[Lykurgos88]

Hi,

I decided to finally try out newest nightlies (23rd november) to see what the fuss was about SDL2 and PBR. So far however there is an annoying gamebreaking problem with the newest nightly. The Joystick (Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2) seems to roll left all the time regardless of what I actually try to do. Pitch and yaw work fine, so does force feedback and directional hit, but roll is just broken and does not react to anything.

Currently it's impossible to finish any missions, because I can't negate the constant left roll in any way. I tried joystick calibration from windows, but it didn't help.

3.7.4 is still fine, so joystick should work ok. I guess SDL2 doesn't support my joystick's roll feature?

[AdmiralRalwood]

Are you sure you have the correct axis bound to roll? Also, I didn't think any of the Sidewinder joysticks had drivers for remotely modern versions of Windows...

[Lykurgos88]

Yeah, it's an old joystick but it does still work (native win7 x64 drivers)

I tried to reconfigure the "bank" control (roll in freespace) in options menu. The game recognized the correct axis when I rolled my joystick, so it does take at least some kind of input correctly. It's a mystery why this input is not interpreted at all while actually flying in missions.

Daamn, so do I have to upgrade my trusty old workhorse just because of SDL2? That sucks...   

[AdmiralRalwood]

Yeah, it's an old joystick but it does still work (native win7 x64 drivers)

I tried to reconfigure the "bank" control (roll in freespace) in options menu. The game recognized the correct axis when I rolled my joystick, so it does take at least some kind of input correctly. It's a mystery why this input is not interpreted at all while actually flying in missions.

Daamn, so do I have to upgrade my trusty old workhorse just because of SDL2? That sucks...   

Well, maybe not. If it recognizes joystick input correctly in the controls menu, it ought to work in-game as well. It might be an input bug (we had several of those shortly after the initial SDL2 merge, and I've been meaning to revisit the situation after the most recent SDL2 update).

[Lykurgos88]

Yeah, it's an old joystick but it does still work (native win7 x64 drivers)

I tried to reconfigure the "bank" control (roll in freespace) in options menu. The game recognized the correct axis when I rolled my joystick, so it does take at least some kind of input correctly. It's a mystery why this input is not interpreted at all while actually flying in missions.

Daamn, so do I have to upgrade my trusty old workhorse just because of SDL2? That sucks...   

Well, maybe not. If it recognizes joystick input correctly in the controls menu, it ought to work in-game as well. It might be an input bug (we had several of those shortly after the initial SDL2 merge, and I've been meaning to revisit the situation after the most recent SDL2 update).

Thanks for the information =)

In the meantime, is there anyway for me to produce meaningful log files or other debug information with different launch parameters? This is the only joystick related information I got from launching the game:

Code: [Select]

Initializing Joystick...
Printing joystick info:
  Joystick name: SideWinder Force Feedback 2 Joystick
  Joystick GUID: 5E041B00000000000000504944564944
  Joystick ID: 0
  Joystick device ID: 0
  Using 'SideWinder Force Feedback 2 Joystick' as the primary joystick

  Number of axes: 4
  Number of buttons: 8
  Number of hats: 1
  Number of trackballs: 0

  Initializing Haptic...
  Available haptic devices:
    SideWinder Force Feedback 2 Joystick

    Number of haptic axes: 2
    Number of effects supported: 128
    Number of simultaneous effects: 128
  ... Haptic successfully initialized!


[niffiwan]

I've seen this, you can set the correct roll axis in the options menu, but the problem returns if you leave & restart FSO.  I suspect there's a pilotfile issue but have not spend the time to track it down yet

[Lykurgos88]

I've seen this, you can set the correct roll axis in the options menu, but the problem returns if you leave & restart FSO.  I suspect there's a pilotfile issue but have not spend the time to track it down yet

Actually, the axis was already correct when I entered the options menu. I deliberately cleared the key and tried to get the same axis, which succeeded.

However the in-game input is still broken no matter what I do...

[niffiwan]

OK, that's different to what I saw then and probably a separate issue (and I need to qualify my report with, I remember the issue, I don't remember the exact steps to reproduce).

[deathspeed]

I have the same joystick, using Windows 10 64 bit.  I tried the November 27 nightly.  I did not have the OP's issue, but I did have to reset my roll, bank, and throttle axes (pitch was OK) in-game.  They stayed bound even after exiting and restarting the game. 

I've been have some other issues with Buttons 1 and 2 occasionally not doing anything, and force feedback quitting, but they have not been consistently reproducible and it could be issues with this 15 year old stick. 

[xenocartographer]

Oh my gosh, it's not just me? I'd assumed it was the cheap joystick I've been using... Similar issue, constant roll to the left (though it's intermittent - sometimes I have troubles and sometimes I don't) and buttons 1 and 2 only sometimes respond (...which is annoying 'cause I bound the roll to those after unbinding it from the joystick axis...).

[niffiwan]

yeah... those issues sound more like old joysticks to me, I've had that occur to a number of sticks over the years

Pretty sure with one stick if I didn't store it dead flat it'll have a constant yaw when I next went to use it! (yes, I've nearly always bought cheap sticks)