First post, by Warthog
My computer stats are in my profile
The game is: iF-22 v3.3 (for Windows 95)
I got another oldie out of the closet, I know iF-22 probably won't be worth the effort to get it to run, but I'm so close.
I installed it and found the last patch for the game and applied it. The game overall runs fine. The first minor problem is the colours in the games main menus are messed up. I get light green text on a white background. I tried all screen resolutions and colors with no change. Hard to read, but tolerable.
The biggest problem is that the keyboard does not work properly. Any fucntions that I press a key once to turn something on or off work fine. But when I am flying and I need hold down a key to do something I get a strange problem. Say, I want to use the rudder, I hold the Z or X key, and instead of the rudder deflecting to the right or left, there is a delay, and then it just kind of vibrates. It doesn't respond right and is unuseable. However, I identified the source of the problem. The program is using Windows' keyboard key repeat delay and repate rate! I have never seen any thing like that before. I adjusted the rates and noticed a change, but it wasn't much better. I am using a joystick for the other flight controls, but I assume that I would not get much much response either if I used the arrow keys the fly the plane. And I did mess with the XP compatably modes, and that made things worse.
Well I thought I would work around the problem and go get a new 4 axis joystick (with a twist rudder axis.) It is a Interact Raider FX Advanced digital USB joystick with Force Feedback. Now my last experience with digital joystick was bad and thats why im still using a 2 button analog stick. I installed the joystick with all its software. Well the force feedback had no intention of working in the Joysticks own software, but I didn't care about that. The joystick worked fine another Windows 95 game I had on my computer. So then I tried to run iF22. With the joystick plugged in, the iF-22 would not even start up. I uninstalled the joysticks software, but still the game would not start up. As soon as I pull the USB cable out of my computer, the game starts up fine. So the game does not like the joystick. I tried to install the joystick as just a generic joystick, but Windows is looking for a new joystick on my game port. So that won't work. So the game does not like the joystick, but I need the joystick to play.
So I need to either get the keyboard to work right, get the joystick to work right, return the joystick and get a good old analog 4-axis stick (they don't make them like they used to), or fail.
I have several ideas on getting the Joystick to work, while I am dry on the keyboard.
Is there a way to connect the USB device to the computer by converting it to a standard Game port connector? People at both Radio Shack and Office Max told me that there is no such connector. I know there are connectors that do the reverse.
Or is there a software solution to make a device look like its not a USB but a standard game port device?
Or should I just find a old fashioned analog stick?