rec.autos.simulators

I just installed Viper Racing under Win98 and I can't get it to
recognize the throttle and brake for my MS Sidewinder FF wheel.  Works
fine in other sims.  Can anyone point me to the correct settings for
the wheel so that VR recognizes it?  Thanks, -Tom

P.S. reply by e-mail would be appreciated.

This is probably the one game I've NEVER had controller problems with :)

Make sure the controller is set up right in Windows, first.

Then, make sure you have the steering wheel selected as the controller on
the bottom right.

-Larry

Turns out that it can't handle having another controller hooked up.
Apparently having my gamepad as a second controller wasn't allowing it
to see the other axis correctly.  So, I guess it isn't perfect.

Ah, yes.  This is an age-old problem....

If you are running Windows 95 or 98 (and maybe ME), you can use a utility
called "QuickJoy" to move the connected controllers into and out of the #1
controller slot, which is really what's causing this.

It's amazing that even today, game developers don't write controller code
that can deal with controllers being elsewhere but slot #1.

If you are running Win2K or WinXP, I know of no solution for controlling the
Joystick in slot 1 (unless all of your controllers are Logitech, in which
case the Wingman software will take care of it).

-Larry

hi,

patch your Viper to unofficial version 1.21
That will make it work with multiple controllers.

Tapani

That also makes it work just great with Windows XP :)

-Larry

Hmmmm... I'll look for it, but I am a bit confused.  I'm not sure this
is my problem.  I thought it was the multi-controller problem because
I booted up under W2k and ran it there (where I only had one
controller set up).  The wheel worked great.  But, when I went back to
Win98 and removed the other controller and made sure the wheel was in
slot #1, I still had the same problem with the peddles.  When I press
the throttle, the bar moves a small amount (and it shows about 3/4ths
on when the peddle is all the way up).  When I press the brake,
nothing happens.  If I click on the throttle assignment and step on
the throttle, nothing registers.  (In W2k, it shows Joy Up).

Note, the wheel works fine in GPL, N4, ...  Also, I am running the
1.21 beta. So, I can at least run it in W2k, but I wish I knew why it
was screwed up.

Yes, we are on the same page, it just don't seem like it :)

In short, this is the problem...  Well, there are actually TWO:

1.  Some games won't work with two controllers, no matter WHERE they are
slot wise.
2.  Most games will only work with the controller that is located in slot
#1.

QuickJoy (Win9x only, unfortunately) will fix problem number 2.

The Wingman Software will, I _believe_ resolve both 1 and 2.  I'm not
positive about #1 though.

-Larry

Turned out to be none of the above.  Luckiy, you pointing me to
QuickJoy did lead do a solution.  As I said in an earlier message, I
had eliminated the other controller so that it was only the wheel left
and it was in slot #1.  The problem still existed and QuickJoy just
showed that I had one controller. Luckily, QuickJoy came with a test
app for joysticks.  I started that up and it had the same problems as
VR when I told it to do the "Win Driver Test".  I then noticed that it
had "Use Calibration" checked.  I unchecked that and sure enough the
wheel worked perfectly, just like in GPL.  I remembered that DXTweak
had an option "Delete calibration data". So I unplugged the wheel,
went into DXTweak, deleted the calibration data, plugged the wheel
back in, went into the test program, and it works perfectly now with
using the calibration.  It also works fine in VR now.

So, somehow I got screwed up calibration info stored in the registry.
GPL stores it's own calibration numbers, so it worked fine.  I'm
thinking that QuickJoy may help prevent this from happening again
because it may have occured when I would manually switch controllers
between slots 1 & 2 for the reasons you state above, which had become
painfully clear to me many moons ago.

Thanks for your input.  It definitely helped me get to the answer.

-Tom

You're Welcome :)

-Larry