Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.games (
More info?)
I'm fairly familiar with how it's supposed to work. At one point I got so
frustrated about always having to change ID#'s etc. that I actually wrote a
small utility Logitech's support forum guys are kind enough to host that
makes it "easier" than the way MS provides.
I wrote initial msg because I'd noticed your "sig" and so thought I'd bring
it to "someone's" attention that at least two major MS games do not properly
handle having multipule devices connected. Try FS2004 yourself with say a
joystick and a wheel attached.
I'm relatively "new" to XP, having only been running a dual-boot 98SE/XP for
maybe 6 months and this new pc with only XP for month or so now. That said,
XP seems even worse than 98SE in that regard, now having some "preferred
device" bs and not even able to control the order of other devices, e.g. I
sometimes have as many as six, 2 wheels, 2 rumblepads, PS2 controller and a
flight stick. Thankfully that little id utility still works
In fairness,
it's far from MS's games that exibit this problem but my frustration is that
I think it's fair to say at least MS games SHOULD NOT have a problem. I
basically keep FS2004 on system because I've "played" it so long now (e.g.
first 8088 had a version on it) but both CFS's and IL's I just uninstalled,
that's how frustrating I find it all.
To me, it seems time MS rethought it's design regarding joysticks.
Everything else is "virtualized", e.g. mice, keyboard etc. so why not
joystick(s). Why can't a user simply have some dialog box that allows one to
"create" virtual joystick(s) and assign whatever input to whatever virtual
device they've created? Game wants only one device, no problem. Load some
"saved virtual layout" and play the game. Another game allows two player
mode, load a different "virtual layout". The game would never need to know
that "stick left" didn't come from an actual physical joystick but instead
could come from anything, e.g. mouse click, keyboard,
"Joshua Smith [MSFT]" <joshsm@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:OR2MV8$9EHA.3840@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Hi pjp,
>
> It is unusual that you are seeing this behavior. There are 2 components
> actually that make up what is referred to as DirectInput. There is the old
> pre-DirectX WINMM and then the actual DirectInput. The device ID's that
> you see in the control panel are only for WINMM. It is the old method of
> getting device data and only supported up to 16 devices. While developing
> games it was cheaper and easier to just assume if there is a joystick it
> will be at ID1 and so a lot of games just use whatever is there. Most
> games in the last 5-7 years probably don't use this. Instead they use
> DirectInput (the newer non-WINMM portion of it). With DirectInput every
> device in the system is assigned a GUID, a unique ID, that programs can
> use to get data. You can have a hundred devices in the system and still
> accurately get data from the device you want. The way games usually
> Acquire devices though is to ask DirectInput to enumerate all the devices
> in the system and return a device that is of type "joystick". This can be
> a problem because some wheels describe themselves as joysticks instead of
> wheels, but for the most part the game will just accept the first device
> it gets that is satisfactory to what it is looking for. The devices are
> more or less returned randomly. Something to keep in mind though while you
> swap devices is that drivers and the associated software for setting
> preferences will consider the same device that has been plugged into 2
> different USB ports to be 2 unique devices. I am almost positive (without
> source or debugging) that the games you mentioned below just enumerate and
> acquire the first joystick in the system. Even though this doesn't
> necessarily solve your issues I hope it sheds some light in why there is
> the behavior and hopefully give you an idea of minimizing the hassle.
>
>
> Joshua Smith
> OpenGL Test Lab
> Microsoft
> -----
>
> Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security
>
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
>
>
>
>
> "pjp" <pjpoirier_is_located@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:GpNEd.207392$Np3.8774147@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
>> The games simply can't seem to distinguish what device is generating what
>> input. It's not bad enough that they just assume "preferred/id#1" device
>> but then can't seem to properly ignore/parse data from other devices. As
>> the other device may have completely different raw values etc., ... who
>> knows why, I just can't seem to get any MS game to behave acceptably if I
>> leave more than one joystick attached (assuming the game uses a
>> joystick)? Same thing regardless of OS, e.g. XP or 98SE in my case.
>>
>> What's irritating about it is that if forces me to disconnect other
>> devices rather than simply swap which is id#1. That means that when the
>> device(s) are re-plugged back in, they tend to end up using default
>> values for force feedback, separate combined peddles etc. etc.
>> neccessitating one to "re-do" custom settings, specifically in my case,
>> separate peddles for my wheel.
>>
>> Of all the games I've played over the years (and it's well into the
>> hundreds) there's only one other "quality/big name" game that I've run
>> across that's so "ignorant", Final Fantasy VIII.
>>
>> "Paul Smith" <Paul@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:ufUzKa39EHA.2452@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
>>> "pjp" <pjpoirier_is_located@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:F7FEd.207244$Np3.8764488@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
>>>> Can you give me some reason why MS games like FS2004, CFS2 etc. all
>>>> seem to not use a joystick properly if you have more than 1 joystick
>>>> device connected? Assigning preferred device as "Preferred" or "ID#1"
>>>> just doesn't seem to be enough.
>>>
>>> What kind of behaviour are you getting?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Paul Smith,
>>> Yeovil, UK.
>>> http://www.dasmirnov.net/
>>> http://windows.dasmirnov.net/ Windows XP Resource Site.
>>>
>>> *Replace nospam with smirnov to reply by e-mail*
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
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