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Mechwarrior 2 & Mercenaries joystick problems.

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First post, by Leirele

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Good evening.

aaah.. to get the pleasantries out of the way:

* Motherboard: Asus A7N8X Deluxe.
* Processor: AMD Athlon XP 3000+
* RAM: 512Mb (DDR)
* Video board: Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro Atlantis.
* Sound board: Onboard Nvdida nForce (... seriously thinking of putting in an SBLive!)
* Operating system: Windows XP Proffesional... Service Pack 2.

* Game name: Mechwarrior 2 (DOS version on Win95 CD. NOTE: DOS version. not Win95 version. 1.1). Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries (also DOS version. just installed, not updated.).

* Description of problem:
joystick (Microsoft Sidewinder Forcefeedback 2) is noticed by other games I've tried (Rebel assault 1 & 2, Wing commander III) and I can use it fine.
but mech 2 and mercenaries simply don't want to cope.
I was able to get it nearly functional in mercs for around 2 minutes. I was able to go left... and look down. but up and to the left, I could go only around 10% of the way... also, the throttle goes only from 80% to 100%.. never below. rudder doesn't work at all.
... when I tried to recalibrate it in-game.. it stopped working completely.

here's the joystick map-file:
analog.1 = A.analog.X
analog.2 = A.analog.Y
analog.3 = A.analog.R
analog.4 = A.analog.Z
digital.1 = A.digital.B1
digital.2 = A.digital.B2
digital.3 = A.digital.B3
digital.4 = A.digital.B4
digital.5 = A.digital.P1
digital.6 = A.digital.P2

* Reproducibility of problem: Always.

* Sound mode used: soundblaster? sound isn't a problem, aside from some clipping.
* Video mode: software or OpenGL... resolutions 320x200 up to 1024x800, doesn't matter which I try. samy problem.
* Version of emulator: VDMSound 2.1.0
* Steps already attempted: read the readme 😉 tried using other joysticks I have, to no avail (CH Flightstick PRO, Logitech Sidewinder Digital 3d, CH F-16 Combat stic). fiddled with the map-file... fiddled with the game's internal joystick mapping system.
the core of the matter is that other games recognize it, and let's me use it... but not Mech 2... will try to reinstall windows in a day or two... maybe it's SP2 playing tricks on me?

... I've registered, but not recieved the confirmation e-mail yet.

- Eleriel.

Reply 1 of 1, by Leirele

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Aaah. yes...
almost forgot... errr... actually forgot, I suppose.. but then I remembered..

I've tried DOSbox as well.. but for some reason the game runs very, very, very, very, very, very slowly on there. and the same result anyway, as to the joystick.
(that is, once you've made it past the CD-detection thing).

and... when calibrating the joystick in-game in VDMSound... there's a very strange thing...
the game asks you:
move joystick left and right
move joystick up and down
move rudder left and right
move throttle up and down

it IS noticed here... but, well...
you start with a dot in the middle, and as you move, new dots are introduced where you move to... but only for the axis you're currently calibrating... only.. for every move I make, there are more than one dot appearing.
for instance, when calibrating the throttle, you should get one vertical line... I get four or five, next to eachother.
and I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

- Eleriel.

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