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Game Port Question

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MonMotha:
The PC game port is an absolute mess.  You should NEVER use it for ANTHING other than MIDI unless you absolutely have to.

The MS Sidewinder is also an oddball.  It has this weird digital mode for all the additional features as the standard PC gameport only supports 2 analog axes and 2 buttons per player (and you get 2 players).  This mode is decidedly non-standard, and it's not compatible with some USB to PC gameport adapters, so check that your adapter (if you want to use one) specifically supports the Sidewinder sticks.  They're otherwise decent controllers; they're just weird.  You should not have to ever calibrate a Sidewinder stick unless it's in analog compatibility mode, and even then I think they're always "spot on" as they apply their own calibration internally.

Some old PC sticks actually have calibration pots on them to center them in hardware.  This was because early PC games didn't have calibration support on their own.

If you actually have a real PC game port and a real game port Sidewinder stick, it should "just work" assuming your PC game port drivers don't suck.  Game ports on PCI sound cards will need a special driver provided by the sound card manufacturer.  The default "game port driver" only supports game ports on ISA (or, by extension, LPC) devices, which you almost certainly don't have unless it's built in to your motherboard.

D_Harris:
Ok. I'm completely lost.

First, It is not SideWinder sticks that I have. What I have is depicted in the first picture on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SideWinder

Also, it is not a USB to PC gameport adapter I need. I want to be able to plug the SideWinder, which has a game port connector, into a USB port. So I need a game port to USB adaptor.

I don't know what "analog compatibility mode" is all about, but from what I know this is supposed to be plug and play. Windows XP finds it and it works in Game Controllers > "Microsoft SideWinder game pad properties". I just can't get it to work when I fire up MAME.

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

MonMotha:
The Sidewinder gamepad is essentially a sidewinder stick without the stick as far as how it talks to the PC.  And when I said "USB to PC gameport adapter" I meant "an adapter device which allows one to plug a PC gameport compatible game controller into a USB host".  What I was saying was that, if you decide to use such an adapter, you should first verify that it will support a Sidewinder device properly as these Sidewinder devices, and all other PC gameport controllers with > 4 buttons or axes, pulled some crazy tricks by using the PC gameport in a decidedly non-standard way, and this won't work with some adapters.

If Windows sees the device and can fully use it but MAME can't, then I well say you've got an issue unrelated to the fact that it's a gameport or similar device.  Once Windows can talk to the device, MAME should have some option to do so via Windows.  If MAME has a "game port" input driver, you probably DON'T want to use it.  Does MAME have a DirectInput method or similar?  That should work with anything Windows can use properly.

D_Harris:

--- Quote from: MonMotha on February 20, 2011, 03:36:54 am ---The Sidewinder gamepad is essentially a sidewinder stick without the stick as far as how it talks to the PC.  And when I said "USB to PC gameport adapter" I meant "an adapter device which allows one to plug a PC gameport compatible game controller into a USB host".  What I was saying was that, if you decide to use such an adapter, you should first verify that it will support a Sidewinder device properly as these Sidewinder devices, and all other PC gameport controllers with > 4 buttons or axes, pulled some crazy tricks by using the PC gameport in a decidedly non-standard way, and this won't work with some adapters.


--- End quote ---
Ok, since I never mention stick it seemed as though we were not on the same page. I have a SideWinder game pad and obviously no one has tried a game port to USB adaptor or they've not documented it. So going by what you said I assume that these adaptors exist somewhere. And there is no way to know if any particular one would work until it is tried.

--- Quote ---
If Windows sees the device and can fully use it but MAME can't, then I well say you've got an issue unrelated to the fact that it's a gameport or similar device.  Once Windows can talk to the device, MAME should have some option to do so via Windows.  If MAME has a "game port" input driver, you probably DON'T want to use it.  Does MAME have a DirectInput method or similar?  That should work with anything Windows can use properly.

--- End quote ---

I don't know what "DirectInput" is, so I couldn't tell you. But my Hydrogen controller works with MAME. I just plug it into the USB port and I don't have to do anything else. If I plug in the SideWinder and fire up MAME the keyboard will still work, but no button on the SideWinder will do anything in the game. So I'm curious as to why you think that the problem is unrelated to the "gameport" device.

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Hoopz:
Have you, within Mame and with your gamepad attached to the PC, hit the TAB button, then selected either INPUT GENERAL or INPUT THIS GAME and set it to use your gamepad?  Just because windows sees it, doesn't mean Mame knows what you want to do with it.  You have to assign the gamepad buttons to inputs within Mame.

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