ACM game card

I'm looking to install an adjustable game card in a new pentium & have seen references to the ACM game card. Who manufactures this card? I've looked around the www for ACM with no luck. The CH website has the Gamecard 3 Automatic and Thrustmaster's site has been..er..down. Or is ACM another acronym...Automatic Card Manipulator?...:-) TIA --

>I'm looking to install an adjustable game card in a new pentium & >have seen references to the ACM game card. Who manufactures this card? >I've looked around the www for ACM with no luck. The CH website has >the Gamecard 3 Automatic and Thrustmaster's site has been..er..down. >Or is ACM another acronym...Automatic Card Manipulator?...:-) ACM is made by Thrustmaster, so search on Thrustmaster to check out their page and products. Having owned both, (currently the ACM) I recommend it for one good reason - great support from Buzz at Thrustmaster via the net. You can find him in the Flight Sim newsgroup anytime or directly from their site. Tom ___________________________________________________________ Tom Weber St. Louis, Missouri http://www.icon-stl.net/~tweber/ ____________________________________________________________

The ACM is a Thrustmaster product. I just got one and it works great, my gameport on my SB16 crapped out. Maybe the new gamecard3 automatic works fine but the one I had caused me to get 1/2 frame per second with EA Sports titles. I saw other post about this problem and never found a solution. Also the ACM will allow for two joystick, four-button support in WIN95. Price range for thew ACM is $25-45... I got mine at egghead for about $40.

Quoted text (10 lines)

> I'm looking to install an adjustable game card in a new pentium & > have seen references to the ACM game card. Who manufactures this card? > I've looked around the www for ACM with no luck. The CH website has > the Gamecard 3 Automatic and Thrustmaster's site has been..er..down. > Or is ACM another acronym...Automatic Card Manipulator?...:-) > TIA > --

I got the ACM card...its by THRUSTMASTER , has 2 full joystick ports (means you can use 2 FCS -Joysticks with all functions same time) It has a calibration pith externaly on a cable about 1,5m long... I HAD problems on my p100 with a T2 ...but now i got the acm , all problems are gone... i have paid about 60.-german marks for it..

>> Or is ACM another acronym...Automatic Card Manipulator?...:-) >I got the ACM card...its by THRUSTMASTER [...] And.. >The ACM is a Thrustmaster product [...] Excellent. Thanx for the input. I'm having an ACM installed in a new system and I'm counting on you guys to answer the *rest* of my clueless Win95/Game/Config posts...:-) --

Quoted text (8 lines)

>I'm looking to install an adjustable game card in a new pentium & >have seen references to the ACM game card. Who manufactures this card? >I've looked around the www for ACM with no luck. The CH website has >the Gamecard 3 Automatic and Thrustmaster's site has been..er..down. >Or is ACM another acronym...Automatic Card Manipulator?...:-) >TIA

The ACM is by thrustmaster. Actually I own BOTH the ACM and the CH Gamecard3. I bought the CH Gamecard3 first and I used it for about a year. During this time I found that it has problems working with at least 2 simulations that I used it with. Apache had a terrible jumpy joystick bug with the CH Gamecard3 this is a known problem and eventually there was a patch for it, and most importantly, Need for Speed has a big problem with the CH Gamecard3, same symptoms that Apache had, very jumpy uncontrollable movements. Since I have invested in a T2 and a CH FSPro, I thought it stupid to have such poor controls because of the CH gamecard. I went out and bought the Thrustmaster ACM and have not regretted it since. It is much better and has a MANUAL speed adjustment that has come in handy a few times, plus it has not had any problems with any games that I have tried, it especially works well with Need for Speed. I do not mean to say that CH makes crappy stuff, only that the Gamecard3 leaves a lot to be desired. I also own a CH Flighstick Pro that has worked wonderfully for the last 3 years. If you still want to buy a CH Gamecard3 let me know, I happen to have mine sitting around that I might sell or trade. If I were you though I would go with the ACM. Cheers. --John -- ------------------- John (Joao) Silva Seattle, Washington USA.

Quoted text (42 lines)

> >I'm looking to install an adjustable game card in a new pentium & > >have seen references to the ACM game card. Who manufactures this card? > >I've looked around the www for ACM with no luck. The CH website has > >the Gamecard 3 Automatic and Thrustmaster's site has been..er..down. > >Or is ACM another acronym...Automatic Card Manipulator?...:-) > >TIA > The ACM is by thrustmaster. > Actually I own BOTH the ACM and the CH Gamecard3. > I bought the CH Gamecard3 first and I used it for about a year. During this > time I found that it has problems working with at least 2 simulations that > I used it with. Apache had a terrible jumpy joystick bug with the CH Gamecard3 > this is a known problem and eventually there was a patch for it, and most > importantly, Need for Speed has a big problem with the CH Gamecard3, same > symptoms that Apache had, very jumpy uncontrollable movements. > Since I have invested in a T2 and a CH FSPro, I thought it stupid to have > such poor controls because of the CH gamecard. I went out and bought > the Thrustmaster ACM and have not regretted it since. It is much better > and has a MANUAL speed adjustment that has come in handy a few times, plus > it has not had any problems with any games that I have tried, it especially > works well with Need for Speed. > I do not mean to say that CH makes crappy stuff, only that the Gamecard3 > leaves a lot to be desired. I also own a CH Flighstick Pro that has worked > wonderfully for the last 3 years. > If you still want to buy a CH Gamecard3 let me know, I happen to have mine > sitting around that I might sell or trade. If I were you though I would go > with the ACM. > Cheers. > --John > -- > ------------------- > John (Joao) Silva > Seattle, Washington USA.

Why do you need a gamecard? I use the TSW steering wheel and a CH js with the port on my SB32AWE and I have a P133, I've used this with every game that I own and have never seen the need to waste money on a gamecard. I also have used an 8 bit SB, SB16 and never had a problem. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas Enterprises Makers of the TSW the best racing controller. http://www.ia.net/~thomas Lifetime warranty. Solid steel construction. -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, I used to have terrible calibration problems with ICR2 and Nascar when I used my SB16 game port, I think it was caused by heat related drift. Also in Windows95 the SB16 port didn't allow a great enough range of value to calibrate very well, with the ACM's adjustable speed, I can control how big the range of values is. I am by no means saying EVERYONE needs a gamecard, but there are some of us with certain hardware combinations for which a good gamecard is necessary, and after spending hundreds of dollars on controllers, it is worth spending an extra $30 in order to have precise and dependable controller behaviour, at least in my case I needed one, and am very glad I spent the extra $$. Cheers. --John -- ------------------- John (Joao) Silva Seattle, Washington USA.

Quoted text (22 lines)

> Why do you need a gamecard? I use the TSW > steering wheel and a CH js > with the port on my SB32AWE and I have a > P133, I've used this with > every game that I own and have never seen > the need to waste money on a > gamecard. > I also have used an 8 bit SB, SB16 and > never had a problem. > ------------------------------------------ - > ------------------------------ > Thomas Enterprises Makers of the > TSW the best racing > controller. > http://www.ia.net/~thomas Lifetime > warranty. Solid steel construction. > value for the dollar. > ------------------------------------------ - > ------------------------------

Try using an FCS/WCSII/RCS on an SB16 with a wave table daughter card installed!! How about "ZERO" drift. I have one now for about 2 1/2 years never drifted so I put the adjuster in my computer case...no need to ever change it! Adjustable sensitivity. Allows the WCSII to be plugged into the "B" port and the FCS in the "A" port if you want to, and still be able to program the WCSII. -- 10/01/96 19:00 --------- Using: OUI TE 1.5 from http://www.dvorak.com

Quality sound cards may not produce joystick drift, but they are not speed adjustable. With a T1 plugged into a sound card port in ICR2, the joystick calibration gives numbers up to 1200 or something. Using the game card, the range is compressed to around 6-200. This makes the steering control a lot less jumpy around the center position. You should test this difference yourself before deciding that game cards are a waste of money. -- **************************************************************** * NSF Engineering Research Center phone: (601) 325-7758 * * Mississippi State University office: 105B * ****************************************************************

Quoted text (24 lines)

> > > Why do you need a gamecard? I use the TSW > > > steering wheel and a CH js > > > with the port on my SB32AWE and I have a > > > P133, I've used this with > > > every game that I own and have never seen > > > the need to waste money on a > > > gamecard. > > > I also have used an 8 bit SB, SB16 and > > > never had a problem. > Quality sound cards may not produce joystick drift, but they are not speed > adjustable. With a T1 plugged into a sound card port in ICR2, the joystick > calibration gives numbers up to 1200 or something. Using the game card, > the range is compressed to around 6-200. This makes the steering control a > lot less jumpy around the center position. You should test this difference > yourself before deciding that game cards are a waste of money. > -- > **************************************************************** > * NSF Engineering Research Center phone: (601) 325-7758 * > * Mississippi State University office: 105B * > ****************************************************************

To me for my controllers a gamecard would be a total waste of money, the TSW doesnt need a card and neither does my CH stick, perhaps other contr------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas Enterprises Makers of the TSW the best racing controller. http://www.ia.net/~thomas Lifetime warranty. Solid steel construction. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ollers are not as precise?

I've got lots of experience in this area. If you have one of the quality sound boards, or if you have the right internal layout of your system, you don't need the ACM. For example, I have a Micron PPro 200 with a Creative Labs AWE32, and while the thermal drift is detectable, it's not significant. (On ICR2 the calibration changes about 5 points at each end of the scale from cold to as hot as I can drive the system.) However, I also have a Gateway 486DX2-66 with a generic sound board in it (obviously this is the predecessor system...). In that system, the sound board is mounted directly above the 486 cpu, drawn crudely here in ASCII: ---- --- --- components --------------- sound board | | | | --------- ^ | 486 | | up -----------------------motherboard planar On this system, the thermal drift is horrendous. After about an hour of running, it's enough to cause the boost on ICR to drop from 45" to just 39" at full throttle! In practical effect, it takes an ICR1 lap at Laguna from 63.8 seconds to 67.5 seconds, the difference between pole and last on the grid... When I replaced the sound board game port with an ACM in the 486, the thermal drift disappeared to *zero*. From what I can tell, if your motherboard is vertically mounted (as it would be in a tower or minitower configuration), you won't ever have a problem with this, since airflow would tend not to gather under the sound board components. However, desktop cases (such as my 486) tend to gather a lot of heat under the expansion board components if they are mounted horizontally, and this can cause significant drift. I am not sure what the situation is if the motherboard is horizontal and the expansion boards are vertical. Probably it would only be an issue if the board is sitting right over the cpu, or if you have a particularly hot cpu. (such as an overclocked one!) -- Brian Wong Enterprise Engineering