rec.autos.simulators

Hi everybody,

I would like to buy a T2 to play with GP2 and I read on Thrustmaster Web
site that the ACM game card in HIGHLY recommended.  Can I use it with the
Joystick port of my Sound Blaster without problem ?  Is this a trick to
sell their Card ? :)

If anyone has experience with T2 and his Sound Blaster game port, please
tell me (does it work or not !?).

Thank you,

Steve Breton
Quebec, Canada

I have a Micron P133 with one of those damn cheap Vibra sound cards
with the joystick port.

I bought the T2, plugged into the Vibra gameport, and drove like
utter crap.  I thought for sure something had to be wrong with the
port, so bought the ACM.  After putting in the ACM, I still stunk
real bad. Unfortunately, looking back, I literally stunk so bad I
can't tell if the card made a difference or not.

In the end, it's hard for me to tell.  I had raced with
keyboard/joystick combo for so long, I now realize my driving skills
sucked with a wheel at first, but of course I blamed in on the
controller/gameport <g>.

I would have to beleive a slower PC would benefit from the port, I
don't really know if mine did or not.

That's the long story from here <g>.  I am not an expert.  Good luck.

Michael

The T'master Game Card works a treat with anything from a basic joystick to
the full T1 or T2 wheel/pedals.  It is NOT a trick to sell the
cards....calibration is so much more stable IF YOU ARE USING AN OLDER GAME
CARD OR SOUNDCARD!!
With the new PnP/16-bit/32-bit cards I have not seen any difference, but
with the older 8-bit and early 16-bit cards, most definitely.

BruceK

-  If you have problems getting the Wheel, or any component of the T2
        calibrated in your game.
-  If it seems like your wheel is just extremely oversensitive to any
        movement.

Those are the 2 most common problems associated with a standard game port.  
Your likelyhood of needing a Speed Adjustible card go up with the speed of
your machine...the faster it is, the more likely you'll need one.  This is due
to the way that joystick values are read off of the game port.  Unless
someone's really interested, I won't go into this, as it takes a lot of
explainin'!

Matt
ThrustMaster, Inc.

        Rob Adlam
                Hamilton, New Zealand.

Hi:

  Anyone have tried T2 with a SBpro (8bits)?

Paco
Nostromo Racing Team
http://edafo1.usc.es/gp2.html

Matt,

Would you explain how to set the speed on the ACM card ?
What value range should I set when using the tms.exe to cal. the stick ?

I have a slightly problem in GP2 that my wheels would turn left or right
even thought I did not move my stick (PFCS).  This is specially evident
when I switch to external view.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards
Tony

ps. I have a P166+.

Here's my experience on the subject: I have a GUS PnP card. I used to play
with GP2 configured for native GUS. All was well except when I turned
steering help off, the car have sometimes experienced short, unexplained
"bursts" of self-control, meaning the steering would suddenly steer me to
the left even though I didn't even touch my T2.

Then to somebody's suggestion (shame on me, but I forgot the name of this
great and smart person!) I've configured the GP2 to SB sound and have
switched my GUS soundcard into SB mode (by running the IWSBOS emulation). To
my surprise, the T2 was handling as smooth as silk, even with the steering
help turned off! No sudden jerkiness, no unexplained steering disturbances!

What this great guy figured out is this: since I have my T2 connected to my
soundcard's joystick port (the only one I have in my system), in the GUS
mode the bursts on the DMA channel (as sound samples were sent from the RAM
to the soundcard) were probably interfering with the joystick routine in GP2.
Since in SB mode the DMA transfers for sound do not happen in bursts, the
problem didn't appear there.

ANYWAY, my point is that although I was on the brink of buying a separate,
dedicated game port for my T2, a simple software tweaking got rid of my
problem. Now I'm glad I saved that twenty-some bucks for myself. :)
_____________________________________________________________________________
LaLa (Imre Olajos, Jr.)      _/ean /\/\ichel _/arre  and  -=\/=- angelis  fan
WWW : http://homepage.interaccess.com/~lala                       |    |

~~ []/\() ~~~~~~~~~~~ "Music should be free." /Vangelis/ ~~~~~~~~  /~~\ /~~\