A couple of things to consider:
Is the gameport enabled?
Do you have another gameport in your PC that might be conflicting with the one on the AWE64?

What are you trying to plug into the gameport? Do the devices you are testing work on other cards?

I agree that it might be worth taking out your audio PCI and seeing if that makes the gameport work, just for troubleshooting purposes.

I've tried all of my old joysticks, Gravis Blackhawk, Logitech Wingman, MS Gamepad, MS Freestyle, MS Wheel, MS Sidewinder, 3d pro, Precision, Precision 2.. etc. They don't work. If I put the USB adapter on obviously they all work. The Audio PCI I put in after the gameport didn't work on the AWE 64 so that I can have gameport access for my games.

Then as Mr. Jesolo suggested, it's possible that the gameport is disabled on the card. I'm not sure how you would go about changing that – on some older cards, there's a jumper, but in the case of the AWE64, there might be something in its configuration utilities.

Not sure what your hardware specifications are, but on older PC's (486 VLB or below) you had a separate IDE interface that normally had its own gameport as well (PCI based motherboards had onboard interfaces, which also could have a gameport).
This might be conflicting with your AWE64's gameport (since it's an ISA card), but not necessarily with the PCI card's one.

If you have a newer motherboard, you could have an onboard sound card with its own gameport. You might have disabled the sound card, but the gameport might still be active - check your BIOS settings.

Check the driver properties for the Gameport. If the driver was issued by Microsoft and not Creative, you need to remove the driver and re-install it manually from AWE64 disk.

I'm pretty sure that's the issue (I have it every other time myself), but if not — try using the joystick under pure DOS. That way you'll know whether the problem is software-related.

Thanks, when I get off of work I'll fire it up and check to see what's going on. All I know is the board that I have is an original Gateway 2000 some crap with a PII 300 in it, from what I saw it had no soundcard/gameport. It came with the Audio PCI card. I may pull that pc for something else and start using my PB Platinum 55 with the Aztech card in it that has the OPL 3 chip. 😒

So I'm home from work and I fired up the system. It has the creative drivers installed "hardware version 1.0.10" 12/10/97 and it is enabled, working etc. I/O 0200-0207.

The following :

VJOYD.VXD
MMDEVLDR.VXD
MSJSTICK.DRV is obviously Microsoft.

I removed the Audio PCI and checked the bios just to be sure if there is anything there, and there isn't. Is it possible the card just has a bad gameport?

blaker1983 wrote:

Is it possible the card just has a bad gameport?

But of course. Many things are possible.

🙁 I might just fire up my P133. at least it has a real OPL3 card in it 😒

Well, this is strange. I pulled the card from the PII system and put it in the P133 - after it was seen by Windows 98 and installed all drivers it showed not connected on any peripheral installed since it still had some of the old Aztech drivers installed. I removed the Aztech card and disabled MPU401 and it works now. I'm wondering because it's a fresh install on the PII system if there is something else conflicting with the gameport settings, I mean usually on those I disable the serial ports and parallel port to free up settings but it just didn't work. I heard that oem boards have problems like this with certain things working but yet on the Packard Bell it works fine. Oh well, I appreciate the help from everyone, thanks!

blaker1983 wrote:

MSJSTICK.DRV is obviously Microsoft.

This is what I was talking about. Basically, you need to get Creative drivers for the Gameport into your system. Can't give you a step-by-step, as the process was always a bit erratic for me (which is why I prefer Yamaha on Windows systems). Essentially, you need to remove the Microsoft drivers and try to direct the Control Panel installer to the drivers on a Creative disks. Try different drivers, CD images, etc. Eventually it should work.

Oh, and once again — do try the joystick under pure DOS mode (not the Windows' dos box). The card won't need any drivers for that so you'll know if the port is working at all.