Dualshock 4 and Windows 98SE? It works! Other controllers tested as well. \ VOGONS

Dualshock 4 and Windows 98SE? It works! Other controllers tested as well.

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First post, by Hellistor

Posted on 2016-12-23, 21:35

Hellistor Offline

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Hello guys,

I was fiddling around with my Dual Pentium III rig playing some Need for Speed III Hot Pursuit when I got the urge to get a gamepad running for more precise steering.
As I was looking at my controller collection I thought: "I use a Logitech G402 on this PC, would my DS4 also work?" 😕

I plugged it into my USB 2.0 card and the add hardware wizard opened, I put the Win98SE disc in the drive and it automatically installed a Human Interface Device driver.
The controller LED started glowing orange, and I checked the game controllers menu.

It showed up as ok! I switched to the test tab in the properties menu. It shows all functions as working, even the analogue triggers! 😲

I tried the controller in NFS IISE, NFS III HP and NFS 4 RC as well as Star Wars Episode 1 Racer. It works great. 😀
The triggers register as buttons instead of analogue triggers but I believe that's probably due to a limit on the supported axes in the games.

I also tried the controller on the motherboard's built in USB 1.1 connectors. Those work as well.

To prove that I'm not making this up here's a short video I took with my crappy phone camera:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtVuIjQ4gMs

I'm quite stunned but I also understand why it works. The Dualshock 4 is a DirectInput controller as opposed to the newer (and actually less capable) XInput used by Microsoft's 360 and One controllers.
Since DirectInput has been a part of DirectX for a long time it makes sense that it would still work with a newer DirectInput device.

Conversly the Xbox 360 controller I have DOES NOT work, at least not out of the box. There actually is a fan made driver for the 360 controller for use in Windows 98SE/ME.
I haven't tried it so I cannot testify to it's functionality.

I have also tried a Logitech F510 Gamepad. It is switchable between XInput and DirectInput. If you set it to the latter it installs same as the DS4 and works great.
The analogue triggers on this one don't work though. Even in the test tab they show up as digital buttons.

The Dualshock 3 Controller does get recognized and shows up in the game controller menu. However, it does not seem to actually transmit any input or at least the machine cannot interpret it.
The test page shows all buttons but none of them work.

I hope you find this as useful and amusing as I did!

Dual 1GHz Pentium III machine
700MHz Pentium III machine
550MHz PIII IBM 300PL
Socket 7 machine, CPU yet undecided
100MHz AMD 486DX4 machine

Reply 1 of 14, by Trank

Posted on 2016-12-23, 21:38

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Thats really cool. Glad to hear a DS4 works.

I use the fan made drivers for the X360 controller and it works great. You can change any of the input settings and all. Amazing drivers.

Reply 2 of 14, by RJDog

Posted on 2016-12-23, 23:23

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Neat! I wonder if it will work with a DualShock3...?

Reply 3 of 14, by F2bnp

Posted on 2016-12-23, 23:24

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Now I wish my XBOX One controller worked with Windows 98 or even XP at the very least 🙁.

Reply 4 of 14, by yawetaG

Posted on 2016-12-24, 00:22

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It's also possible to get cheap USB adapters for controllers of older consoles such as the Sega Saturn, Nintendo N64, and Sony Playstation 1. The controllers can then be set up like any game pad. It works flawlessly in Windows XP.

Reply 5 of 14, by Hellistor

Posted on 2016-12-24, 01:01

Hellistor Offline

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RJDog wrote:
Neat! I wonder if it will work with a DualShock3...?

I tried both a PS3 Sixaxis controller and a Dualshock 3. They do not work. See my original post for some details. There might be a way to get them to function but there's no "out of the box" compatibility like the DS4 apparently has.

F2bnp wrote:
Now I wish my XBOX One controller worked with Windows 98 or even XP at the very least 🙁.

While I personally prefer the Dualshock 4 over the Xbox One controller I always welcome more choice.
If a friend comes over and wants to use his favourite controller then by all means he should be able to dammit! 🤣
Someone needs to make a driver for that thing!

yawetaG wrote:
It's also possible to get cheap USB adapters for controllers of older consoles such as the Sega Saturn, Nintendo N64, and Sony Playstation 1. The controllers can then be set up like any game pad. It works flawlessly in Windows XP.

As a child I got a cheap steering wheel for my Playstation 2 and PC. It used the PS2 controller plug as default and came with an adapter to use on PC via USB. The thing was, it also worked for normal PS1 and PS2 controllers. I think I still have it somewhere, I need to dig that thing out.

Dual 1GHz Pentium III machine
700MHz Pentium III machine
550MHz PIII IBM 300PL
Socket 7 machine, CPU yet undecided
100MHz AMD 486DX4 machine

Reply 6 of 14, by RJDog

Posted on 2016-12-24, 02:32

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Hellistor wrote:
I tried both a PS3 Sixaxis controller and a Dualshock 3. They do not work. See my original post for some details.

Ah, sorry, guess I missed where you said that. I see it now.

That's too bad... Not sure if this is a good enough reason to convince my wife I need to buy a PS4...

Reply 7 of 14, by Trank

Posted on 2016-12-24, 04:01

Trank Offline

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Just buy a DS4 controller.

Reply 8 of 14, by Doppler

Posted on 2016-12-24, 12:59

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Trank wrote:
Thats really cool. Glad to hear a DS4 works.

I use the fan made drivers for the X360 controller and it works great. You can change any of the input settings and all. Amazing drivers.

Can You give any links please?

Reply 9 of 14, by Trank

Posted on 2016-12-24, 14:59

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http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/119841-xbox36 … iver-for-win98/

I think i got it from here. Not sure if the links are working though. So i just uploaded it here.

Reply 10 of 14, by tauro

Posted on 2016-12-26, 21:16

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This is very good news. I can confirm it works here.

Did anybody try to get it working over bluetooth?

Reply 11 of 14, by Doppler

Posted on 2016-12-27, 17:48

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Anyone knows wireless pads which work with W98?

Speedlink Xeox maybe?

Reply 12 of 14, by SortingHat

Posted on 2021-08-01, 05:45

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Whoops the driver links no longer work! Someone miscalculated somewhere on the grid: http://www.zshare.net/download/143540581df9be2a/

Reply 13 of 14, by iraito

Posted on 2021-10-22, 16:15

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So i tried connecting the controller to a pentium 3 933 system but the controller calibration software inside winME seems to be overwhelmed, like the button presses seems stuck or frozen even though the software works perfectly, is there anything i have to do to make the controller behave correctly ?

If you wanna check a blue ball playing retro PC games
MIDI Devices: RA-50 (modded to MT-32) SC-55

Reply 14 of 14, by crusher

Posted on 2024-03-27, 08:05

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Wow, very good find!
Thanks for the info with DirectInput vs. XInput.

I think I will give both controllers (DS4 and X360) a try on my Windows 98 + XP machine.
Can someone recommend good wired DS4 and X360 controllers with link?
Unfortunalety market is flooded with crappy third party asia models of all kinds.

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