rec.autos.simulators

All of my racing games slow down to almost a crawl when I switch on Force
feedback. Normaly they fly along. I have read that if you switch your
soundcard to single mode DMA then it should help but do not know of a way to
do this. Does any one have any other suggestions or is this a common side
effect of using FF.

I have a Soundblaster Live 1024 and an Interact V4fx steering wheel.

Ian

All of my racing games slow down to almost a crawl when I switch on Force
feedback. Normaly they fly along. I have read that if you switch your
soundcard to single mode DMA then it should help but do not know of a way to
do this. Does any one have any other suggestions or is this a common side
effect of using FF.

I have a Soundblaster Live 1024 and an Interact V4fx steering wheel.

the problem is your wheel. it is well known to be very slow. a better choice
would be the logitech LWFF.... no slowdown problems then.

i had a V4 myself- for about 15min.... it's pretty terrible.

I don't know how strong your CPU is, but generally spoken: FF needs a lot of
CPU cycles. Some wheels need more, some less, but your processor will always
have more work with FF than without.

CU
Zolli

--

Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com

Now to condense the explanation as much as I can;

The SG uses a protocol to shut down ALL interrupts and all other processes
during data transfer. This means that while the wheel is being polled, and
the FF effect sent, the entire computer is crippled. So the puter has to
wait sometimes half of each second to grab the positional and FF information
from the wheel. This leaves only half of your CPU's resources at times to
process graphics, sound, etc. When you only have half the CPU resources to
do these processes each second.... you are only going to get half of the
performance (ie... your framerates drop). It's a problem with the SG, and is
an example of MS rushing the sidewinder to market in an attempt to be the
first wheel manufacturer with FF. They were the first, but they paid a hefty
price in performance by doing so....

The USB wheels/sticks are unaffected since the USB interface doesn't shut
down interrupts to perform its duties... it has it's own interrupt.

I have written some tech papers on this very subject at:
www.rs2league.com/tech_talk/tech_talk.htm

you can grab a more detailed analysis of this "5041 Bug" there.

Cheers,

Shumi
www.rs2league.com

That has explained a lot to me. The thing is I love the feel of the V4
wheel. I just hope that a USB converter or some other solution comes up. USB
conerters have come out for printers so hopefully they will apear for
joysticks/wheels.

Thanks again.

Ian

FF sucks in N3 anyway, so it's no great loss not to use it.

-larry

I don't see what "sucks" in the N3 FF.
Sure, it isn't Viper or GPL and for my taste it is not strong enough, but it
really is not bad.
Did you already run Watkins Glen?
When you lift the throttle to get a better entrance into turn 2, it just
feels great.
I don't want to miss it.

CU
Zolli