rec.autos.simulators

by **Graeme Nas** » Tue, 17 Aug 1999 04:00:00

Hi all,

Last Wednesday my Thrustmaster died and I ordered an MSFF to replace it.
It arrived this morning but I'm having serious troubles with it.

When Force feedback is disabled in core.ini the wheel works fine. But
when I enable it GPL takes about ten seconds from me clicking the green
button and the car appearing in the pits.

Then it will just sit there dumb, not responding. I'll press a few
buttons and it'll come to life, but when I drive I'm pretty sure I'm
feeling no FF effects. I can't feel the wheel tightening in turns, I
can't feel "weight transfer", I can drive head on into a wall at 180mph
and the wheel won't jolt, and so on

When I do "test forces" in Control Panel they work fine. But in GPL I
have the force button on the wheel lit green all the time, and there are
no effects!

I'm using the default values for the wheel in core.ini. Is there a
specific profile I need? Help!!!!

--
Thanks in Advance!
Graeme Nash

http://www.racesimcentral.net/
ICQ# 11257824

by **Mike Wes** » Tue, 17 Aug 1999 04:00:00

I would suggest a GPL re-install or re-patch. If the Control Panel tests
work, then the MSFF drivers sound OK, but mine worked fine in GPL first time
with the only change in the Core.ini being the switch to turn FF on. (Still
have the screwed up frame-rate though - when are they gonna release the
patch?!!!)

Try the wheel in some other FF games first to make sure, (you HAVE to try
the FF in Viper Racing for instance), and if they work, do the GPL
re-install/patch.

As for profiles, the only things in my Sidewinder GPL profile are the
split-axis setting (which is cool) and I've mapped Shift-R and the change
view key (F10?) to buttons so I can use them from the wheel in game. You
really shouldn't need to do anything else.

Mike West
3DNow! UK: www.3dnow.freeserve.co.uk

> Hi all,

> Last Wednesday my Thrustmaster died and I ordered an MSFF to replace it.
> It arrived this morning but I'm having serious troubles with it.

> When Force feedback is disabled in core.ini the wheel works fine. But
> when I enable it GPL takes about ten seconds from me clicking the green
> button and the car appearing in the pits.

> Then it will just sit there dumb, not responding. I'll press a few
> buttons and it'll come to life, but when I drive I'm pretty sure I'm
> feeling no FF effects. I can't feel the wheel tightening in turns, I
> can't feel "weight transfer", I can drive head on into a wall at 180mph
> and the wheel won't jolt, and so on

> When I do "test forces" in Control Panel they work fine. But in GPL I
> have the force button on the wheel lit green all the time, and there are
> no effects!

> I'm using the default values for the wheel in core.ini. Is there a
> specific profile I need? Help!!!!

> --
> Thanks in Advance!
> Graeme Nash

> http://www.karisma1.demon.co.uk
> ICQ# 11257824

by **Olav K. Malm** » Tue, 17 Aug 1999 04:00:00

> Hi all,

> Last Wednesday my Thrustmaster died and I ordered an MSFF to replace it.
> It arrived this morning but I'm having serious troubles with it.

> When Force feedback is disabled in core.ini the wheel works fine. But
> when I enable it GPL takes about ten seconds from me clicking the green
> button and the car appearing in the pits.

> Then it will just sit there dumb, not responding. I'll press a few
> buttons and it'll come to life, but when I drive I'm pretty sure I'm
> feeling no FF effects. I can't feel the wheel tightening in turns, I
> can't feel "weight transfer", I can drive head on into a wall at 180mph
> and the wheel won't jolt, and so on

> When I do "test forces" in Control Panel they work fine. But in GPL I
> have the force button on the wheel lit green all the time, and there are
> no effects!

> I'm using the default values for the wheel in core.ini. Is there a
> specific profile I need? Help!!!!

The only profile you need is one with seperate axis, and buttons programmed
after your choise if you want CTRL-R or something mapped to the wheel.

Are you sure you have before the allow_force_feedback=1 (or whatever) line
a line that says [Joy] ? Look in the core.ini.sample file, if you don't have
the header FF won't work.

Have you tried the wheel with other games like SCGT or TOCA2 ?

Don't give up, I have a great time with GPL1.1. and MSFF.

--
Olav K. Malmin
remove spam when replying

by **R A Wrigh** » Tue, 17 Aug 1999 04:00:00

I have the same wheel set and I only had to change the core settings to 1
but what I did find later was to turn self centring off on the msff control
panel it makes the wheel going light on corners a lot more responsive.

Regards

Bob

> > Hi all,

> > Last Wednesday my Thrustmaster died and I ordered an MSFF to replace it.
> > It arrived this morning but I'm having serious troubles with it.

> > When Force feedback is disabled in core.ini the wheel works fine. But
> > when I enable it GPL takes about ten seconds from me clicking the green
> > button and the car appearing in the pits.

> > Then it will just sit there dumb, not responding. I'll press a few
> > buttons and it'll come to life, but when I drive I'm pretty sure I'm
> > feeling no FF effects. I can't feel the wheel tightening in turns, I
> > can't feel "weight transfer", I can drive head on into a wall at 180mph
> > and the wheel won't jolt, and so on

> > When I do "test forces" in Control Panel they work fine. But in GPL I
> > have the force button on the wheel lit green all the time, and there are
> > no effects!

> > I'm using the default values for the wheel in core.ini. Is there a
> > specific profile I need? Help!!!!

> The only profile you need is one with seperate axis, and buttons
programmed
> after your choise if you want CTRL-R or something mapped to the wheel.

> Are you sure you have before the allow_force_feedback=1 (or whatever) line
> a line that says [Joy] ? Look in the core.ini.sample file, if you don't
have
> the header FF won't work.

> Have you tried the wheel with other games like SCGT or TOCA2 ?

> Don't give up, I have a great time with GPL1.1. and MSFF.

> --
> Olav K. Malmin
> remove spam when replying

by **Jan Hoviu** » Tue, 17 Aug 1999 04:00:00

> Are you sure you have before the allow_force_feedback=1 (or whatever) line
> a line that says [Joy] ? Look in the core.ini.sample file, if you don't have
> the header FF won't work.

In fact are you sure you have copied core.ini.sample to core.ini? If you didn't
GPL uses it's builtin default settings thus no FF!

(Microsoft in all its wisdom thought it would be nice to default don't show
extensions for files because it only confuses us dumb users this way causing a
lot of confusion on what's a file's full name. Let's all praise Bill!!!)

by **Greg Cisk** » Tue, 17 Aug 1999 04:00:00

Correct. The default name of the file is core.ini.sample. If
you did not change the default file view properties you will
not see the .sample and think you have core.ini when in
fact it is still core.ini.sample.

--

Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com

>> Are you sure you have before the allow_force_feedback=1 (or whatever)
line
>> a line that says [Joy] ? Look in the core.ini.sample file, if you don't
have
>> the header FF won't work.

>In fact are you sure you have copied core.ini.sample to core.ini? If you
didn't
>GPL uses it's builtin default settings thus no FF!

>(Microsoft in all its wisdom thought it would be nice to default don't show
>extensions for files because it only confuses us dumb users this way
causing a
>lot of confusion on what's a file's full name. Let's all praise Bill!!!)

by **geps** » Tue, 17 Aug 1999 04:00:00

In the core.ini you should have these settings:
[ Joy ]
allow_force_feedback = 1
force_feedback_damping = 15.000000
force_feedback_latency = 0.065000
max_steering_torque = 160.000000

the easiest way is to rename the core.ini.sample in your gpl directory into
core.ini and change the line
allow_force_feedback = 0 into 1

then in the windows control panel is better to have these settings:
force feedback rate: maximum
retun to center: none (I think this parameter is very important for GPL FF
style)

(note that my windows is in italian, so maybe in the control panel you will
find different names, I tried to translate them...)

Sorry for my bad english,

bye and have fun with GPL.
--
geps.

GPL Italia
il sito tutto italiano dedicato a Grand Prix Legends
http://web.tiscalinet.it/GPLItalia/

> > Hi all,

> > Last Wednesday my Thrustmaster died and I ordered an MSFF to replace it.
> > It arrived this morning but I'm having serious troubles with it.

> > When Force feedback is disabled in core.ini the wheel works fine. But
> > when I enable it GPL takes about ten seconds from me clicking the green
> > button and the car appearing in the pits.

> > Then it will just sit there dumb, not responding. I'll press a few
> > buttons and it'll come to life, but when I drive I'm pretty sure I'm
> > feeling no FF effects. I can't feel the wheel tightening in turns, I
> > can't feel "weight transfer", I can drive head on into a wall at 180mph
> > and the wheel won't jolt, and so on

> > When I do "test forces" in Control Panel they work fine. But in GPL I
> > have the force button on the wheel lit green all the time, and there are
> > no effects!

> > I'm using the default values for the wheel in core.ini. Is there a
> > specific profile I need? Help!!!!

by **Graeme Nas** » Tue, 17 Aug 1999 04:00:00

Thanks for the replies everyone... I'll keep you posted on how it goes
as today things are going from bad to worse :-)

I have the correct core.ini with the "Enable FF" setting to "1" but at
the moment GPL is not having it.

I've tried it with other sims - the wheel works fine in GP2, and the FF
works fine in CART Precision and MTM2, but in TOCA 2 whenever I use the
wheel the game crashes at the "Loading Track" screen.

My GPL CD seems to be scratched or something because whenever I try a
reinstall it crashes with an "Error 117" whist copying the Mosport track
files. I tried just reinstalling the 1.1 patch but that didn't work.

<sigh> One day.... :-)

--
Cheers!
Graeme Nash

http://www.karisma1.demon.co.uk
ICQ# 11257824

by **Wolfgang Prei** » Wed, 18 Aug 1999 04:00:00

>I have the correct core.ini with the "Enable FF" setting to "1" but at
>the moment GPL is not having it.

If you modified your old core.ini file, see to it that the
'enable FF' line has the correct header above it. It should look like
this:

[ Joy ]
allow_force_feedback = 1 ; Use FF if device has it

Other than that - no idea.

--
Wolfgang Preiss \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.

by **Graeme Nas** » Wed, 18 Aug 1999 04:00:00

Ah well... reinstalling GPL didn't work either. It's a really weird
problem as the FF works fine in other games and when FF is disabled in
core.ini the wheel works fine in GPL.

But as soon as I turn on FF things go wrong. Sometimes it will work as
it does with FF disabled, and other times it will just sit there,
unresponsive. The only things I can do in this situation are the actions
I have mapped to keyboard functions such as raising the arm or looking
either side.

Any further ideas? I have a new PC on order so maybe I should wait to
see if it works on that - but if I do, and it still doesn't work, it'll
be too late to send the wheel back to where I got it from :-((((

--
Cheers!
Graeme Nash

http://www.karisma1.demon.co.uk
ICQ# 11257824

by **Olav K. Malm** » Thu, 19 Aug 1999 04:00:00

> >Thanks for the replies everyone... I'll keep you posted on how it goes
> >as today things are going from bad to worse :-)

> Ah well... reinstalling GPL didn't work either. It's a really weird
> problem as the FF works fine in other games and when FF is disabled in
> core.ini the wheel works fine in GPL.

> But as soon as I turn on FF things go wrong. Sometimes it will work as
> it does with FF disabled, and other times it will just sit there,
> unresponsive. The only things I can do in this situation are the actions
> I have mapped to keyboard functions such as raising the arm or looking
> either side.

> Any further ideas? I have a new PC on order so maybe I should wait to
> see if it works on that - but if I do, and it still doesn't work, it'll
> be too late to send the wheel back to where I got it from :-((((

I have this weird problem with SCGT, that if I start the game from the START-
menu, steering doesn't work, but the pedals do. If I put in the CD and select
PLAY from the menu that pops up, steering works fine.

Have you tried starting GPL by selecting PLAY from the Sierra-box that let you
choose to play, play intro movie or quit when you put in the CD ?

--
Olav K. Malmin
remove spam when replying

by **Graeme Nas** » Thu, 19 Aug 1999 04:00:00

Thanks for the help, but that didn't work either :-(((((

Do you think it could be CPU-related? I only have a P200, so maybe it's
possible that GPL is putting too much load through the CPU for the FF to
work?

--
Cheers!
Graeme Nash

http://www.karisma1.demon.co.uk
ICQ# 11257824

by **BendsMast** » Thu, 19 Aug 1999 04:00:00

On Wed, 18 Aug 1999 16:06:35 +0100, Graeme Nash

>>Have you tried starting GPL by selecting PLAY from the Sierra-box that let you
>>choose to play, play intro movie or quit when you put in the CD ?

>Thanks for the help, but that didn't work either :-(((((

>Do you think it could be CPU-related? I only have a P200, so maybe it's
>possible that GPL is putting too much load through the CPU for the FF to
>work?

I very much doubt that would be the case. I've a 3 pc's and one of
them is p233mmx and I can run GPL at 640x480 with 10 cars and a lot of
the details turned off between 25fps and 30fps, with a MSFF wheel,
whcih I used for playing sims for over a year. I can tell you that I
haven't even experienced any frame rate losses with the FF in GPL 1.1.
I understand your wheel works fine on other games, so I would assume
the wheel and the directx are working fine. Are you using a sidewinder
profile to play the game?
What do you get when you try to calibrate the wheel in gpl?
What are the FF settings in you core.ini?
What sound card do you have installed?
Have you tried the settings below in your core.ini?

force_feedback_latency = 0.085
force_feedback_damping = 30.0
max_steering_torque =200.0

One thing is for sure, if you can get the wheel to work with FF in any
other game then the problem lies in GPL and nowhere else.
I was surprised to see you this post still going on as the msff wheel
is usually the easiest to get working, in theory anyway.

by **Graeme Nas** » Thu, 19 Aug 1999 04:00:00

Hi,

Yep - I've configured separate axes and mapped shift+r to the left
paddle.

When I enable FF in core.ini I can calibrate the wheel no problem. Then
I get into the car and there's no response. If I leave the track and try
to calibrate after this, there's no response there, either.

Default from the core.ini.sample which I renamed to core.ini.

Sound Blaster Pro (Don't laugh!) I really think this may be the trouble.
Don't know why though. Maybe because it's a 4-year-old card?

Just tried them - still didn't work.

:-)

--
Cheers!
Graeme Nash

http://www.karisma1.demon.co.uk
ICQ# 11257824

by **Mike Wes** » Fri, 20 Aug 1999 04:00:00

The FF on the MSFF wheel is achieved by sending midi signals through the
game port (I think), so it's possible it's something to do with your
soundcard not supporting midi in this way properly.
The only thing is, I don't see how it would then work with other games,
unless something in the programming of GPL conflicts with something in the
sound card drivers, preventing full functionality. (Isn't that a great word?
It's one of those words that could only ever be associated with computers or
psychiatry..... hehe, I guess you have a dysfunctional PC! ;-P )

Do you know anyone who could lend you a sound card to try? (Just DON'T
forget to remove the old one in Windoze first if it's an ISA device, or the
drivers are likely to go screwy!)

Hope this helps muddy the waters even further..... :-)

Mike.

> Hi,

> >Are you using a sidewinder
> >profile to play the game?
> Yep - I've configured separate axes and mapped shift+r to the left
> paddle.

> >What do you get when you try to calibrate the wheel in gpl?
> When I enable FF in core.ini I can calibrate the wheel no problem. Then
> I get into the car and there's no response. If I leave the track and try
> to calibrate after this, there's no response there, either.

> >What are the FF settings in you core.ini?
> Default from the core.ini.sample which I renamed to core.ini.

> >What sound card do you have installed?
> Sound Blaster Pro (Don't laugh!) I really think this may be the trouble.
> Don't know why though. Maybe because it's a 4-year-old card?

> >Have you tried the settings below in your core.ini?
> >force_feedback_latency = 0.085
> >force_feedback_damping = 30.0
> >max_steering_torque =200.0
> Just tried them - still didn't work.

> >>AAARRRGH<<

> :-)

> --
> Cheers!
> Graeme Nash

> http://www.karisma1.demon.co.uk
> ICQ# 11257824

rec.autos.simulators

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((

GPL: MSFF Sadness:-(((((((((