Another thing I also noticed is that when Windows XP detects the game port, a high pitched sound comes out from the back of the PC, presumably the sound card. So it seems like it's trying to use it, but Windows just gets confused.

Turns out, that it makes 2 game port drivers for Windows XP. One of them is the child and it's from CMI. I tried both and none of them fixed the issue.

itzCrassio wrote on 2024-11-05, 16:47:

I have an old PC which I inserted a sound card into. That sound card has a game port, and was happy when it was working with the […]
Show full quote

I have an old PC which I inserted a sound card into. That sound card has a game port, and was happy when it was working with the sound card's driver in MS-DOS.
However, it seems like that anything other than DOS just dosen't want to detect my joystick.

Joystick: Gravis Blackhawk (analog)

Specs:

• AMD Athlon 64 3000+
• Soltek SL-K8AV2-RL
• CMI8738 sound card
• NVIDIA GeForce2 MX400

I tried the following options:
1. Installing the sound card's drivers. Still dosen't work. Windows XP still dosen't recognize a joystick. Recognizes a game port driver though.
2. Reinstalling Windows XP. Shows game port, but apparently the ID of it is from an internal VIA chip, the motherboard dosen't have a game port.
3. Tried adding joystick manually. There was no analog version of the Gravis Blackhawk joystick there.
4. Installing Gravis Xperience. Said that there were no joysticks connected.

I'm all out of options.

i was gonna say its probably a driver issue, there are many different drivers for these cards, the one i was previously using i had about six different drivers that installed different things, one installed windows/gameport, another installed windows/dos, another installed windows/dos/gameport, another installed the same but also the audio rack in control panel, a couple of the other drivers just didnt work

last time i tried installing the card i forgot which drivers worked got fed up with it, and switched to a sound blaster live, funnily enough i've just picked up another cmedia 8738 card and im about to have another go with it, mine came with a driver cd but ill be using the latest drivers from cmedia i found online, this is the latest one so try this if you haven't already. "C-Media CMI8738-MX PCI Audio Driver 8.17.34 for XP" i no longer have a gameport controller so cant help in that regard. if the gameport is actually showing up in control panel you may need an xp driver for your controller.

forgot to say that driver should cover the LX not sure about the SX.

DudeFace wrote on 2024-11-05, 18:52:

i was gonna say its probably a driver issue, there are many different drivers for these cards, the one i was previously using i […]
Show full quote

itzCrassio wrote on 2024-11-05, 16:47:

I have an old PC which I inserted a sound card into. That sound card has a game port, and was happy when it was working with the […]
Show full quote

I have an old PC which I inserted a sound card into. That sound card has a game port, and was happy when it was working with the sound card's driver in MS-DOS.
However, it seems like that anything other than DOS just dosen't want to detect my joystick.

Joystick: Gravis Blackhawk (analog)

Specs:

• AMD Athlon 64 3000+
• Soltek SL-K8AV2-RL
• CMI8738 sound card
• NVIDIA GeForce2 MX400

I tried the following options:
1. Installing the sound card's drivers. Still dosen't work. Windows XP still dosen't recognize a joystick. Recognizes a game port driver though.
2. Reinstalling Windows XP. Shows game port, but apparently the ID of it is from an internal VIA chip, the motherboard dosen't have a game port.
3. Tried adding joystick manually. There was no analog version of the Gravis Blackhawk joystick there.
4. Installing Gravis Xperience. Said that there were no joysticks connected.

I'm all out of options.

i was gonna say its probably a driver issue, there are many different drivers for these cards, the one i was previously using i had about six different drivers that installed different things, one installed windows/gameport, another installed windows/dos, another installed windows/dos/gameport, another installed the same but also the audio rack in control panel, a couple of the other drivers just didnt work

last time i tried installing the card i forgot which drivers worked got fed up with it, and switched to a sound blaster live, funnily enough i've just picked up another cmedia 8738 card and im about to have another go with it, mine came with a driver cd but ill be using the latest drivers from cmedia i found online, this is the latest one so try this if you haven't already. "C-Media CMI8738-MX PCI Audio Driver 8.17.34 for XP" i no longer have a gameport controller so cant help in that regard. if the gameport is actually showing up in control panel you may need an xp driver for your controller.

forgot to say that driver should cover the LX not sure about the SX.

Unfortunately the driver didn't get it working.

itzCrassio wrote on 2024-11-05, 16:47:

3. Tried adding joystick manually. There was no analog version of the Gravis Blackhawk joystick there.
4. Installing Gravis Xperience. Said that there were no joysticks connected.

I'm all out of options.

Does XP see the gameport and is it using resource 201 ?
There is no "Gravis Blackhawk analog" listed under Win9x or XP but you can set it up per the Gravis FAQ archive:

"Once your game port driver has been added, a joystick icon appears in your Control Panel.
Use this to set up your Gravis controller:

Double-click the joystick icon in the Control Panel.
In the Joystick Configuration section, choose [Custom], then select 3-axis, 4-button Joystick.
After, selecting your Joystick configuration, Click the "Calibration" button and carefully
follow the onscreen instructions."

Added: Because the Joystick is not Digital there will be no Plug-n-Play auto detection of it.

Horun wrote on 2024-11-05, 22:25:

Does XP see the gameport and is it using resource 201 ? There is no "Gravis Blackhawk analog" listed under Win9x or XP but you c […]
Show full quote

itzCrassio wrote on 2024-11-05, 16:47:

3. Tried adding joystick manually. There was no analog version of the Gravis Blackhawk joystick there.
4. Installing Gravis Xperience. Said that there were no joysticks connected.

I'm all out of options.

Does XP see the gameport and is it using resource 201 ?
There is no "Gravis Blackhawk analog" listed under Win9x or XP but you can set it up per the Gravis FAQ archive:

"Once your game port driver has been added, a joystick icon appears in your Control Panel.
Use this to set up your Gravis controller:

Double-click the joystick icon in the Control Panel.
In the Joystick Configuration section, choose [Custom], then select 3-axis, 4-button Joystick.
After, selecting your Joystick configuration, Click the "Calibration" button and carefully
follow the onscreen instructions."

Added: Because the Joystick is not Digital there will be no Plug-n-Play auto detection of it.

It does see a game port and it does use IRQ range 201-201. I'll try it.

Horun wrote on 2024-11-05, 22:25:

Does XP see the gameport and is it using resource 201 ? There is no "Gravis Blackhawk analog" listed under Win9x or XP but you c […]
Show full quote

itzCrassio wrote on 2024-11-05, 16:47:

3. Tried adding joystick manually. There was no analog version of the Gravis Blackhawk joystick there.
4. Installing Gravis Xperience. Said that there were no joysticks connected.

I'm all out of options.

Does XP see the gameport and is it using resource 201 ?
There is no "Gravis Blackhawk analog" listed under Win9x or XP but you can set it up per the Gravis FAQ archive:

"Once your game port driver has been added, a joystick icon appears in your Control Panel.
Use this to set up your Gravis controller:

Double-click the joystick icon in the Control Panel.
In the Joystick Configuration section, choose [Custom], then select 3-axis, 4-button Joystick.
After, selecting your Joystick configuration, Click the "Calibration" button and carefully
follow the onscreen instructions."

Added: Because the Joystick is not Digital there will be no Plug-n-Play auto detection of it.

So it seems like the joystick shows up as Not Connected and the Properties button is grayed out, so I can't even calibrate it.

Are you sure that the mainboard has no game port? There may be a pin header for attaching a db15 connector to it. The via driver you had mentioned sounds like that. You may need to remove the sound card (or disable its game port) to avoid conflicts.

Those pc game ports are terrible thing anyways, they are measuring capacitor charge up times, on a pc/ct that may work withing a few hundred clock cycles, on a newer pc it can take millions of clock cycles where the cpu isn't doing anything useful other than waiting for that capacitors to be charged up.

Ps IRQ refers to interrupts. That's unrelated to the game port I/O port address. I am not aware of game ports that use IRQs (unless you mean USB controllers).

nocash wrote on 2024-11-06, 21:46:

Are you sure that the mainboard has no game port? There may be a pin header for attaching a db15 connector to it. The via driver you had mentioned sounds like that. You may need to remove the sound card (or disable its game port) to avoid conflicts.

wow I forgot to look but figure if so it was disabled. I see the motherboard manual shows one and some pics also show it with a gameport.
I assumed it had been disabled in bios but maybe that does not fully shut it down from XP seeing it ??
The bios options in the manual (page 72) are: disabled, Port 201 or Port 209.

Horun wrote on 2024-11-06, 22:57:

wow I forgot to look but figure if so it was disabled. I see the motherboard manual shows one and some pics also show it with a […]
Show full quote

nocash wrote on 2024-11-06, 21:46:

Are you sure that the mainboard has no game port? There may be a pin header for attaching a db15 connector to it. The via driver you had mentioned sounds like that. You may need to remove the sound card (or disable its game port) to avoid conflicts.

wow I forgot to look but figure if so it was disabled. I see the motherboard manual shows one and some pics also show it with a gameport.
I assumed it had been disabled in bios but maybe that does not fully shut it down from XP seeing it ??
The bios options in the manual (page 72) are: disabled, Port 201 or Port 209.

There are two versions of this motherboard. The one with the game port is the Soltek SL-K8AV2-R. That one dosen't have a LAN boot chip. However, I have the Soltek SL-K8AV2-RL, which does have a LAN chip, but at the cost of the game port's position being replaced with USB ports and audio jacks.

It seems I misspoke. The Soltek SL-K8AV2-RL also has a gameport, but later found out that I probably have the SL-K8AV2-R1L.

Ok did you check the BIOS to see if you can Disable the missing Onboard ?

Horun wrote on 2024-11-08, 03:32:

Ok did you check the BIOS to see if you can Disable the missing Onboard ?

I checked everywhere and there were no options for disabling gameport.

So it works in DOS based Windows versions, but the joystick drifts badly, even when calibrating it, even though the joystick is completely still.