[CaptJosh]

Have you even seen the way it steers. There's always a LOT of play in the steering wheel before it actually starts turning the direction of the wheels. There is very much a dead zone.

[Nuke]

the way rack and pinion works it is impossible to have a deadzone. your wheel's rotation travels down the shaft to a reduction gear box to increase torque (used to make driving the mechanics of the system easyer, as well as to increase the amount of control accuracy) and then onto the rack and pinion where rotational motion is directly converted to lateral motion (through a normal (pinion) gear to a laterally mounted rack gear, anyone whos put together a lego technic car should know) which i used to actuate the angle of the tires. it might not be noticable at slow speeds but on the hiway turning the wheel a degree or two has more of a difference. after all those episodes of monster garage i watched, i know what the **** im talking about. it doesnt mater because deadzones suck.

[CaptJosh]

Methinks you're confusing rack and pinion with power steering.

[Herra Tohtori]

You play Freespace with a MOUSE?!?!??! 

HOW?!??! 

One click at a time.

Actually, you turn your mouse sensitivity all the way up, and then more if you can.  And you hope you don't reach the end of the mouse pad (or your reach) just as you finally get a Dragon in your lead indicator.

I have a rather different system, though I also set the mouse sensitivity to maximum.

I usually use joystick and mouse in conjunction. In normal flight or when firing at long range I use the mouse extensively; when it comes to dogfighting I use my left hand on joystick to give the overall direction to the pitch/yaw momentum of the ship and use mouse for aiming and fire control. It works surprisingly good.

It's much more accurate and fast to aim with mouse, but in dogfight the "move-yank-move-yank"-system sucks. So why not combine the accuracy of the mouse and the seamless capacity of the stick?

[Nuke]

Methinks you're confusing rack and pinion with power steering.

god damn it dont make me refer you to wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_steering
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rack_and_pinion

i know my way around machines.

[CaptJosh]

And I've actually been in a car with rack and pinion steering. The steering wheel itself has a dead zone. Lots of play in it.

[Nuke]

the play you experience is do to the reduction gears that the motion goes through before reaching the rack and pinion. its not dead, just geared down so much that the action is negligable. the tires are still turning but only a fraction of a degree. its not a dead zone, its very much active. this is ment to allow very presise control at higher speeds. a dead zone would just be unsafe.

[CaptJosh]

Ok, you need to learn that a difference which makes no difference is no difference. Effectively. there is no response until you turne the wheel past a certain point. This effectively makes a dead zone.

[Nuke]

but it makes a difference. this is like those people who like to round off statistics because they are too stupid to think in floating point terms. another analogy is computer tech verses average mundane computer user who calls his computer a hard drive/modem. the computer tech knows the reality, but you cant tell that to average joe blow user. in engineering terms it makes a difference, but to the average joe blow user, they wouldnt notice. this microscopic amount of fine control is more usefull than you give it credit for. the ability to appreciate fine control of your machinery is the difference between your average driver, and professionals. now that ive cut off your virtual penis, what are you gonna do.

[Herra Tohtori]

So you're saying that all the gear wheels sit tightly together in both the steering reduction gearbox AND on the rack&pinion system itself, and that this happy state lasts for ever? No way it's gonna last. The gears wear out, and after some use there is certainly some amount of deadzone in the wheel, or "claff", as it's more often called I think. When the claff is too big for the car to pass the inspection, some parts must be changed.

I think the gear wheels are actually not made to be ultimately tight in the first place but they leave a micrometer or two in between the gears in the factory in order to reduce the wearout.

[Kaine]

this thread has become very interesting, so i hate to bring it halfway back to the topic, but has anyone else been having intermittent (sometimes working sometimes not) force feedback problems? force feedback is a bit erratic with my Logitech Wingman Force 3D.

just wondering if its me or if its a documented issue.

[Herra Tohtori]

Well, not so much as that. But I have a Logitech Force 3D Pro as a second stick... and it behaves starngely in Live for Speed, for example. If the car is on the move, the stick startsyanking from left to right quite fast. I don't know if this is stick's fault or the game's, but it's irritating altogether. Not that I play that game a lot, but anyway.

[Mongoose]

I used to use a Wingman Force 3D, until its motion became so erratic that the the force feedback would constantly jerk around, even outside of a game.  To add to that, the twist was very glitchy and would often spike to the wrong side when used.  From what I've heard, I'm not alone with this; many people have experienced problems with the Force 3D's wiring acting up on them.

[Backslash]

Sorry to dig this up, but I succeeded... somewhat 

The original topic, that is.  I got the game to recognize button 4 and button 5 of the mouse.  Only minor problem is once you push it, it never stops -- keeps firing.    So I'm stuck.  Not sure what I did wrong.  But I'll post the information if anyone else wants to take a crack at it.
In fs2_open\code\OsApi\OsApi.cpp , right after the "case WM_MBUTTONUP:" section, I added this:

Code: [Select]

case 0x020B: //WM_XBUTTONDOWN:
{
if (wParam & 0x0020) //MK_XBUTTON1)
mouse_mark_button( MOUSE_X1_BUTTON, 1 );
if (wParam & 0x0040) //MK_XBUTTON2)
mouse_mark_button( MOUSE_X2_BUTTON, 1 );
}
return true;
break;

case 0x020C: //WM_XBUTTONUP:
{
if (wParam & 0x0020) //MK_XBUTTON1)
mouse_mark_button( MOUSE_X1_BUTTON, 0 );
if (wParam & 0x0040) //MK_XBUTTON2)
mouse_mark_button( MOUSE_X2_BUTTON, 0 );
}
return true;
break;
Obviously you'll have to also modify fs2open\code\io\mouse.cpp and mouse.h to support more than 3 buttons (the MOUSE_X1_BUTTON and MOUSE_X2_BUTTON are names I made), but that's easy; mostly just cut and paste and modify.

I got the information from http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/winui/winui/windowsuserinterface/userinput/mouseinput/aboutmouseinput.asp, and also the hex codes from WinUser.h in the PlatformSDK.

There's also mousewheel possibilities:

Code: [Select]

case 0x020A: //WM_MOUSEWHEEL:
{
if (wParam > 0) // Scrolling up
{   // put something here
}
else if (wParam < 0) // Scrolling down
{   // put something here
}
}
break;

[SuperCoolAl]

the "move-yank-move-yank"-system sucks

 

Anyways, I always used the keyboard, steering with the NumPad. Now I have a laptop keyboard, I use a bog-standard Microsoft Optical mouse, and find it works better due to the analogueness of it.

Grammar patrol, have mercy on me!

[Mars]

You meant to say "the Grammer Inquisition!"

[Goober5000]

You meant to say "the Grammer Inquisition!"

That's the Grammar Inquisition to you, planet-boy!

[Mars]

I meant to do that 

[Turambar]

great that its kinda working!!

just a little more and it will actually work

then i will give you a hug / buy you a drink
depends on how much money i have

[StratComm]

I say go all the way up to 8.  What else am I going to use the 2nd alt-tab button on my ubermouse-of-doom for, anyway?