that is caused by a joystick as far as I know. (or dosbox believes you have joystick attached)

Privateer requires joysticktype other than none (with "none" ingame music plays at half speed) and timed=false (otherwise your cursor will drift and you can't calibrate your joystick correctly). You don't need to have a real joystick plugged in though.

But I do have a Joystick. But only 1 Joystick. usb Saitek Cyborg 3D.

If I start from scratch, and install and run Privateer in Dosbox, it starts with Joystick calibration. Calibrate joystick 1 no problem, but then it wants to calibrate joystick 2, and I don't have a second joystick.

"Move Joystick 1 to upper left and press button"
"Move Joystick 1 to lower right and press button"
"Move Joystick 1 to center and press button"

Goes thru the first 3 steps just fine with J1, then it repeats them for J2 but won't recognize the same fire button, but it does accept the thumb button of J1 and moves to next step. But after step 3 it says:
"Joystick calibration is not correct. Please recalibrate."
then it's stuck in an endless loop of those same 4 steps.

To try to get around that problem, I went into the Privateer folder and just copied the file it created JOYA.DAT and name it JOYB.DAT.
That causes it to skip the joystick calibration, but then it doesn't seem to see a joystick and all I get is the moving cursor that will only react to the mouse.

You need to use joysticktype=2axis. If you use 4axis or auto, Privateer will see two joysticks - the additional axes (throttle and rudder) show up as an additional joystick.

Also, I suggest playing Privateer with the mouse. The joystick input is very bad in that game (it's not gradual - it works in steps so you can't finetune your aim at all).

edit: I'm not sure but maybe Privateer supports rudder and throttle. In that case, when it asks to calibrate the second joystick (with joysticktype=4axis or auto), you need to move the throttle and rudder all the way to their extreme, press a button, then move them to the other extreme.

What did you say?? Privateer's support for joystick is bad?? Playing Privateer with mouse??
I've played Privateer with joystick and this supoport is really good. I can't imagine, how can play Privateer without joystick...

What did you say?? Privateer's support for joystick is bad?? Playing Privateer with mouse??

It's not bad. It's terrible. It's impossible to aim carefully, because if your aim is a bit off and you try to compensate by slightly moving the joystick in one direction, the aim either doesn't change at all, or it steps out of the "deadzone" and then moves at one constant velocity. It's almost like playing with an arcade joystick that only has directions but not how much you push in that direction. The mouse input suffers from the same lack of granularity, but at least I can manipulate the mouse more carefully than the joystick in order to "modulate" between the steps of turning speed to get something inbetween. In fact, all the Wing Commander games seem to suffer from this (at least up to The Price of Freedom).

Try Tie Fighter for what joystick input should be like. Nice and precise.

joysticktype=2axis doesn't change anything. It still wants to calibrate 2 joysticks.

If I don't use any joystick, all I get is:

Fatal error.

Error Code: E001-FFFF
Program Halted by code.
JEMM unloaded.

and setting EMS/XMS to False doesn't change that.

I've attached the config with which I just installed and successfully ran Privateer (with only joystick 1 calibration). If this config works for you, feel free to compare it to your own and post the differences here to tell others what made it fail.

I inserted the Privateer CD (includes RF and speech expansions), ran dosbox with this config, d:, ran install, configured sound, finished install, ran priv.exe and voila.

If it still doesn't work

1) you might have no write permissions to your privateer install which might make the calibration fail when it can't write that joystick calibration file

2) you might have multiple game controllers which Dosbox detects and uses

3) your Privateer version might be corrupted

4) your Privateer version might be older than mine and has a bug in it

While I agree joystick control is shit, with a decent joystick and calibration, it works alright for me with aiming. The problem for me stems from them forcing some shitty shortcuts for two button joysticks and even disabling some useful ones like the roll. This occurs even when mapping joystick buttons to use keyboard keys instead of default buttons. Firing missiles and slowing down for no reason are good examples.

1. cycles=8000
2. recalibrate joystick
3. problem solved
😀

OndrejSc, its timed= not cycles= that is important

Changing timed= didn't help, since Privateer has timed=true hardcoded in its engine.

it is a dosbox's setting that cannot be set in game so your dosbox has to be broken if you cannot change it.

what is your dosbox version and where have you got it from?
what is your Operating System?
what are your PC specifications?
post content of "DOSBox Status Window" (in Windows: right click on its title bar -> edit)
enclose your dosbox's config file

There are two types of games:

Type A uses a CPU-speed dependent loop to poll the joystick. This type does not show drift when timed=false (regardless of fixed/auto/max cycles) or with timed=true and fixed cycles.
Of course ingame recalibration is needed when switching timed= or changing the fixed cycles value in the latter case. On a real computer this type of game would also show drift if you change the turbo button state after calibrating.

Type B uses a CPU-speed independent timer to poll/compute the joystick and will not drift with timed=true, regardless of fixed/auto/max cycles. This type would also not be thrown off by the turbo button on real hardware.

Privateer and earlier WC titles are type A. Armada and later are B.

With timed=false, it is impossible to pass joystick-calibration-screen in Privateer, regardless of cycles=auto or cycles=8000.

11. (timed=true) + (cycles=auto) = cursor drift
22. (timed=false) + (cycles=auto) = calibration fail
33. (timed=false) + (cycles=8000) = calibration fail
44. (timed=true) + (cycles=8000) = problem solved

I am using MS Windows XP Pro SP3 en-US operating system and Genius MaxFighter F16U USB joystick.

1DOSBox version 0.73
2Copyright 2002-2009 DOSBox Team, published under GNU GPL.
3---
4CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file dosbox.play.conf
5MIDI:Opened device:win32
6One joystick reported, initializing with 4axis
7Using joystick USB, 3-axis, 4-button joystick with 3 axes, 4 buttons and 0 hat(s)

Maybe there are different versions of the game - mine needs timed=false.
privater.exe crc32=91FA6816

the problem is this:
with timed=false

game allows calibrating my square joystick

game refuses to calibrate my both circle joysticks (actually gamepads)

if i do calibration with my square joystick not precisely (not placing the stick exactly in the corner game refuses to calibrate too)

so the game just detects not precise calibration,
btw how can you place a circle joystick in a corner? 😉 I guess there were no circle joysticks in the past (analog on gameport)? and usb (digital) doesn't need calibration so it allows circle joystics?

btw cycles=8000 or 20000 doesn't help me too.

but with timed=true i can calibrate circle joystick with a fixed number of cycles

-> h-a-l-9000
PRIV.EXE crc32=AF895636

-> robertmo
So with timed=true and cycles=8000 you can calibrate. Seems to be the solution.

I noticed i can calibrate circle joysticks with timed=false too
when i use windows' joystick's control panel for placing the stick precisely in the corner 😀