VOGONS

Gameport to USB Adapters

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First post, by FeedingDragon

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For my vintage system, I have a Thrustmaster FCS Mark I and WCS Mark II with plans to get a set of pedals eventually (Aiming for Thrustmaster, but might go with another brand if prices stay where they are too long.) But for my modern system, I have only a gamepad. I don't like those, but I ended up with an extra one when I was getting wired controllers for my X360 (I hate wireless, the batteries *always* fail at the exactly wrong time.) The problem I'm facing is that the good controllers I'd like to get are in the $500+ range, and I'm also not really looking forward to having 2 of everything (I use a KVM to connect to all my computers (PC Modern, PC Vintage, Amiga 2000, & Amiga 4000.)

OK, that's the situation at this time. But during my searches, I came across 4 game port to USB adapters (listed below,) and wondered if I could use the same controllers for both systems. I could easily put the keyboard plug into the KVM instead of into the vintage PC, and using my vintage PC to program the WCS/FCS would be child's play 😀 I would then need to add in a game port switch or Y cable. What I'm looking for, though, is if anyone has any information on these adapters, and how they would work with the setup (including the different pedals available.)

The adapters I've found:
Rockfire RM 203
Ckeyin SuperJoy Box7 & Box8 (2 different ones, though I'd imagine 8 is a more advanced form of 7)
Logilink

Any thoughts, suggestions?

Feeding Dragon

Reply 1 of 2, by KT7AGuy

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I used to own a very similar setup to what you have: PFCS, WCS MKII, and Elite Pedals.
(The PFCS was the same as the FCS but with much stiffer springs and a metal base.)

I have the RockFire adapter. It works well for connecting basic joystick setups. My CH FlightStick Pro and (non-Pro) Pedals work fine with it, including the throttle axis on the stick. I wouldn't hope for much more beyond that. I've read from others' experiences that the CH Throttle won't work with the USB adapters. I would assume that it won't work with the WCS MKII either.

The Logilink unit looks pretty similar to my RockFire adapter.

Reply 2 of 2, by jwt27

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Have the Ckeyin Box7 thing. For some reason the analog axes are 8-bit, and they'll overflow while moving. So say you move the X axis from left to right, it goes from 0 to 255, jumps back to 0, then goes up to 255 again, etc. I'm guessing the internal ADCs have a few bits more, but they're lost somewhere in the usb protocol. Or windows uses the wrong driver or something.

In any case it's pretty much useless like this. though it came with a small microfiber cloth which is great for cleaning glasses and trackballs and all sorts of things!

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