rec.autos.simulators

Does anyone have this piece of software.  It is supposed to fix the problem
of swapping joysticks in Win95.  It runs in your system tray.  I found it
mentioned at http://www.racesimcentral.net/
"Joystick Management" by Edward Fielding.  It would sure make it nicer when
switching between my Flightstick, Wheel, and Joypad.  He says you can
download it from CHproducts website but I can't find it mentioned on their
html pages nor find it on their ftp server.

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AJB

It looks good on further review, but I am apparently too stupid to figure out how
to get it to work.  I setup different templates for my two joysticks, but when I
go to select my choice it uses the current W95 setup instead of switching to the
setup I supposedly saved.  Any ideas, anyone?

AJB

It may be better to manually change your control device via the
ControlPanel joystick applet. I would suggest setting up your
joystick first. Then remove it and ADD a custom device. There
is a checkbox where you can specify that it is a driving controller.
I think that should get around the problem where the joystick and
driving controller are both using the same joystick #1 calibration
data.

FWIW, this is what I did. It seems to me that the Joystick Switcher
goes through just as many steps as if you did this with the Control
Panel applet.

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Here's the solution.

Under the Advanced tab, choose device #2 and change it to your 1st stick.
Then choose device #3 and set it up with your other stick.  Then choose
device #1 and set it to whichever of your 2 sticks you want to use.  When
you want to use your other stick, merely change device #1 to whichever stick
you like.  It is important that you do not delete either Device #2 or #3.
By leaving them as active devices and swapping them into spot #1, you retain
all the calibration info.

I hope I haven't confused things too much.

DarkStar

Bill

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Bill Arnette

The Joystick Switcher program AJB is talking about does this for you.  You
configure one stick and it copies the registry values for the joystick into
its own registry entry.   You do this for all of your joystick configurations.
Then from the tray you select the configuration you want to use and the
program copies the saved registry entires into the joystick registry entries.  

Unfortunately the version of the program AJB has is old and has a bug where it
will not work if you have multiple joystick ports due to multiple
soundcards/joystick cards.  Also, the link on the Games Domain page that talks
about the program is to a registered copy instead of an unregistered copy.

Bill

Yeah, sorry folks.  Seems that I got a copy I shouldn't have and one that is an
older version as well.  I'll let everyone know if I can get the shareware version
of a working copy so that we can try it out.  I'll certainly pay the $10 if it
works, but I want to be sure that it does first!  Apologies all around.

AJB

If you want to manage joysticks in Win95, your best bet is to upgrade
to DirectX 5. It puts the new game controller applet in the control
panel, and allows you to have several devices installed at once. Most
new games will be compatible with this system, allowing the computer
to detect when you switch from one controller to another.

Of course, if you're playing any of the newer games, you must have
DirectX 5 installed already. Check out the control panel applet. It
has a few nice features, not the least of which is its ability to keep
track of all your different controllers even though only one is
attached at a time. There have been a few glitches (e.g., some games
can only detect a controller if its among the first couple in your
list of installed controllers) but for the most part it works pretty
well. It's particularly striking to those of us who remember what
joystick switching and recalibration was like in the DOS days when
every game handled it differently.

Anyway, who wants to have extra third-party programs running in their
system trays eating up resources and creating the risk of
unanticipated conflicts?

This is from a MS support engineer when I asked them about this with respect
to FS98:

Me:

MS:

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Bill Arnette