Gameport isn't plug'n'play, nothing will show up when you plug it in. You'll have to add the gamepad manyally through the control panel or run the driver's setup procedure.

Thanks for your reply! Thats what i thought as well ive plugged the gravis xterminator in to the soundblaster live card and installed the drivers for the gamepad tried both the gravis xperience 2.1 and 4.5 but the gamepad wont show up in control panel--> Game options, ive also tried adding it manually in the list put then it says that in the status field that its not connected, ive do its plugged in to my sound card. 😒 Exscuse my noobness when i got in to pc gaming the gameport was on its way out.. and my first real gaming pc i bought was based on an amd athlon xp and windows xp, usb all the way 😀

Are you able to test any other gameport controllers with this system? If so, do they work? If not, you may need to check the gameport in Device Manager to see if anything is going wrong with it.

I too own a Gravis Xterminator gamepad (gameport version). I want so much for this to be the ultimate gamepad, but it just falls short of perfection in so many infuriating ways. The D-Pad on it is just slightly too sensitive. The analog pad on it is sometimes not recognized, or is incorrectly recognized by certain games; Jane's WW2 Fighters and Red Baron 3D for example.

When it works, it is a thing of beauty. It seems like it was made for Crimson Skies. When it doesn't work, it's an exercise in frustration.

If you can get your system to work with it, I highly recommend that you grab a copy of JoyToKey and use it alongside the official Gravis Xperience v4.5 software. I've found that I'm able to get the gamepad working with JoyToKey when Gravis Xperience alone sometimes fails. For example, I could not get Xperience to work with Vangers. However, setting the Xterminator to its defaults in Xperience allowed me to remap the controls using JoyToKey and I was then able to use it in Vangers where it actually works quite nicely.

The final free version of JoyToKey for Win98SE was v3.79. You can get it here: jtk379en.zip

I've used my Gravis Xterminator on SBLive CT4380 and SB0220, Audigy 2 ZS SB0350, and AWE64 ISA cards under both Win98SE and WinXP.

Also, just in case you don't have the truly final version, Gravis Xperience v4.5 can be downloaded here.

Thank you for the links. Well unfortenly idont but i can pickup a saitek gamepad cheap to try, but its only the gamepad no drivers, maybe there is some sort of generic driver i can use? seems like a hard task to find original drivers for the saitek. Well as far as i can tell everthing looks okey in the device manager regearding the gameport and soundcard 😀

/Dan

For testing purposes, I would avoid other digital gameport devices. From what I remember, most of the Saitek gameport controllers were digital.

If you don't have one already, and if you like flight sims or space sims, then try to get a CH Products FlightStick Pro. You can find them cheap on eBay or at thrift stores.

If you're more into arcade or console games, then consider getting an original Gravis dogbone gamepad. Those are also cheap and plentiful.

Well you can also find Gravis Grip Multiport stuff pretty cheap if you are presistant.

Thanks a bunch for all the tips and for taking time to answer all my questions. Tried searching a bit on ebay on the stuff you mentioned, but unfortenly i only got a few options and the cheapest gravis bonedog i found would cost me about 30-40$ including shipping to Sweden. So iam gonna take a look at the local flee markets and try another sb live card in the bunch i have in the mean time
😀

/Dan

Turned out that the gameport on the sb live didnt work for some reason, put in another sb live and it worked only diffrence between the cards is that the first one had two notches in the pci connector on the card, maybe the Asus p5a dont like it, ideas? The card worked flawless except for the gameport.

/Dan

0Danne0 wrote:

Turned out that the gameport on the sb live didnt work for some reason, put in another sb live and it worked only diffrence between the cards is that the first one had two notches in the pci connector on the card, maybe the Asus p5a dont like it, ideas? The card worked flawless except for the gameport.

/Dan

I think this would signify an IRQ issue. Or it may be just that the hardware failed, no idea really.

well its a card from 1999, no telling

MrEWhite wrote:

0Danne0 wrote:

Turned out that the gameport on the sb live didnt work for some reason, put in another sb live and it worked only diffrence between the cards is that the first one had two notches in the pci connector on the card, maybe the Asus p5a dont like it, ideas? The card worked flawless except for the gameport.

/Dan

I think this would signify an IRQ issue. Or it may be just that the hardware failed, no idea really.

Bad drivers maybe? What model cards are you using?

KT7AGuy wrote:

MrEWhite wrote:

0Danne0 wrote:

Turned out that the gameport on the sb live didnt work for some reason, put in another sb live and it worked only diffrence between the cards is that the first one had two notches in the pci connector on the card, maybe the Asus p5a dont like it, ideas? The card worked flawless except for the gameport.

/Dan

I think this would signify an IRQ issue. Or it may be just that the hardware failed, no idea really.

Bad drivers maybe? What model cards are you using?

Well, I tried different drivers without success before I changed cards, and the last driver I installed worked straight away with the card I put in. The card where the gameport doesn't work is marked CT4870 and the card that works is marked CT4830. I guess that's the model number or revision. Both cards are Sound Blaster Live PCI. I thought both used the same IRQ when installed, but maybe that's not the case.

0Danne0 wrote:

Awsome forum by the way! (I would like to make a longer presentation of my self but cant find any sutible category on the board for that, advise?)

Either start one in Milliways: Milliways
"Announcements, advice, random banter, unrelated discussion, et cetera."

or find one of the ones started previously (good luck!)

From your posts, I get the impression that you might be hotplugging the joystick port. If that's the case, don't do that. A long time ago I burned out the joystick port on a Sound Blaster card by doing that. They aren't designed to be hot pluggable. You'll get away with it 98% of the time, but eventually bad luck can strike. It's a pain but the only safe way to swap 15pin joysticks is to power off first.