Recently I posted a couple of cries for help. I finally discovered the
problem.
For background: I had been running GP2 and ICR2 (both DOS sims) happily.
Because of a sound card change I had to give them up. I bought NR1999,
got TPTCC patch, and was happy. I realized there was a patch to convert
ICR2 to win95, ran it, and discovered an ugly problem. I'd noticed what
was actually the same phenomenon when I bought and tried SCGT, thinking
it was a SCGT problem.
Basically, you had to turn the wheel about 10 deg. either direction
before anything at all would happen, which made ICR2 and SCGT totally
undrivable. Yet NR1999 worked fine, steering response was just peachy.
Much head scratching, posts to R.A.S. and more brooding.
In NR1999, you have a choice between the Papyrus driver or DirectX for
the controller. I had been using the Papy driver. It occurred to me to
try each of them and then go into the calibration routine. Suddenly a
revelation. When using the DirectX driver, there was this huge gap in
the center of the steering range!
After sitting and wondering if this was some weird DirectX bug (some
bizarre Microsoft "user friendly rich computing experience" fiasco), I
finally tried going to the control panel game controller setup, removing
the TM Sprint driver, and setting up the gameport to use the driver for
the TM Formula 1. Voila! Smack forehead, shout Eureaka. It worked fine,
no stupid huge deadzone!
If you have a Thrustmaster NASCAR Sprint wheel and thought it was junk
because you couldn't get the steering to work right, ditch the Sprint
driver!
Incidentally, besides making it so I could actually run the w95 patched
ICR2, this also had the added benefit that in the "new" ICR2 I had
separate axes for throttle and brake (with the TM Sprint driver, for
some reason the controller would only be recognized as having the
throttle and brake combined on the Joystick 1 Y axis, when the Sprint
actually has steering as J1 X axis, throttle on J1 Y axis, and brake on
J2 X axis).
I hope this helps somebody, and thanks to those who responded to my
earlier questions with pointers to CTFJ and DXTweek and whatnot)
JLE
