[Stealth]

Hey guys.  I posted this on a Wingman forum, but i figured, you're all gamers here... and many of you play Descent 1, 2, and/or 3, so maybe one of you will have a suggestion/idea

I bought a Logitech Wingman Force about 3 years ago (it's the big two handed-joystick with 9 buttons, a hat stick, a throttle). anyway, i only got around to installing it yesterday. i plugged it in (USB), and loaded Descent 3. Descent 3 recognized it, and i calibrated it, and it played great, except for the force feedback. It sucks playing a game where there's no gravity, yet your joystick's got that option of always "returning to center" enabled. so i installed the software that came with it. I installed the Wingman Profiler thing, and it sat in my taskbar, but whenever i actually tried to open it, it said it couldn't detect any joysticks, and would i like to open the gamepad software instead. well i thought OK maybe it's because it's in the USB port, so i plugged it into the Serial port... same thing. My machine by the way, is running XP Professional. Anyway, so i do some research, and i download the Profiler 4.3 (this is the latest i can find)... i installed it, and it loaded up and showed me all the calibration crap... but whadaya know... Descent 3 didn't detect a joystick. i must be doing something wrong. so right after that my computer started doing some crazy crap i couldn't figure out, but i know it was something to do with the program, because it kept saying something about having to be run in Windows 95 or 98 only, and that my operating system wasn't compatible with it. things got worse, and in the end i had to format my whole hard disk... (that was about 3 hours ago). now i'm sitting, afraid to plug my joystick in, because i've spent 3 hours installing the Operating System and all my programs again. What i would LIKE is for the joystick to be plugged in, and for me to be able to calibrate all the buttons and stuff from IN THE GAME (Descent 3)... i don't want to have to load a program every time i want to play with the joystick or change a button binding or something. However, i do not want (if i can help it) the stick always returning to the "center", because in Descent 3 there's no gravity, and i think it'd be better if the stick just goes wherever you want it to.

Please help me out... what am i doing wrong?

Regards

~Stealth~

As always, much appreciated

~Stealth~

[Stealth]

anyone?

[karajorma]

What version of the software are you using? I've had problems with pre v4.05 IIRC.

[JarC]

nope, sticks are per definition autocentering, if they don't then the springs in the base are broke. Got the same stick without the forcefeedback (is crappy anyway, calling a bit of vibrating forcefeedback) and have no probs in XP...

if you really want to have something that does not autocenter, get the wingman extreme...it's a pad which can be switched from regular gamepad to controlling x/y-axes by turning/tilting the whole gamepad, giving the d-pad the function of a hat-stick.

BTW. You did install the profiler before connecting the stick, did you? And if you had at any time, a different stick installed, use the ClrCalib tool to clear all calibration info for any stick from the registry...get it from the gadgets page about halfway down...

Also, the profiler software does nothing more than allow you to redefine the function of the buttons by programming them to feed keystrokes (this is mostly for games that do not support sticks but only keyboard, for regular use the native gameport driver is enough), and to provide the vibrator function (which only the wife might find interresting)