Yesterday I picked up a Saitek Cyborg 3D 'Digital' joystick and was
wondering what the differences are between this type of stick and
ordinary analogue sticks.
I'm especially interested in the mechanics of how they work, with regard
to whether they are longer lasting etc and what sort of components are
used to produce the data (do they not use pots?) because with my other
sticks they seem to wear out so damn quickly. I'm hoping this digital
technology means fewer working parts to wear out.
Also, it says on the box that it uses 'Ratio Digital technology for
faster & more accurate game play', however does this result in a CPU
hit to get this extra quality? The reason I ask this is because, once
installed the stick seemed to work fine with GPL offline, but as soon as
I went online I was getting all sorts of problems with regard to the
wheels twitching ***ly as well as sometimes having the car I was
driving seeming to run at half power (no acceleration - and yes I was in
an F1). Even with the current latest drivers there was no improvement.
So what I was thinking was that the extra CPU requirements to get the
most from this stick were conflicting with the needs of GPL.
To confirm this slightly, the stick has a switch on it that allows
either digital or ordinary analogue mode, and when run in analogue mode
the Saitek drivers are not required. So what I did was to remove the
Saitek driver and replace them with CH Combat drivers from a previous
stick in Control Panel/Controllers. This allowed me to use most of the
features with the Saitek stick and whatsmore it allowed me to play
online without any problems. In fact the manual for the joystick also
seems to confirm this by stating 'Analog mode will give maximum
compatability for older games, and slower machines.' So that seems to
indicate that a decent CPU requirement is needed to get the best from
this stick.
So, can anyone steer me in the direction of any sites that explain this
technology or are happy to impart their knowledge here on ras.
Cheers in advance.
--
Peter Ives - (AKA Ivington)
No person's opinions can be said to be
more correct than another's, because each is
the sole judge of his or her own experience.