I have a Logitech Driving Force steering wheel which I use for elevator trim control in flight simulators (it's mounted sideways). I don't think I've ever used it with a driving game. However the pedals it comes with are very useful.

2fort5r wrote:

I have a Logitech Driving Force steering wheel which I use for elevator trim control in flight simulators (it's mounted sideways). I don't think I've ever used it with a driving game. However the pedals it comes with are very useful.

Nice...good idea....never thought of doing that. ..I have a momo logitech racing wheel and pedals..maybe ill have to try using the pedals for rudder control and the wheel for trim as you mentioned...what joystick are you using with your pedals and wheels then?

My setup is very basic. I use an old MS Sidewinder joystick and a Nostromo Speedpad as a throttle quadrant. (I tried a Saitek X45 a few years ago but didn't like it and soon switched back to my old setup.)

And the wheel is mounted sideways and upside-down. That way it takes up hardly any space above the table.

I tried the x45 as well a while ago and like you I didn't like it. Your setup sounds pretty nice...do you use the pedals you mentioned earlier? If so how do they work for you for flight sims like falcon 4?

The pedals are awesome, in fact I can't imagine how I ever got by without them. (The twist-stick thing just isn't the same.)

The only problem with this setup is that the nostromo has only one wheel, and I'd like multi-engine control. I could get a proper throttle quadrant, but then I'd lose the buttons, which are also useful.

retrofanatic wrote:

NamelessPlayer wrote:

-Suncom SFS Stick and Throttle ... As for the throttle, it's probably the best-feeling throttle I've ever used. Nice, long throw […]
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-Suncom SFS Stick and Throttle
...
As for the throttle, it's probably the best-feeling throttle I've ever used. Nice, long throw, handles that are solidly in place and without too much of a gap in between, gentle idle/AB detents, and a generally quite ergonomic switch layout. It still uses those crappy slide pots, though, and they made the dumb mistake of making the boat switch and china hat/weapon mode switch programming bank selects instead of actual keyboard emulation controls.

You also have to be careful with mapping keyboard commands to it, because while it will support modifiers, chorded inputs aren't held. For instance, if you need to hold, say, Ctrl-B to retract your speedbrakes, it'll almost immediately let go of Ctrl after you press the button, likely to keep from interfering with other keyboard emulation mappings on the other buttons and switches.

Due to analog gameport limitations, the left handle takes up the rudder axis. You can disable it with a hardware switch if you have proper rudder pedals, but that also detracts from one of the nicer features of the throttle itself. Suncom was probably too ahead of their time with it, considering that USB was just on the horizon and flight sims with proper multi-throttle support didn't quite exist yet.

One of these days, I'm gonna mod that throttle with a modern USB board and switches more true to the F-15E, like a real analog antenna elevation rotary on the left throttle, proper analog slew control with click-down (maybe just cheating with a gamepad analog stick) and a weapon mode switch that holds its position instead of springing back to center.

I've always wanted a suncom throttle! they look to be built very well and I have never seen one in person. I am always on the lookout on ebay for one, but they rarely come up for sale. Can you post a pic of it by any chance?

Great information BTW!!!! I will take everything you mentioned into consideration if I ever get one of those throttles. It would be a shame to modify such a rare controller, but I see how it can be a great project if everything ends up working out the way you want it.

Sorry I didn't get to you sooner, but I wanted to include something I didn't have until yesterday...

Yep, that's the Suncom throttle and SFS stick, though the throttle's gutted of its electronics because I was planning on a USB conversion. Also, the SFS stick's rubber boot is sitting on top of the stick base because it came off the spring and it's a pain to try and replace without tearing it up. I needed to open it up to re-solder a wire that disconnected from one of the pots anyway.

The thing I wanted to include, of course, is sitting right on top of the Suncom throttle: that's a real, surplus mil-spec F-15A/B right throttle grip right there that I recently scored on eBay. Those pushbuttons need to be replaced to be updated to F-15E-spec, but other than that, I think I'd rather reconstruct a new throttle around the real thing at this point.

I might still USB-convert the old Suncom throttle, but my original plans to give it a proper analog slew control with click-down and antenna elevation rotary may have been put on the backburner. That's really what held back the conversion project more than anything, since it wasn't really F-15E-spec due to gameport axis limitations.

That's quite the undertaking, but totally worth it if you can get it all working. That F-15A/B throttle grip is amazing! I didn't realize that the throttle buttons/switches actually came so close to emulating the shape and look of the real thing. Very cool. If you get a chance to do a USB conversion and/or work on building the throttle, post pics here of any progress.

retrofanatic wrote:

That's quite the undertaking, but totally worth it if you can get it all working. That F-15A/B throttle grip is amazing! I didn't realize that the throttle buttons/switches actually came so close to emulating the shape and look of the real thing. Very cool. If you get a chance to do a USB conversion and/or work on building the throttle, post pics here of any progress.

Well, I was planning on it...but I found and ordered something that would be much more fun to work on for a USB conversion. Should be here before the end of the week.

Yeah, I got lucky and found someone selling an entire A-10A throttle quadrant! Just needs a few switch changes to bring it in line with the F-15E and A-10C, and I'll have the last throttle I'll ever need.

Because of that, I just put the original electronics back in the Suncom SFS Throttle. Worked as well as it always did. Might just sell both the SFS Stick (which is best used in CH Flightstick Pro mode, just as a heads-up) and the throttle to someone who'll make use of 'em in one way or another.

I also found a USB conversion guide based around a custom PCB and controller; I wouldn't have used it and instead opted for Hempstick on a compatible board, but it's always good to have options.

http://theseger.com/projects/2014/09/converti … s-throttle-usb/

In other news, I found out why my Mad Catz Panther XL's rudder pedal axis wouldn't calibrate properly in Windows while working perfectly fine in DOS. Turns out it's a fault of using one of the Turtle Beach Montego II (Aureal Vortex2 AU8830) gameport modes, a bug that also cropped up when trying to calibrate the left half of the Suncom throttle, and the other mode results in blinking buttons.

The AWE64 Gold gameport, on the other hand, works just fine. This would lead to the Panther XL being my retro computer flight stick of choice if the Win2000/XP drivers someone whipped up actually detected the rudder port, thus not forcing me to rely on the trackball for rudder control. It's not as ideal as the Thrustmaster F-22 Pro + F-16 TQS combo for a number of reasons, but I don't feel like hunting down and paying for a set at the moment.

I just acquired this Sidewinder .
Does anyone know where to find a Win98 driver as I've run out of options on Google?

Splinter wrote:

I just acquired this Sidewinder . Does anyone know where to find a Win98 driver as I've run out of options on Google? http://i21 […]
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I just acquired this Sidewinder .
Does anyone know where to find a Win98 driver as I've run out of options on Google?

Go to http://www.driverguide.com/

and search for "sidewinder win98"

I got tons of results and downloaded 3 different driver packages including the version 3.0 and 4.0 win98 sidewinder controller drivers.

I am at work on my win 7 machine, so I would not be able to test them, but I assure you there are many to choose from on that website.

the ones I downloaded are

SideWinder_4.0_CD.zip
Setup.zip
and 2000SIDEWINDER.zip - the uploader for this file claims that this is the win2000 driver and works for win98. He said "Had someone ask me how to get the special drives for installation of a sidewinder on Win98, I found the Win2000 and they did the trick. Hope this helps anyone else looking! They are (the files included in this zip file), hidparse.sys hidclass.sys hidusb.sys"

Hope that helps

The only joystick I have that's worth thinking about is the Sidewinder 3D Pro. I have a Logitech Attack 3, which is one of the worst joysticks I've ever used, and a low grade DA-15 Gravis Blackhawk as an emergency backup for if the Sidewinder dies. I learned to play MechWarrior 2 on a SideWinder 3D Pro, so that's the joystick for me. C:

Speaking of the 3D Pro, I just remembered I had one lying around, so I tried it again and remembered what a complete pain it was to set it up in digital mode. Keep getting "Not Connected" errors in both 98SE and XP.

This, naturally, is what happens when I'm crazy enough to hook one up to a system with 200/800 MHz FSB. Those alternative, divider-adjusted drivers don't seem to be faring any better regardless of whether I use the 0 or 99 versions.

Also, I found out that using the THROTTLE app for hardware-based slowdown, which actually works a lot better than I thought it would and keeps me from having to really emasculate this Gallatin chip by disabling all the cache, completely kills the system's ability to recognize the Mad Catz Panther XL. It'll only see it properly at full speed.

This is all on the AWE64 Gold gameport, don't feel like finagling with the Montego II gameport again.

Gameport joystick stuff can be such a hassle, especially on a system that's generations ahead of what DOS games and peripherals were usually developed for. I gotta look into that USBDOS driver package so I can use my more modern USB sticks without all this fuss.

By the way, while I don't own one of those early two-button SideWinder sticks with the CH-esque gimbals, word is that they're basic two-axis, two-button analog sticks with potentiometers, nothing fancy like the 3D Pro, its optical camera/LED sensor system and analog emulation modes.

NamelessPlayer wrote:

This is all on the AWE64 Gold gameport, don't feel like finagling with the Montego II gameport again.

That's probably why the modified drivers don't work for you. All of the development and testing of the modified drivers was conducted with various versions of Sound Blaster Live! cards in systems of differing speed. There is one particular timing delay value that seemed to be present for latency purposes, but was not necessary at all for any of the Live! cards based on empirical tests, so I nulled it out. I always operated under the assumption that all of the timing was CPU/FSB related (remember I didn't have any access to original driver source code), but it's possible that that particular latency value is actually there for the sake of the sound card and therefore necessary for older/slower cards like the AWE64.

@Retrofanatic
Many thanks for the driver info 😀
The joystick I posted a pic of..is it the Sidewinder 3D Pro? Which according to what I've read, is gameport only.
I think mine might be borked as it's not being detected in any Win98 machine, with any driver.

Edit...not borked as it works in a different Win98 machine without additional drivers.
Maybe a gameport problem in another machine.

Splinter wrote:

@Retrofanatic Many thanks for the driver info :) The joystick I posted a pic of..is it the Sidewinder 3D Pro? Which according to […]
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@Retrofanatic
Many thanks for the driver info 😀
The joystick I posted a pic of..is it the Sidewinder 3D Pro? Which according to what I've read, is gameport only.
I think mine might be borked as it's not being detected in any Win98 machine, with any driver.

Edit...not borked as it works in a different Win98 machine without additional drivers.
Maybe a gameport problem in another machine.

No problem 😀
I'm glad it worked on another Win98 system at least...I suspect you could be right about a gameport problem in the other machine.

I once had to re-install my game port driver in my win98 machine to get a joystick working right.

Once I think I also had two game port drivers installed at the same time and that may have messed things up as well.

Well that was a blast...Incoming and Forsaken with a joystick as opposed to keyboard mouse 😀
A little compressed air on the joystick innards fixed the no-right turn issue.

A quick pic of my collection of joy-sticks 🤣

They are all in very good condition and I rarely use any of them 🙁

BTW I started wih Atari 800XL and real joysticks - the two on the left side on the floor are the ones I had back then and I really liked them - all microswitched and very durable. I still can't get used to the gamepads... I have PSP and Sony Play smart phone and I'm just horrible with them 😒

kixs wrote:

A quick pic of my collection of joy-sticks 🤣

They are all in very good condition and I rarely use any of them 🙁

BTW I started wih Atari 800XL and real joysticks - the two on the left side on the floor are the ones I had back then and I really liked them - all microswitched and very durable. I still can't get used to the gamepads... I have PSP and Sony Play smart phone and I'm just horrible with them 😒

Nice collection! I especially like the arcade sticks and the gravis gamepad is always a classic.

akula65 wrote:

NamelessPlayer wrote:

This is all on the AWE64 Gold gameport, don't feel like finagling with the Montego II gameport again.

That's probably why the modified drivers don't work for you. All of the development and testing of the modified drivers was conducted with various versions of Sound Blaster Live! cards in systems of differing speed. There is one particular timing delay value that seemed to be present for latency purposes, but was not necessary at all for any of the Live! cards based on empirical tests, so I nulled it out. I always operated under the assumption that all of the timing was CPU/FSB related (remember I didn't have any access to original driver source code), but it's possible that that particular latency value is actually there for the sake of the sound card and therefore necessary for older/slower cards like the AWE64.

Hmmm, in that case, I do happen to have a Live! Value card lying around in storage somewhere...

I just don't use it in that system because for late Win9x titles, A3D trumps EAX, and most games that support EAX 1/2 seem to work and sound just fine under XP with a real X-Fi card.

In other controller news, I've decided that I'm going to USB-mod that Suncom F-15 HOTAS, adding functionality that would've been on the real thing along the way (meaning the AACQ switch on the side needs to tilt forward and back, the trigger should be dual-stage, the SFS paddle switch should be replicated in some fashion and both hat switches need to be 5-way with click-down). Not exactly an easy feat with the planned physical modifications, but it'll be worth it.

Seems like the SimHQ crowd thinks it's far more valuable as a USB set for the modern age and would still gladly take one even with modern CH, TM and VKB gear out there on the market.

Saw a ton of Sidewinder gear at Goodwill today. It has to have all come in at the same time.

Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro, Sidewinder gamepad, and Sidewinder force feedback wheel w/ pedals. All in pretty terrible shape though (Goodwill). Does the Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro normally center the stick?