[chief1983]

Good luck with that, would love to see how that turns out.

[Cyker]

Woot! I has 3D Pro USB converter and it are ossom! \o/

Only downside is it doesn't work in Win98 because the stick uses negative numbers for top and left instead of 0,0 so I STILL can't play MechWarrior 3, but since it uses a Teensy I'm hoping it can be reprogrammed...

I wonder if I can find the source code...

[chief1983]

How do you have a Win98 box without a gameport?  Get a Sound Blaster on ebay!

[Nuke]

or at a garage sale, or a dumpster for that matter.

[BlackDove]

You can still order one from one of the guys on that forum.  I was this close to making my order when I fixed my Precision Pro.

The only true bro in this thread.

Precision 2 here.

[chief1983]

I have a Precision 2 as well, but the static buildup issues on mine make it virtually unusable.  It's only good for about 10 minutes and then has to be unplugged for an hour or more.

[QuantumDelta]

Joystick > Keyboard > Mouse.

However, in terms of ease to use..

Mouse > Keyboard > Joystick.


The joystick only becomes king once you use full-sense no deadzone, and Prec Pro's/etc are the only line that REALLY satisfies being able to handle that.

[Nuke]

they were also 10 bit when most controllers nowadays are 8, you only get 10 bit from some of the expensive high end sticks you can get nowadays, even my ch stuff is only 8 bit. it kinda sucks because any $5 microcontroller has a complete bank of 10 bit adc lines. its sad to see the prices on joysticks bloated so much over what it costs to build them. what i have is a 3d pro plus, it has the same case as the presicion pro 1 but does not have onboard usb. would be useful for lan parties if i could get it working. i can only assume it uses the same initialization routines and packet encoding as the original 3d pro. im not sure if its even compatable with the adapter they sell. if it is then all i have to do is put some time into studying the source, then i could read the signal with an arduino.

[chief1983]

The first sticks named Precision Pro still lacked the USB chip too, it was only later Precision Pros that came with the USB dongle and built in USB support.  I believe the one for sale on the DescentBB works with the PPro and the 3D Pro Plus, it even works with the FF Pro but just lacks the Force Feedback support.

[Cyker]

How do you have a Win98 box without a gameport?  Get a Sound Blaster on ebay!

'eh? I have a gameport... how else do you think I have been using this joystick to play FS2?  

The problem with the SW3D Pro is that it is VERY hard to get working in digital mode on modern computers. Last time it worked okay was before I hit the 800MHz mark (I think I had a 700MHz AMD Duron and then moved to an 1.4GHz (OMG!) Athlon when it stopped working.)

So in Win98, I've been using it in CH Flightstick emulation mode, and in Win2k I had to keep unplugging/replugging it until it bloody worked (As it would either work in digital mode or not at all in 2k for some stupid reason).

That was one reason why I still played FS2 under Win98, although obviously not with 3.6.12 because Win98 support has been removed

But this is all moot now; Grendel has sent me an updated program for the Teensy and it darn well works! So now I can use the 3D Pro in Linux, Win98 and Win2K

I just did a few missions in MechWarrior 3 for testing (Still the best one of the series IMHO), and having had my giant stompy mech fix, I think I'll to 2K and play Wings of Dawn some more (Why is it you always have to play the MOST ANNOYING CHARACTER?!   )

I must admit, I don't know how you keyboard+mouse people can play some of these campaigns; How do you move fast enough while maintaining accuracy, e.g. when tracking someone in a loop or corkscrewing to evade missiles when you're out of CM's?!

I'm just past the mission where you first meet the 'translucent acid trip' guys with the omni-directional guns and even with the 'stick it's tricky trying to loop around their fire while shooting them!


P.S.> Sickone has 6 left! Get one before they're all gone!

[chief1983]

I just wondered why you needed the USB adapter for it then if you have a gameport.  A good sound card gameport like a Sound Blaster should enable digital mode fine in Win98, regardless of  how new the hardware is I thought.  At least the Precision Pro was that way.

[Cyker]

I don't know about the Precision Pro, but unfortunately that isn't the case with Win98+3D Pro.

It is a very common problem, and as the computer gets faster, it seems the stick/driver has more and more trouble 'synching' to get into digital mode.

It's probably a bug in the Win98 driver that MS obviously won't fix, as the stick will go into digital mode in 2K/XP (albeit with some retrying), and it's always worked in Linux.


Out of curiosity what other sticks do people use these days?
I've tried my brother's Cougar and honestly it was horrible for FS2 (The throw is just ridiculous so quick maneuvering is impossible, and the gimble is completely unbalanced; You can go up/down or left/right, but trying to do a smooth diagonal is almost impossible! Also, the stick seems to have been designed for the hands of King Kong, which makes it rather awkward for my normal-sized hands )
They're bringing out a new one which uses saturn rings and hall probes instead of a gimbal and pots, which should be a major improvement (My brother's had to change the pots 4 times since he's bought it!)

The new Saitek one looks interesting; No throw at all, just pressure sensing (Although the lack of feedback might make it tricky). Looks better than their previous ludicrHOTAS too

[chief1983]

I have a x45 in storage I plan to get out again some day, when I have room for it.  Also a CH Pro Flight Yoke and Pro Pedals.  Might try to get the pedals and the x45 working together too at some point, with games that support multiple sticks.

[Flaser]

I've also been pretty excited about Saitek's newest tensiometric stick, the X-65F.
It's a pretty close clone of the stick used in the F-16. Unfortunately they've also cloned the initial "bug" of the original. With absolutely no "throw" the stick has a tendency to shift from one axis to another when you're making small corrections... bloody annoying and it also greatly unnerved the F-16 test pilots.

The solution has been to give the stick a very slight "throw" so you automatically know which quadrant you're in. Unfortunately I've yet to hear if Saitek did anything to fix their stick.

[Glowhyena]

I'm using Saitek 52x for FreeSpace and Descent. It's a great joystick that's good for space combat simulator and flight simulator games. But gamers got some issues in axises and USB. Other side, Logitech has very good computer controls.

[Iss Mneur]

That was one reason why I still played FS2 under Win98, although obviously not with 3.6.12 because Win98 support has been removed

Not intentionally (at least for 3.6.12, future releases are still up in the air).  Goober5000 has provided 3.6.12 built with VC6 which should allow 3.6.12 to run on 9x.  See "Visual Studio 6 Builds" in the 3.6.12 release thread.

[Cyker]

Aaaah! I totally didn't even see those!

*Gives Iss Mneur and Goober a warm fuzzy and totally non-gay hug*