MS Sidewinder button press TOO FAST for calibration \ VOGONS

MS Sidewinder button press TOO FAST for calibration

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First post, by simbin

Posted on 2012-10-20, 14:44

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I just bought THE Microsoft Sidewinder (2-button) from my local thrift shop this morning.

I went to play Raptor Call of Shadows and pressing the button once at the calibration screen goes thru all the settings TOO FAST.

I'm running in MS-DOS prompt thru Win98, as I'm using General Midi for music. I loaded no drivers, just plugged into my AWE64 Value card. Any ideas?

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Reply 1 of 7, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2012-10-20, 14:53

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PC way too fast?

Raptor is a game for 486DX I believe...

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Reply 2 of 7, by simbin

Posted on 2012-10-20, 15:15

simbin Offline

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:
PC way too fast?

Raptor is a game for 486DX I believe...

Yea, you may be right. Wish I kept more of my legacy hardware, it's getting harder to find!

I tried disabling L1/L2 cache like you mentioned in another post, but it disintegrated performance on my system.

WIP: 486DX2/66, 16MB FastPage RAM, TsengLabs ET4000 VLB
Check out my Retro-Ghetto build (2016 Update) 😀
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Reply 3 of 7, by d1stortion

Posted on 2012-10-23, 09:23

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That's weird, I had no trouble playing Raptor on my PIII machine. Played directly from Win98 with USB gamepad though (didn't even know this was possible), no problems.

Reply 4 of 7, by simbin

Posted on 2012-10-23, 13:32

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d1stortion wrote:
That's weird, I had no trouble playing Raptor on my PIII machine. Played directly from Win98 with USB gamepad though (didn't even know this was possible), no problems.

It does play fine w/o any problems.. it's just the joystick buttons are a little sensitive on the calibration screen. If you press just right, all is good!

WIP: 486DX2/66, 16MB FastPage RAM, TsengLabs ET4000 VLB
Check out my Retro-Ghetto build (2016 Update) 😀
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Reply 5 of 7, by Jorpho

Posted on 2012-10-23, 17:08

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The Sidewinder is digital, isn't it? It won't send button presses directly; it will send encoded signals (i.e. very short pulses) that need to be interpreted by a driver. That's what SDWRGMPD is for. Right?

In any case Raptor is still a very well-supported game and I think you can buy a version from GOG.com (among others) for dirt cheap that looks and plays just like the original, but runs natively on current hardware.

Reply 6 of 7, by simbin

Posted on 2012-10-23, 23:32

simbin Offline

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Jorpho wrote:
The Sidewinder is digital, isn't it? It won't send button presses directly; it will send encoded signals (i.e. very short pulses) that need to be interpreted by a driver. That's what SDWRGMPD is for. Right?

In any case Raptor is still a very well-supported game and I think you can buy a version from GOG.com (among others) for dirt cheap that looks and plays just like the original, but runs natively on current hardware.

I'm not sure if it's digital or not. It's pretty old, one of the first if not THE first SideWinder. It all works, just a little tricky with the calibration is all.

I have the GOG version on my primary desktop. Trying to stay vanilla on my Retro rig though. 😉

WIP: 486DX2/66, 16MB FastPage RAM, TsengLabs ET4000 VLB
Check out my Retro-Ghetto build (2016 Update) 😀
Commodore 128D, iBook G3 "Clamshell"
3DO M2, Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, NES, SNES, N64, GBC

Reply 7 of 7, by Jorpho

Posted on 2012-10-24, 04:01

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The only way to be sure would be to load up some DOS test program that lets you directly see what signals are being received. (Sort of like the Win9x calibration control panel, but of course Win9x would probably have the proper drivers for Microsoft's own pads.)

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