v37	Yes	Yes	No	No	One gun (MAX_POINTER_DEVICES = 1)	No (console)
PlayStation 3	RPCS3	v36	Yes; “PS Move emulation is very early”	Yes	No	No	Not tested	No (console)
Wii	Dolphin; Dolphin core (v43)	v36	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Not tested	No (console)
Laserdisc	Hypseus Singe	v36	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not tested	—
Commodore 64	VICE	v35	Yes (standalone)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not tested	No
Atari 2600	Stella core	v35	Yes (no crosshair)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Same	No
Amstrad CPC, GX4000	Caprice32 core	v37 “not out of the box”	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Same	No
Steam (PC games)	Steam	v35	No	Yes	—	—	—	—
Windows games	Wine/Lutris	”Untested”	No	Yes	—	—	—	Via DemulShooter in Wine only
Xbox	xemu	No gun support (Chihiro fork with guns from v44)

“Same” in the upstream column means the RetroArch core is the same outside Batocera and gets the same gun support through RetroArch’s udev input driver (Volume 2). The Pi columns follow Batocera’s build rules; for the cores marked “Yes” on a Pi, Batocera builds them, which is not a promise that every game runs at full speed.

7.3 System by system

The points the table cannot carry, from the same sources:

• Arcade (MAME). The largest library and the only one with working game-driven recoil on Linux. Batocera’s wiki: “The current accuracy is not perfectly 1:1, caused by a fake and forced 4:3 ratio” in its MAME set-up. Batocera pre-calibrates over a hundred MAME files on first launch (Volume 3, section 3.6). Off-screen reload, for games that need “point away and pull”, comes from MAME’s offscreenreload plugin or the gun’s off-screen button mode (Volume 2, section 2.6).
• NAOMI and Atomiswave. The core gives two guns and no outputs on Linux; the standalone emulator gives one gun and the board’s raw output bits, which can carry a per-shot kick once the right bit is found for the game (Volume 6, section 6.2). Choose per game: House of the Dead 2 two-player wants the core; a single player who wants per-shot kick can try the standalone.
• Model 2 and Model 3. The home of Virtua Cop, House of the Dead and The Lost World. A PC or, from Batocera v44, a Pi 5; not a Pi 4. Batocera’s wiki: “Model2emu crosshair does not follow where the light gun is actually pointing. Keep it disabled to best accuracy.”
• PlayStation. From Batocera v39 “all gun games are compatible with both Justifier and GunCon light gun controller type in PCSX-reARMed core”; “If a GunCon conversion patch was applied to the ROM, you will need to force GunCon controller type”; “Area 51 has no known working patch” (as a GunCon conversion — the game itself runs as a Justifier title).
• SNES. “The Justifier controller type does not work in libretro: mesen-s and libretro: bsnes, rendering Lethal Enforcers unplayable with these cores.” Use Snes9x.
• Saturn and 3DO. “In-game recalibration is required, located in the game menu options. This is different per-game. This only needs to be done once.”
• Commodore 64. Tape releases often carried a joystick version on one side and the light-gun version on the other; “the light gun version of the game is needed”.
• PlayStation 2 and Namco System 246/256. PC only. Batocera’s PCSX2 gets two guns through its own patch; upstream PCSX2 on Linux gets one.
• Wii. Batocera maps a light gun onto the emulated Wii Remote’s pointer, with per-game geometry in its game database; since v39, “Wii gun games now 100% playable with light guns (based on 5 buttons mapping)“.

7.4 Per-game notes

Batocera keeps a per-game test list, “mainly tested on x86_64 and rpi4 architectures with default settings (except for MAME)”. The notes below are the ones that change what a player has to do; everything not listed is marked as working without comment in that list. Quoted text is Batocera’s.

Table 2 — 7.4 Per-game notes

System	Game	Note
MAME	Jurassic Park	”Broken accuracy in MAME, use FBNeo version” (Batocera v43 fixed MAME input in jpark, opwolf3 and policetr)
MAME	Time Crisis	Works with the 0.258 ROM set, not the 0.78+ set; “Flash removal possible with cheats.zip”
MAME	Time Crisis II	”0.272+ required”
MAME	Golgo 13 Juusei no Requiem	”0.256+ required. Trigger/secondary are inversed.”
MAME	Point Blank 3	”0.256+ required”
MAME	CarnEvil, Line of Fire	”Calibration required for older ROMset”
MAME	Lucky & Wild	”Wheel (acceleration, turning) need to be mapped.”
MAME	Triple Hunt	”Change game in dipswitch”
FBNeo	Bronx	”Axis and screen are inverted”
FBNeo	Golly! Ghost!, Bubble Trouble	”Not loading”
FBNeo	Mobile Suit Gundam Final Shooting	dip switch for control must be set to “Light gun”
NAOMI	House of the Dead 2	”Secondary trigger can reload”
NAOMI	Manic Panic Ghosts!	”No light gun input”
Namco 246	Time Crisis 3	”Calibrate gun in service menu first”
Model 2	Behind Enemy Lines	Pre-calibrated from v36
Model 3	Star Wars Trilogy Arcade	Pre-calibrated from v36
NES	Space Shadow	”Only works with mesen core”
NES	Super Russian Roulette (homebrew)	“Mapper 413 is missing from emulators”
NES	Chiller	”2 players light guns not supported yet”
Master System	Laser Ghost	”Press A (south button) on second controller until you can’t, then shoot”
SNES	M.A.C.S. Basic Rifle Marksmanship	Change controller type to the M.A.C.S. rifle
3DO	Shootout at Old Tucson	Force the light-gun setting, load the arcade BIOS, calibrate in the service menu
PlayStation	Moorhuhn 2, Moorhuhn X	”Poor aiming”
PlayStation	Gunfighter: The Legend of Jesse James, Policenauts	GunCon on port 2
PlayStation 2	Cocoto Funfair	”GunCon only, not emulated yet in PCSX2”
PlayStation 2	Time Crisis: Crisis Zone	”Enable the texture hack to remove the white fog”
PlayStation 2	Virtua Cop: Elite Edition	”Skip the calibration screen by shooting offscreen”
PlayStation 3	Time Crisis 4	”GunCon3 only.”
PlayStation 3	House of the Dead: Overkill	”Calibration not working, no aim”
PlayStation 3	Heavy Fire series, The Shoot	”Broken calibration”
PlayStation 3	Mad Dog McCree, Mad Dog II, The Last Bounty Hunter	”Can’t reload”
PlayStation 3	Time Crisis: Razing Storm	Shoot a bit beyond the targets to calibrate; enable “Write Colors Buffer”; frame limit 30 for Time Crisis 4
Wii	Medal of Honor: Heroes 2	”Nunchuk required (Arcade mode)”

Counted from that list on 20 October 2026: about 92 MAME and 39 FBNeo titles, 16 laserdisc, 6 Model 2, 4 Model 3, 7 NAOMI, 5 Atomiswave, 4 Namco 246/256, 35 NES, 11 Master System, 6 Mega Drive, 14 SNES, 8 Mega-CD, 11 3DO, 33 PlayStation, 15 Saturn, 7 Dreamcast, 39 Wii, 11 PlayStation 2 and 19 PlayStation 3 entries, a few of them games with only a light-gun mini-game. Batocera’s game database flags 791 game entries as gun games across all systems (Volume 3, section 3.5).

The PlayStation 3 column is the weakest on Linux: many titles there need the motion-controller “shake” for reload or calibrate badly, because RPCS3 emulates a PlayStation Move from the gun, and Batocera calls that emulation “very early”.

7.5 What to test first with the project’s gun

The table is mostly read from documents. A short bench programme converts the parts that matter most for this project into measured results, in this order:

1. Batocera on the lab’s x86-64 PC, one gun, preset P1. Is it recognised (OpenFIRE light gun P1 present), and does the D-pad work (Volume 3, section 3.3)? One MAME game, one PlayStation game (DuckStation), one NAOMI game (Flycast core).
2. Second gun, preset P2. Two-player House of the Dead 2 (Flycast core) and a two-player MAME game.
3. Desktop Linux, RetroArch udev and QMamehook. A MAME gun game with output network: the first game-driven kick on Linux (Volume 6).
4. Pi 5 with Batocera. Repeat 1 and 2; then the latency rig from Volume 2, section 2.7 with run-ahead 0 and 1.
5. Steam Deck Game Mode. The cursor test from Volume 5, section 5.2.

7.6 What could not be verified

• None of the table has been tried with the project’s gun.
• Whether the MAME 2003-Plus and FBNeo cores publish outputs a Linux hook can read: neither the cores’ documentation nor QMamehook’s README says.
• Upstream (non-Batocera) Dolphin, RPCS3, Hypseus Singe and VICE with an absolute-mouse gun on Linux.
• The Batocera multi-gun column for NES (the table leaves it blank); NES Zapper games are single-gun on the original console except where a game supports two.

Sources

1. Batocera wiki, Light gun guide (Emulator support, Per-emulator notes), wiki.batocera.org/emulators:lightgun_games (raw export) — read 2026-10-20.
2. Batocera wiki, Tested games with light gun support, wiki.batocera.org/emulators:light_gun_game_spreadsheet (raw export) — read 2026-10-20.
3. Batocera, package/batocera/core/batocera-system/Config.in, commit c2cb58a39, and batocera-Changelog.md — read 2026-10-20.
4. batocera-linux/batocera-emulationstation, resources/gamesdb.xml — read 2026-10-20.
5. Upstream sources as cited in Volumes 1, 2 and 6 (MAME, RetroArch, Flycast, DuckStation, PCSX2, Supermodel, libretro/mame core options); QMamehook README; libretro/flycast issue #1189 — read 2026-10-20.