GP2: Joystick/Steering device wobblies!

Hi all... I have just got a T2 and have set it up so that it seems ok on the face of it but I am noticing a very annoying problem. At intervals of about 1-2 seconds the game seems to sense that the wheel has been turned to the left and back again for a brief instant. The effect is also present if I sit in neutral and press the accelerater until I get what I would expect should be a constant rpm noise. Intead of a constant noise I get a blip every 1-2 seconds. I thought at first that this was the fact that high performance engines just wont idle very well but what with the steering effect as well I no longer believe this. The effect is also present when calibrating. If I hold the wheel still in the centre (or dont hold it atall!) the dot in the screen keeps flicking left about 1/2 inch (screen is a 17"). Is this experienced by anyone else? I have two sound cards each with a joystick port. One is an old Gravis Ultrasound. I cant get this to work with the joystick sensibly at all although the sound is fine. The second is a cheap Soundblaster 16 copy and its this I get the wobblies with. Maybe the warning in the T2 manuals about getting a game port card is true and not just sales blurb. Any thoughts? I run Windows 95 on my PC 'BUT' I am running under MS-DOS mode when using GP2. The video card is a Matrox Millenium. PC is a Micron with 100mhz pentium and 16mb ram. Please help if you can. Its ***y hard work doing 200+ round Monza with someone yanking the wheel to the left every two seconds. :-) If I was driving as Schumacker then I'd think Damon was leaning out and grabbing it, but I'm not. :-) Cheers Andy ======================================================================== MMMM MMMM /^\ / Andy Jones \ HHHH HHHH \_/ \ Milton Keynes U.K. / ========================================================================

[snip] : The effect is also present when calibrating. If I hold the wheel still : in the centre (or dont hold it atall!) the dot in the screen keeps : flicking left about 1/2 inch (screen is a 17"). : Is this experienced by anyone else? : I have two sound cards each with a joystick port. One is an old Gravis : Ultrasound. I cant get this to work with the joystick sensibly at all : although the sound is fine. The second is a cheap Soundblaster 16 copy : and its this I get the wobblies with. : Maybe the warning in the T2 manuals about getting a game port card is : true and not just sales blurb. Any thoughts? You seem to have answered your own question. You have 2 joystick ports which are competing for attention. It sounds like both of them are being read (one after the other). When one is being polled the other doesn't "exist". Disable the joystick port on the card which is not hooked up to your T2. -- **************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

<<The effect is also present when calibrating. If I hold the wheel still in the centre (or dont hold it atall!) the dot in the screen keeps flicking left about 1/2 inch (screen is a 17").>> This is the key. You probably have a bad potentiometer. Replace it and your problem should go away.

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>Hi all... >I have just got a T2 and have set it up so that it seems ok on the >face of it but I am noticing a very annoying problem. >At intervals of about 1-2 seconds the game seems to sense that the >wheel has been turned to the left and back again for a brief instant. >The effect is also present if I sit in neutral and press the >accelerater until I get what I would expect should be a constant rpm >noise. Intead of a constant noise I get a blip every 1-2 seconds. I >thought at first that this was the fact that high performance engines >just wont idle very well but what with the steering effect as well I >no longer believe this. >The effect is also present when calibrating. If I hold the wheel still >in the centre (or dont hold it atall!) the dot in the screen keeps >flicking left about 1/2 inch (screen is a 17"). >Is this experienced by anyone else? >I have two sound cards each with a joystick port. One is an old Gravis >Ultrasound. I cant get this to work with the joystick sensibly at all >although the sound is fine. The second is a cheap Soundblaster 16 copy >and its this I get the wobblies with. >Maybe the warning in the T2 manuals about getting a game port card is >true and not just sales blurb. Any thoughts? >I run Windows 95 on my PC 'BUT' I am running under MS-DOS mode when >using GP2. >The video card is a Matrox Millenium. >PC is a Micron with 100mhz pentium and 16mb ram. >Please help if you can. Its ***y hard work doing 200+ round Monza >with someone yanking the wheel to the left every two seconds. :-) >If I was driving as Schumacker then I'd think Damon was leaning out >and grabbing it, but I'm not. :-) >Cheers >Andy >======================================================================== > MMMM MMMM /^\ / Andy Jones \ > HHHH HHHH \_/ \ Milton Keynes U.K. / >========================================================================

I have the same kind of problem. With Indycar 2 I was not able to play at all. I have a classic ultrasound too. I don't know exactly what is the problem, I have also a new gamecard as somebody told me that the problem was in the gravis gameport. I also took off the gravis and run gameport program that detected a conflict ??!! So I checked to see if it was the gameport on the motherboard that was not disabled but it is disabled. SO I don't have an answer, I will do some other experiment in the next days hoping to find out ... Ciao (sorry for my poor english) -- - - -- --^||^--- \ / -- Marco Pizzo Milano Italy

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> [snip] > : The effect is also present when calibrating. If I hold the wheel still > : in the centre (or dont hold it atall!) the dot in the screen keeps > : flicking left about 1/2 inch (screen is a 17"). > : Is this experienced by anyone else? > : I have two sound cards each with a joystick port. One is an old Gravis > : Ultrasound. I cant get this to work with the joystick sensibly at all > : although the sound is fine. The second is a cheap Soundblaster 16 copy > : and its this I get the wobblies with. > : Maybe the warning in the T2 manuals about getting a game port card is > : true and not just sales blurb. Any thoughts?

Yes, I also had (have) this problem. When I try to use the GUs game port and for sound at the same time, I too get the 'phantom' cursor appearing. I found I can the GUS game port, without problems, when I use my SB clone for sound. I contacted Gravis about this, and they said that it might have something to do with the HMI drivers and DMA access. I tend to agree, as I have the same problem with ICR2 and GP2, which both use the HMI drivers. Curiously, though, I never had the problem before I upgraded to ICR2 1.02, so I'm thinking that the older HMI drivers might work. I doubt it's your pots gone bad, when mine went they did a slow drift all over the place. Thrustmaster sent me some replacements, and the drifting stopped, but the 'phantom' cursor remained. Good luck -- ---------------------------------- Jason A. Cooke http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~al524/

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>Hi all... >I have just got a T2 and have set it up so that it seems ok on the >face of it but I am noticing a very annoying problem. >At intervals of about 1-2 seconds the game seems to sense that the >wheel has been turned to the left and back again for a brief instant.

Just to let you know that the problem is solved. I was using the game port on my cheapo Sound blaster 16 compatable card and using my Gravis Ultrasound for sound. The sound on the Ultrasound is much better than the cheapo card but it was the cause of the wobblies. Telling GP2 to use the Sound16 for sound cured the problem. Thanks for the help and sugestions. Cheers Andy ======================================================================== MMMM MMMM /^\ / Andy Jones \ HHHH HHHH \_/ \ Milton Keynes U.K. / ========================================================================