Game Card

Do I really need a dedicated game card for a driving wheel (I'll buy a GP1)? It's not a big deal to buy a $30 game card, but the trouble is I have only one available ISA slot, which I'll use for a HP scanner. If a game card were really needed, I would have to buy an additional PCI SCSI card for the scanner, and a PCI SCSI card is way expensive. Thanks in advance!

I use the game port on my sound card. Works fine for me. -- Stephen D.Jenkins

> Do I really need a dedicated game card for a driving wheel (I'll buy a > GP1)? It's not a big deal to buy a $30 game card, but the trouble is I > have only one available ISA slot, which I'll use for a HP scanner. If a > game card were really needed, I would have to buy an additional PCI > SCSI card for the scanner, and a PCI SCSI card is way expensive. Thanks > in advance! R: Let me put it this way I have a thustmaster game card and I don't use it. Becuase of the above. And if there is a difference it's so miniscule that most people would ever know. Now there are people who swear by them as they see a big dif., I race with some of these people all the time. I still don't agree and it's a waste of a slot. There biggest argument is the range of values. TM is like 0 to 300 which coincides closely with the actaul pot's range. While SC's like the sound blaster are like 200-1000 which is above the pot's range. My argument to them is that Papy realizes that most use the soundcard and they could easily divide the SC's range to get it into synch with the actual pots range to make thing more closely to the TM unit. The problem with the last paragraph though is nobody from Papy has ever confirmed or denied it. Is there and advantage? Is there programming to compensate the SC's? But the bottom line is my eyes and lap times I can't see a diff. worth mentioning. Q.B.M.

: Do I really need a dedicated game card for a driving wheel (I'll buy a : GP1)? It's not a big deal to buy a $30 game card, but the trouble is I : have only one available ISA slot, which I'll use for a HP scanner. If a : game card were really needed, I would have to buy an additional PCI : SCSI card for the scanner, and a PCI SCSI card is way expensive. Thanks : in advance! I lived for years without one. Unless you experience major problems, the only advantage is a "finer" degree of control from your input devices. When I finally installed a Thrustmaster ACM card, my wheel and pedals became more precise and less "twitchy". -- **************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

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>: Do I really need a dedicated game card for a driving wheel (I'll buy a >: GP1)? It's not a big deal to buy a $30 game card, but the trouble is I >: have only one available ISA slot, which I'll use for a HP scanner. If a >: game card were really needed, I would have to buy an additional PCI >: SCSI card for the scanner, and a PCI SCSI card is way expensive. Thanks >: in advance! >I lived for years without one. Unless you experience major problems, >the only advantage is a "finer" degree of control from your input >devices. When I finally installed a Thrustmaster ACM card, my wheel and >pedals became more precise and less "twitchy". >-- >**************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* > Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Unfortunately many who have tried using the Soundblaster's pnp joystick port are finding that the steering wheel (I have the T1) will not calibrate in win95. It's always offset to the right and down after calibration. Creative still doesn't use a self adjusting chipset on the joystick port and that's a shame. I went to the CH Gamecard 3. Originally I had the Trustmaster which worked for a while in Win95 and dos just fine. But one day I booted up and the joystick didn't work. The gamecard's ports were overwritten by the sound card and Win95 wouldn't let me use the resources even after I cleared the 'original configuration' box. So for a while I just ran all the games that needed the wheel in dos. They are action games and need the horsepower anyway. But when I got NFS2 and now I-76 I had to use the steering wheel in Win95 and that meant I needed a game card that would work. The ch card works perfectly. But do alter your installation in one way when installing. Don't delete your old joystick port from the device manager. Just clear the box marked 'original configuration.' Then follow the instructions in the booklet. If you delete the old joystick port on a pnp card it will be reinstalled when you reboot. Tom P.

Here's a somewhat related problem I'm having? Any suggestions? I have a SB 32PnP, thrustmaster ACM/T2. When my system boots, it hangs for almost a minute at the: "Award Plug And Play Bios v1.0a" And then continues to boot slowly through the: "Detecting PnP cards" Whereby it detects my SB 32 PnP with all these garbled characters. After this, my first Win95 logo screen comes up, and everything boots at normal speed thereafter. This has only happened since I bought my ACM card, however I need it or I can't calibrate my T2 correctly (full brake acts as full throttle). Thanks, Dave Walkley

> Do I really need a dedicated game card for a driving wheel (I'll buy a > GP1)? It's not a big deal to buy a $30 game card, but the trouble is I > have only one available ISA slot, which I'll use for a HP scanner. If a > game card were really needed, I would have to buy an additional PCI > SCSI card for the scanner, and a PCI SCSI card is way expensive. Thanks > in advance! I had to buy one to play I'76. Haven't really noticed any difference otherwise. BTW I always play my DOS games (like N2) under DOS, not in a Win95 DOS window. I found that Win95 made my steering 'twitch'. Haven't tried using the games in Win95 since I bought the ACM so don't know if the SB port was the problem there. Mark Reading, UK

ccorpora wrote in article ... >> Do I really need a dedicated game card for a driving wheel (I'll buy a >> GP1)? >Let me put it this way I have a thustmaster game card and I don't use it. >Becuase of the above. And if there is a difference it's so miniscule that most >people would ever know. >Now there are people who swear by them as they see a big dif., I race with >some of these people all the time. I still don't agree and it's a waste of a >slot. Ditto. The only difference I saw between a CH3 card and the SB game port was about $30. I can run just as well, or as bad, using the gameport on the SB16 as the CH3. The ONLY diference I saw was the ranges when setting the calibration. And as far as I can tell, this doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot, as long as it calirates ok. And as all of my ISA slots are filled with the " important " cards ( SCSII, SB16, Ethernet ) the CH3 is sitting on the shelf. If you only have the one slot available, save your money. If you should one day have an additional slot, and someone gives you a dedicated gamecard, go ahead and give it a try.