Joystick not working in DOS mode (Windows 98 okay) \ VOGONS

Joystick not working in DOS mode (Windows 98 okay)

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First post, by maximus

Posted on 2014-12-08, 03:09

maximus Offline

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I picked up a couple of nice game controllers at Goodwill yesterday. One is an original Gravis Gamepad, the other is a Gravis Analog Pro Joystick. I'm using them with my Gateway G6-350 (PII 450 MHz). Both controllers work splendidly in Windows 98, but I can't seem to get them to work when I restart in DOS mode.

The G6-350's game port is integrated with the motherboard, as is the sound card, a Creative ES1373. (I'm guessing the two are connected, as is the case with discrete sound cards). I use the Sound Blaster PCI 128 drivers for the ES1373 in both Windows 98 and DOS, and sound works fine on both. The motherboard doesn't let me control the sound card's resources, but I checked in device manager, and the gameport uses the standard 0200 memory location.

My understanding is that the gameport should "just work," so I'm not sure what the problem is. I'm spoiled to USB game controllers, though, so I'm probably just missing something super obvious. Any ideas?

Last edited by maximus on 2014-12-11, 06:15. Edited 1 time in total.

PCGames9505

Reply 1 of 4, by maximus

Posted on 2014-12-08, 20:18

maximus Offline

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I tried both controllers with one of my other Windows 98 machines, and they worked immediately in DOS mode. Something must be set wrong on the Gateway.

PCGames9505

Reply 2 of 4, by maximus

Posted on 2014-12-11, 06:11

maximus Offline

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So far, I have tried the following:

* Added 'J200' to my SET BLASTER line. No change.

* Tried using Ensoniq's DOS drivers instead of Creative's. No change.

* Tried disabling onboard sound and using a discrete PCI 128 instead. No change.

The last two suggest that this is a Sound Blaster PCI 128 problem, but it doesn't seem to be documented anywhere.

Running out of ideas here...

PCGames9505

Reply 3 of 4, by jwt27

Posted on 2014-12-11, 09:48

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I like to point at PCI sound cards whenever something breaks in DOS.

Reply 4 of 4, by maximus

Posted on 2014-12-11, 16:13

maximus Offline

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I've already more or less established that the PCI sound card is to blame. However, the card has a gameport, and it also has seemingly robust DOS drivers, so it puzzles me that the two aren't getting along.

The drivers do have a switch (located in SBPCI.INI) for turning joystick support on and off, but it was already set to "true." Setting it to "false" had the effect of filling the gameport's memory location with random garbage (constant spurious button presses, no apparent communication with the actual joystick).

PCGames9505

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