rec.autos.simulators

Just made a little progress on my crappy dead-zone behaviour, which
I'd previously attributed to my Interact wheel getting old.

I've now acquired a "slightly marked" Racer wheel from BRD (and I'm
less impressed than I hoped to be, but that's another story) and
the same problem's recurred.

What happens is that there's a sort of dead-zone effect, except
that instead of starting from zero at the edge of the deadzone
the signal jumps to what it would have been with no deadzone...

\     |     /               \        |        /
 \    |    /                 \       |       /
  \   |   /    instead of     \      |      /
  |   |   |                    \     |     /
  |   |   |                     \    |    /
  |   |   |                      \   |   /
-------------               -------------------

Anyway, what seems to happen is that the deadzone centres itself
at the position the wheel happens to be in, either when the PC
boots or when the gameport driver is loaded - I can't tell which.
If I unplug the wheel and reconnect it, the location of the
deadzone changes.

This explains why it's been intermittent - it depends on which
controller, if any, I had plugged in at bootup...

Anyway, it looks like it's either the soundcard (an SB PCI 128)
or the gameport drivers; I tried changing the latter, to the
generic Microsoft ones, but it didn't help and ended up with
two drivers loaded, which made Windows a little unhappy :-/

Has anyone come across this before?  Should my gameport work
under a Win98SE "DOS" boot?  I've got a little QBasic program
which polls the gameport, and it read straight zeros in DOS
(plus I couldn't persuade GP2 to run, to test using that).

Help!  This is really starting to p*ss me off...

Jonny

Since you asked about the wheel:

 - it's got a soft centering spring, so the centre isn't well defined
 - there's hysteresis in the above mechanism, so the centre *moves*
 - the baseplate is too chunky to fit under my keyboard when not in
   use (I'm planning to drill my desk soon), but if I push it far
   enough back to allow the keyboard to fit then my fingers hit the
   desk when they're rested on the shift paddles at large lock
 - the microswitches under the paddles needed shimming to get them
   to activate with a sensible force
 - when I took it apart to try to address the hysteresis, a) I
   failed to get it far enough apart and b) it was a *bee-yatch*
   to reconnect the wiring to the buttons!
 - the pedals have a great spring setup for the brake, but the
   same on the throttle isn't so good and the travel is rather
   short.

Having said that, I do like the mechanical steering trim slider,
and it has a nice solid feel to it.  If I'd paid full retail of
50 quid for it I'd be narked; as it is, I'm more miffed to find
that it wasn't my old wheel causing the problems.

Jonny

Here's some of my "thoughts" about your problem as I read through your
post.....one of them might be the culprit...or at least helpful in solving
your deadzone problem:

1.  "Slightly marked" BRD wheel?  Do you mean "used?"  If so, the pot
"center" could have slipped (it happens easily on BRD wheels) and if it
slipped far enough, that could cause your problem.  The pot could also be
"warn" (or defective) and that would/could act in a similar manner.  To
check this, you need an "ohm meter"....there's just about no other simple
way to do it (and you must take the wheel completely apart and remove the
pot and wiring from it).  If all of this is beyond your desire or
capabilities......then a trip back to BRD for refurbishing would be the next
logical step.

2.  Your game port on your sound card could have the incorrect voltage.
There's more sound cards out on the market that have this problem than most
people realize.  I'd upgrade to a Creative SB Live (value) card, since they
are good basic sound cards with excellent 3D sound recreation and have
decent game ports (for the price).  For about $40 (USD) you'd at least
eliminate that as a potential problem....and get much better sound than you
get with SB PCI 128.  Creative has bought out many sound card manufacturers
in the last couple of years, and many of their "non-SB Live" sound cards are
just left over inventory that has been renamed to a CL brand name.  I'm not
saying that is the case with your sound card....but it very well could
be...since that is a name CL has used generically for many of the
"off-brand" units.  And, of course, a defective sound card gameport is a
possibility, too.

3.  You'd be far better off using DX8.1 control drivers (especially in
N2K2).  The deadzone default of 5% in all DXx.x control drivers can be reset
to "zero" using DXTweak....available all over the net (this is a "key issue"
with your brake as much as it is for the wheel and throttle).  Try that
first....before going any further.  Also, using DXDiag, you can see if
there's a problem with the "input" drivers you've got installed.

4.  Plug and unplug of a controller using a game port can only be done with
the computer turned off.  I hope that's what you are doing?  You can ruin
the sound card circuitry or perhaps your mobo circuitry by "hot plugging" a
game port controller.  That's limited to USB ports only.  The fact that you
report the deadzone "center" as shifting when you plug and unplug
it....tells me you are "hot plugging" your unit.  That's a NO NO!

5.  BRD wheels have had a problem with the hand-made wiring have
"shorts"......especially their older models (it seems they used solid-core
wire for a long time, instead of the more expensive but correct,
stranded-core wire - the solid-core, small gauge wire breaks quite easily
with aging).  You can check to see if this is a problem by partially
disassembling the wheel....and manipulate all the internal wires.  Do this
while in the Windows calibration routine.  If you see a "spike or jump" in
the cross-bar....you have a faulty wire connector.  The problem is, you'll
have to replace every dang one of them or spend a few bazillion hours
tracing down the bad one (trust me - been there, done that).

6.  Also, with BRD wheels (they seem more "particular" about this than
others we've used), you should **not** have "Poll with Interrupts Enabled"
checked in the Control Panel/GameOptions/"Controller ID" tab window.  Also,
make sure your BRD controller is on ID Channel #1.  If not, click "Change"
and set it to ID #1.  Also, while here, do you know if your BRD pedals are
wired for "separate brake" and gas....or "combined".  If you have the wrong
driver for how the pedals are wired, you'll have nothing but nightmares with
your controller until this is corrected ("yes" this effects the wheel
operation as well).  We've also see from time to time on older BRD
controllers, they have been wired for Playstation......that needs to be
corrected pronto, if that is the case.  Hopefully, you got a wiring
diagram/manual with your controls.  If not, you'll need to send for
one....because you can't trust how the unit is "marked" as actually being
wired that way.  Also, if the PC board in your pedals (assuming they are one
of the older units) is marked "PS2" or something similar, its pretty much
junk.  Get a new one from BRD.

This doesn't cover every possibility or "issue" with BRD controllers....but
it covers the most common ones we ran into.  Hope this is helpful.

Regards,

Tom

About 4.9something when I looked...

Right, DX8.1 is on its way - should be little more than an hour :-)

Guilty - I have been hot-swapping joysticks occasionally.  Having
two different controllers (and that's ignoring the second wheel)
doesn't help - is this why I can't buy a joystick switch?

What are the odds on this having caused such a localised problem?
The problem's been around on and off ever since I got the PC
(~3 years ago now) but it's become more persistent in recent months.

Tried with and without.  Again, the BRD wheel basically works, just
as my Interact one does - except for this annoying dead spot.  I've
wasted a lot of time and effort in the past trying to chase it as
a wheel problem :-(

Thanks for your hints - if I can borrow another soundcard, I'll
try to eliminate that as the source of the problem.

Jonny

Fixed!  D/l'd DX8.1, then applied DXDeadZone to set the
deadzone value to 0, and all is good :-)

Trust Microsoft to be the root cause of the problem - and
why didn't CTFJ have the same effect?

I'm also suspecting, after a 20 lap race at the Norisring,
that I could learn to prefer the 'soft centre' of my new wheel
- it's a lot easier to carry on driving with a bent car, and
even braking without spinning seems to be a little more
manageable - although I still don't like the throttle pedal.

Finally, a note which may be of interest to those of you
who, like me, have the freedom to do whatever they want
to their computer desks: the top on mine (5/8" / 15mm ?MDF)
accepts M8x1.25 tapped holes very nicely, with a drop of
superglue (PVA would probably work fine) to seal the threads
and a dab of grease on the screws once the glue's dried :-)

Thanks to all who replied,
Jonny

DC