SideWinder Force Feedback Pro joystick is disabled in Flight Simulator 2002.

[Daniel Groisman]

Although the Control Panel/Game Controllers utility
detects and calibrates the Microsoft SideWinder Force
Feedback Pro joystick with status OK, and the Enable
Joystick feature is checked in the Setting main screen,
the joystick is disabled in all the flights.
I didn't find the problem answer in the web.
I reinstalled the joystick driver (Auto Detected by the
computer).
I reinstalled Flight Simulator 2002.
I reinstalled the sound drivers and DirectX.
Since it seems that Windows XP doesn't support this kind
of joystick, it worked great before I had to change the
motherboard.
Please help.

 

[Joshua Smith [MSFT]]

What kind of sound card do you have? Some of the lower cost cards and some
of the onboard ones have problems with their gameports that sound like what
you describe. A test you can try to see if you have a card that has this
problem is to open the Game Controllers control panel and check that it's
status is Ok. Then start playing some high bitrate sound or video files. If
the status starts to go Not Connected then that is probably the cause. Keep
in mind it may not necessarily happen using this experiment. It could be
that your sound file just isn't stressing the sound card as much as the
game. If you have a fast connection you could download the DirectX SDK and
try to see if the DirectInput samples included with it can acquire the
device.

Joshua Smith
DirectInput Test Lab
Microsoft

 

[Dani]

Thanks a lot Joshua.
I will try your suggestions, and will post you a new
message.
Dani.

 

[Dani]

Regarding your suggestions:
I played many audio/video clips at 128 kbps, and the
controller status stays OK.
I downloaded DirectX SDK 8.0, and opened some sound
tools/utilities. There is a lot of direct input samples
and I don't know exactly which of them should I run.

Some system info:
The Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Pro joystick is
not a USB device.
Audio Adapter: SiS 7012 Audio Device
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack: Service Pack 1
CPU Type: Intel Celeron 4A, 2200 MHz (5.5 x 400)
Motherboard Name: Epox EP-4SDA(+) (6 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DIMM,
Audio)
Motherboard Chipset: SiS 645
System Memory: 256 MB (PC2700 DDR SDRAM)
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X (64 MB)
3D Accelerator: nVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X

Thanks in advance for your kind response.
I really need the joystick functionality.
Dani.