Ques.- Windows xp and Game controllers

[bg]

I have a microsoft sidewinder joystick and a force
feedback steering wheel. They worked fine on windows 98.
I recently bought a new comp. with windows xp. I put in
the sidewinder cd and I always get a window pop up
saying "Sidewinder game device software 3.x installs
drivers that are incompatible with this version of
windows. For more info, contact microsoft."
I have tried lots of links with no luck. Is there a
solution to sidewinder controllers and windows xp?

 

[Jimmy S.]

Hi Bg,

Yes, the solution is to use the XP drivers instead of the old software.

Here are instructions for both the USB and the Gameport models:

Version 3 software isn't XP compatible, we'll use XP's drivers instead.
While USB devices just plug and play, GamePort devices need work:

To install a GamePort controller, Plug it in, click Start / Control Panel /
Switch to Classic view if you haven't already / click Game Controllers
Click Add... / Select Microsoft Sidewinder Auto Detect / OK / OK.

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com


Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contact
MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

|
| I have a microsoft sidewinder joystick and a force
| feedback steering wheel. They worked fine on windows 98.
| I recently bought a new comp. with windows xp. I put in
| the sidewinder cd and I always get a window pop up
| saying "Sidewinder game device software 3.x installs
| drivers that are incompatible with this version of
| windows. For more info, contact microsoft."
| I have tried lots of links with no luck. Is there a
| solution to sidewinder controllers and windows xp?

 

[Guest]

I have followed your instructions and it works alongside my other devices
now, however can you please explain how I can use the features of the
sidewinder software that appear to be unavailible now ?? Ie the game profiles
and specific hardware setups re: the force feedback settings. The stock
settings are a little too firm for my liking and the only part I can find is
to caliberate the device not actualy set it up

Kind regards and thanks for helping this far.

Mark.

 

[Jimmy S.]

Hi Mark,

That's one of the drawbacks.. those profiles aren't available.
We have to rely on in game settings which are available for
the majority of recent games, but are lacking in older games.

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com


Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contact
MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

| I have followed your instructions and it works alongside my other devices
| now, however can you please explain how I can use the features of the
| sidewinder software that appear to be unavailible now ?? Ie the game profiles
| and specific hardware setups re: the force feedback settings. The stock
| settings are a little too firm for my liking and the only part I can find is
| to caliberate the device not actualy set it up
|
| Kind regards and thanks for helping this far.
|
| Mark.

 

[Guest]

That really sucks large eggs, an MS product that wont work 100% correctly in
an MS o/s

Jeepers that really does grip my sh**, specialy as I have yet to find
another FF joystick with the same level of feel and build quality to replace
it, I bought a second hand Logitech FF stick and its completely pants and
rubbish in comparisson with my 5 year old MSFF serial stick.......and you
cant even buy the FF2 in the UK now so im double knackered

I there no way we can plead with MS to make a compatabilty patch ?? is there
not any way at all

Thanks kindly for your advice so far - just a shame I cant find a conclusion
to this, surely there must be some values buried in the registry relating to
the FFB settings ??? im more than capable of some reg editing if required and
could even prolly make a reg template for other people to adjust to new
presets once we nailed the right figures ?

Cheers again.

Mark.

 

[Jimmy S.]

Hi Mark,

In order to make Windows XP more stable, they implemented
a Hardware Abstraction Layer which prevents those profile
API's from being functional. Sorry to bear the news.

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contact
MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

That really sucks large eggs, an MS product that wont work 100% correctly in
an MS o/s

Jeepers that really does grip my sh**, specialy as I have yet to find
another FF joystick with the same level of feel and build quality to replace
it, I bought a second hand Logitech FF stick and its completely pants and
rubbish in comparisson with my 5 year old MSFF serial stick.......and you
cant even buy the FF2 in the UK now so im double knackered

I there no way we can plead with MS to make a compatabilty patch ?? is there
not any way at all

Thanks kindly for your advice so far - just a shame I cant find a conclusion
to this, surely there must be some values buried in the registry relating to
the FFB settings ??? im more than capable of some reg editing if required and
could even prolly make a reg template for other people to adjust to new
presets once we nailed the right figures ?

Cheers again.

Mark.

Hi Mark,

That's one of the drawbacks.. those profiles aren't available.
We have to rely on in game settings which are available for
the majority of recent games, but are lacking in older games.

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com


Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contact
MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

| I have followed your instructions and it works alongside my other devices
| now, however can you please explain how I can use the features of the
| sidewinder software that appear to be unavailible now ?? Ie the game profiles
| and specific hardware setups re: the force feedback settings. The stock
| settings are a little too firm for my liking and the only part I can find is
| to caliberate the device not actualy set it up
|
| Kind regards and thanks for helping this far.
|
| Mark.

 

[Chris H.]

Additionally, the old *.vxd file format in which the old drivers were
written is not supported on Windows XP. Since USB controllers came into
being about three years before XP came out, the support went to USB devices.
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
Associate Expert
Expert Zone -

Hi Mark,

In order to make Windows XP more stable, they implemented
a Hardware Abstraction Layer which prevents those profile
API's from being functional. Sorry to bear the news.

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call /
Contact
MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any
rights.
_________________________________________________________

That really sucks large eggs, an MS product that wont work 100% correctly
in
an MS o/s

Jeepers that really does grip my sh**, specialy as I have yet to find
another FF joystick with the same level of feel and build quality to
replace
it, I bought a second hand Logitech FF stick and its completely pants and
rubbish in comparisson with my 5 year old MSFF serial stick.......and you
cant even buy the FF2 in the UK now so im double knackered

I there no way we can plead with MS to make a compatabilty patch ?? is
there
not any way at all

Thanks kindly for your advice so far - just a shame I cant find a
conclusion
to this, surely there must be some values buried in the registry relating
to
the FFB settings ??? im more than capable of some reg editing if required
and
could even prolly make a reg template for other people to adjust to new
presets once we nailed the right figures ?

Cheers again.

Mark.

Hi Mark,

That's one of the drawbacks.. those profiles aren't available.
We have to rely on in game settings which are available for
the majority of recent games, but are lacking in older games.

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com


Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call /
Contact
MS Support at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any
rights.
_________________________________________________________

message
| I have followed your instructions and it works alongside my other
devices
| now, however can you please explain how I can use the features of the
| sidewinder software that appear to be unavailible now ?? Ie the game
profiles
| and specific hardware setups re: the force feedback settings. The
stock
| settings are a little too firm for my liking and the only part I can
find is
| to caliberate the device not actualy set it up
|
| Kind regards and thanks for helping this far.
|
| Mark.

 

[Guest]

Ok I live without the profiles I guess

Anyways, there must be some hardware control values in the registry surely ?
otherwise how would the device know what to default to ?? Using the stick on
the default FFB strength is overpowering and ruins the experience for me as
it shakes my wrist to peices causing serious RSI type pains after only a
short time.

Cheers.

Mark.

 

[Chris H.]

If your games themselves support saving the settings in the Options, you can
use that, otherwise with the old software language not supported in Windows
XP there is no way to do it. Remember, those controllers haven't been
manufactured in the mainstream of controllers for several years.
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
Associate Expert
Expert Zone -

 

[Guest]

Is there a way I can read the data within the specific DLL for the sidewinder
stick, im guessing this file might hold the default values that I seek to
edit ?

Cheers

Mark.

 

[Jimmy S.]

Hi Mark,

A HEX editor like QEdit might do the trick.

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contact
MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

 

[Joshua Smith [MSFT]]

Hi Mark,

My name is Josh and I monitor these groups on a somewhat regular basis
looking for people that have joystick problems, from any manufacturer. I
worked as a tester here at Microsoft for about 5 years testing input
controllers form just about anyone that made them. I have read through this
thread and I get the feeling that your gameport force feedback device isn't
giving you forces. The reason the profiling software doesn't work with
Windows XP is because the Sidewinder team had actually stopped development
of game devices even before Windows XP was half done. Your device will have
to rely on in game abilities for keymapping. The forces however should be
fully functional without registry editing or hex editing. If yours does not
could you either send me (remove "online") or post here a dxdiag analysis of
your system. While doing that you should check your Device Manager to see if
there is more than one gameport listed. That is one of the most common
reasons for not getting force data back to the device. The force data simply
goes to the wrong gameport. If there is just disable the unused gameport and
you should be good to go.


DXDIAG:
1. Click Start -> Run
2. Type "dxdiag" without the quotes and press Ok.
3. In the DirectX Diagnostic tool click "Save All Information..."


Joshua Smith
DirectInput and OpenGL Test Labs
Microsoft
-----

Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Hi Mark,

A HEX editor like QEdit might do the trick.

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call /
Contact
MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any
rights.
_________________________________________________________

Is there a way I can read the data within the specific DLL for the
sidewinder
stick, im guessing this file might hold the default values that I seek to
edit ?

Cheers

Mark.

 

[Guest]

Hi there Josh,

Thanks very much for your kind offer to help out here.

My serial FFB stick works fine with no problems asside from the fact that I
cant tune the strengh of the FFB or return spring settings - the default the
driver sets are far too hard to use for extended periods.

So to summerise I have FFB using the generic Sidewinder device drive in game
controler , but no options to change the default strength etc........

Thanks again, hope you can still help out with this one.

Mark.

 

[Joshua Smith [MSFT]]

Unfortunatly this was one of the features that the .vxd software handled. I
am pretty sure the intensity was changed on-the-fly but I will ask one of
the developers here if there is any way to change this in the Registry. I
don't ever recall coming across a registry key for this though so it may
have been handled differently.

Joshua Smith
DirectInput and OpenGL Test Labs
Microsoft

 

[Guest]

Im thinking provisionaly it might be possible there is something that would
control those settings in the DLL file ? if there is no registry entry,
something must tell it how hard to be etc.

Thanks for your help aswel Jimmy, will give that a look aswel if we have no
joy on the current track

Mark.

 

[Jimmy S.]

You're welcome Mark.. hope it works out for you.

Cheers,
Jimmy.

| Im thinking provisionaly it might be possible there is something that would
| control those settings in the DLL file ? if there is no registry entry,
| something must tell it how hard to be etc.
|
| Thanks for your help aswel Jimmy, will give that a look aswel if we have no
| joy on the current track
|
| Mark.

 

[Joshua Smith [MSFT]]

So I finally was able to corner a developer and verified something you can
try. There is a value that Dinput writes in the registry that keeps track of
how hard the forces should be applied to a device. The range of values it
takes is from 0 to 10000. If the driver has told Dinput to set the force
level at the default (10000) then the registry key is deleted. This is why
the key doesn't exist on your system.


1. Open the Registry editor
2. Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaResources\Joystick\Dinput.dll\CurrentJoystickSettings
3. In the right pane of the editor right click and create a new "DWORD
value".
4. Make the name of the value Joystick##FFConfiguration, replacing the "##"
with the same number as seen in the Joystick#Configuration key. If you have
more than one joystick device this can be tricky, but in your case it is
almost sure to be 1. e.g. Joystick1FFConfiguration
5. Right Click the Joystick#FFConfiguration and choose Modify.
6. Set the value to something between 0 and 10000 Decimal. Depending on the
device values lower than about 2500 may not be felt at all. 10000 is the
default and represents 100% force strength. 5000 is probably a good point to
start. That would be 50% strength.
7. Try your game to see if the force level is better for you. If so close
the editor.

If you have any questions about this or need more help just let me know.

Joshua Smith
DirectInput and OpenGL Test Labs
Microsoft

 

[Guest]

Hi Mark

I have a MS Sidewinder Force Feedback Steering wheel (USB). When I first
used it in xp I was using the plug and play function. I also experience this
severer wrist exercise you speak of. And like you seek a solution.

Now I recently installed the old 4.0 software and it all seemed to be fine I
could change the settings, such as dead zones, sensitivity and force feedback
strength. When tested in the testing tab of the sidewinder software the
changes took notable affect. Great I can now play NFSU2 without fear of
breaking my wrists or flipping my desk topside.

Unfortunately not so . As soon as I start the game the wheel stiffens up
and its another step closer to rsi for me.

But this shows it can be done. Maybe the solution lies in the games Dll or
registry settings. Hope you get this and the info is helpful. Please post
any other ideas you may have and hopefully we can find the solution together.

Dan Hess