JL Posted April 1, 2004 Share Posted April 1, 2004 Received my Stelladaptor's earlier today. My paddles and joystick work great, but my Indy 500 driving controllers do not. The button works but turning the dial ("wheel") does nothing. I tried 2 different driving controllers and both of my 2 Stelladaptor's. I'm using Z26 v2.12 and have tried both the command line and the x26 front end. I went to gaming options in control panel with the driving controller plugged in and it seems to pass the test there. Help or suggestions??? Thanks, JL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted April 1, 2004 Share Posted April 1, 2004 The driving controller support only works, if z26 knows that a Stalladaptor is used. For the lack of a better detection method I'm assuming that every joystick with only two axis and two buttons is a Stelladaptor. Usually the Stelladaptor should identify itself this way to Windows and the right driver should be installed. If for some reason the Stelladaptor gets installed into Windows as a joystick with more than two axis and two buttons, the Stealladaptor autodetection in z26 wouldn't work. As you turn the driving controller it should send signals for "up - center - down - halfway down - up" and so on. I'm assuming it does this in the Windows controller dialog, right? Did you calibrate the Stelladaptor in this dialog? If you did, the values for these signals might not be in the correct range anymore, so that z26 can't read the signals properly anymore. These are the only possible problems I can come up with at the moment. Please let me know if it isn't one of them. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oesii Posted April 1, 2004 Share Posted April 1, 2004 Indy 500 was the first game I fired up when I got my stelladaptor yesterday The driving controller worked great, one thing I noticed is that I had another USB gamepad hooked up and the Windows>control panel>gaming options settings had by gamepad as Joystick #1 and the StellaUSB as #2. Most of my emulators as well as Z26 liked it better when I switched the settings and made the StellaUSB the #1 joystick in Windows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bivotar Posted April 1, 2004 Share Posted April 1, 2004 While I haven't had a chance to try the driving controller yet, I have tried the paddle and have a question. The paddles seem quite jittery. I know the paddles are good and have used them on a real 2600 with no problem (and no jitter). When trying to get the Stelladaptor to work, I did go through the calibration procedure in the Windows settings. Could this be the problem? What type of joystick should I pick (I believe it's set to 2-axis now)? I also had to make the Stelladaptor joystick #1 and switch my Gravis gamepad to joystick #2 before z26 would pick it up. Took me a while to figure that one out! Overall I LOVE my Stelladaptor and have been having a blast with it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oesii Posted April 1, 2004 Share Posted April 1, 2004 Ditto on the jittery paddles. I figured since this was the first release of Z26 with native support for the StellaUSB maybe the drivers aren't 100% yet. I'm sure it will get better in the future Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Posted April 1, 2004 Author Share Posted April 1, 2004 Eckhard, No did not calibrate. Only tested. I have no other gamepads/joysticks installed. "If for some reason the Stelladaptor gets installed into Windows as a joystick with more than two axis and two buttons" I will check on this tonight after work, and post my results to the thread. Thanks, JL The driving controller support only works, if z26 knows that a Stalladaptor is used. For the lack of a better detection method I'm assuming that every joystick with only two axis and two buttons is a Stelladaptor. Usually the Stelladaptor should identify itself this way to Windows and the right driver should be installed. If for some reason the Stelladaptor gets installed into Windows as a joystick with more than two axis and two buttons, the Stealladaptor autodetection in z26 wouldn't work. As you turn the driving controller it should send signals for "up - center - down - halfway down - up" and so on. I'm assuming it does this in the Windows controller dialog, right? Did you calibrate the Stelladaptor in this dialog? If you did, the values for these signals might not be in the correct range anymore, so that z26 can't read the signals properly anymore. These are the only possible problems I can come up with at the moment. Please let me know if it isn't one of them. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted April 1, 2004 Share Posted April 1, 2004 z26 always uses the first PC joystick for the left port and the second PC joystick for the right port. So your Stelladaptor should be listed in either the first or the second spot in the Windows controller settings dialog. If you only have one Stelladaptor and want to use it for the other Atari joystick port, you can use the -w command line otion to swap the ports in z26. This is done in Tac Scan by default for example, because this game uses a paddle on the right controller port. The Stelladaptor reads the paddles differently than the VCS. Unfortunately this results in a little jitter. For z26 I tried to filter this out. You can move the paddle freely as long as you move in the same direction. When you change the direction, the first step has to be a bit bigger before z26 would react to it. For all the paddles I had for testing this filters out almost all of the jitter and doesn't seem to be too noticeable. Is the jitter really that bad for you? What system and OS are you using? Have you tried to inactivate the mouse and/or keyboard input with the -iMK command line switch, to make sure that these controllers don't interfere with the Stelladaptor when playing a paddle game? Calibrating the paddles shouldn't have much effect on the jitter. It might make the paddles act a bit more jerky though. So it might be better to reset the calibration values to the default, so that Windows sends the data that it gets from the Stelladaptor directly to z26. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bivotar Posted April 1, 2004 Share Posted April 1, 2004 Is the jitter really that bad for you? What system and OS are you using? Have you tried to inactivate the mouse and/or keyboard input with the -iMK command line switch, to make sure that these controllers don't interfere with the Stelladaptor when playing a paddle game? The jitter is pretty bad. Kaboom was basically unplayable once the pace picked up, maybe 3-4 rounds in to the game. I'm using Windows 98. I haven't tried to inactivate the mouse or keyboard but will try that. Thanks for the suggestion! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted April 1, 2004 Share Posted April 1, 2004 The paddles tend to be a touch more jittery than on a real 2600, and this is noticeable in some games more than others. Overall, though, I feel they work pretty well. I've played Kaboom!, SCSIcide, Circus Atari, Breakout, Super Breakout, Night Driver, Warlords, and probably others I am forgetting about right now. Most paddle games I've tried play very well, but some, like Kaboom!, are more difficult to play once the game gets moving very fast (which in Kaboom!, does not take very long!) The driving controllers, which operate on a different principle, do not suffer any problems at all and pretty much work exactly as they do on a real 2600 (as do joysticks, of course). In my testing, though, the paddle jitter was not that bad, with a good set of paddles (I also tested several pairs of paddles on a real system to compare the real system versus using the Stelladaptor). We may end up finding that different combinations of PC hardware (operating systems, CPU speed) have different effects on the paddle support. ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Posted April 2, 2004 Author Share Posted April 2, 2004 Eckhard, I can't modify the stelladaptor axis/button settings in gaming devices probably because it's a HID device. I have no other gaming device or drivers installed and the stelladaptor is using controller id #1. Eckhard,No did not calibrate. Only tested. I have no other gamepads/joysticks installed. "If for some reason the Stelladaptor gets installed into Windows as a joystick with more than two axis and two buttons" I will check on this tonight after work, and post my results to the thread. Thanks, JL The driving controller support only works, if z26 knows that a Stalladaptor is used. For the lack of a better detection method I'm assuming that every joystick with only two axis and two buttons is a Stelladaptor. Usually the Stelladaptor should identify itself this way to Windows and the right driver should be installed. If for some reason the Stelladaptor gets installed into Windows as a joystick with more than two axis and two buttons, the Stealladaptor autodetection in z26 wouldn't work. As you turn the driving controller it should send signals for "up - center - down - halfway down - up" and so on. I'm assuming it does this in the Windows controller dialog, right? Did you calibrate the Stelladaptor in this dialog? If you did, the values for these signals might not be in the correct range anymore, so that z26 can't read the signals properly anymore. These are the only possible problems I can come up with at the moment. Please let me know if it isn't one of them. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted April 2, 2004 Share Posted April 2, 2004 @ JL When you try out the Stelladaptor in the Windows controller testing dialog, does it only display the square for the two axis and two circles for the two buttons, or are there any other inputs listed? I'm just trying to find out, if your Stelladptor is detected incorrectly in the Windows controller settings, which would prevent it from working in z26, or if there is something else inside z26 that is not working properly. Unfortunately there isn't a command line switch that you can use. I build in a switch to disable Stelladaptor support, but none to enforce it. I expected problems with other controllers being incorrectly detected as Stelladaptors, but I didn't see something like this comming. If the problem really is that your Stelladaptor is listed as something different than a two-axis two-buttons controller in Windows, I'll add a command line switch to handle that to the next version of z26. @Bivotar, Oesi, Albert I don't think that different computer speeds or operating systems could have much impact on the jitter. The values from the Stalladaptor should get passed through to the emulator pretty much directly. But since the Stelladaptor checks the voltage to read the paddle, it might be possible that getting slightly unstable power from the USB port might cause some jitter. It might be worth trying out, if the situation improves, if you connect your Stelladaptor to an active USB hub with it's own power supply. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Posted April 2, 2004 Author Share Posted April 2, 2004 Eckhard, Thank you for your help. Tonight after work, I will send you some screen captures from the Windows controller dialog. I tried the Stelladaptor and z26 last night on my laptop and the Indy 500 controllers worked. My laptop is running Windows 2000, but the pc where the Indy controllers don't work is a Windows 98 box. Regarding jitter I don't get much at all on either my pc or laptop. On my pc I use a USB hub whose power connection goes into a UPS. As for my laptop I was running off the battery when I tested. So as you said maybe if you are drawing power from an unstable source (a wall outlet) that jitter is more pronounced? JL @ JLWhen you try out the Stelladaptor in the Windows controller testing dialog, does it only display the square for the two axis and two circles for the two buttons, or are there any other inputs listed? I'm just trying to find out, if your Stelladptor is detected incorrectly in the Windows controller settings, which would prevent it from working in z26, or if there is something else inside z26 that is not working properly. Unfortunately there isn't a command line switch that you can use. I build in a switch to disable Stelladaptor support, but none to enforce it. I expected problems with other controllers being incorrectly detected as Stelladaptors, but I didn't see something like this comming. If the problem really is that your Stelladaptor is listed as something different than a two-axis two-buttons controller in Windows, I'll add a command line switch to handle that to the next version of z26. @Bivotar, Oesi, Albert I don't think that different computer speeds or operating systems could have much impact on the jitter. The values from the Stalladaptor should get passed through to the emulator pretty much directly. But since the Stelladaptor checks the voltage to read the paddle, it might be possible that getting slightly unstable power from the USB port might cause some jitter. It might be worth trying out, if the situation improves, if you connect your Stelladaptor to an active USB hub with it's own power supply. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oesii Posted April 2, 2004 Share Posted April 2, 2004 Thanks for the suggestions regarding the paddles. I have three different USB ports I can try later this weekend. I can plug it directly into the computer, an unpowered hub, and a powered hub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Posted April 3, 2004 Author Share Posted April 3, 2004 Eckhard, It seems to detect the adaptor correctly and joysticks and paddles are ok. JL @ JLWhen you try out the Stelladaptor in the Windows controller testing dialog, does it only display the square for the two axis and two circles for the two buttons, or are there any other inputs listed? I'm just trying to find out, if your Stelladptor is detected incorrectly in the Windows controller settings, which would prevent it from working in z26, or if there is something else inside z26 that is not working properly. Unfortunately there isn't a command line switch that you can use. I build in a switch to disable Stelladaptor support, but none to enforce it. I expected problems with other controllers being incorrectly detected as Stelladaptors, but I didn't see something like this comming. If the problem really is that your Stelladaptor is listed as something different than a two-axis two-buttons controller in Windows, I'll add a command line switch to handle that to the next version of z26. @Bivotar, Oesi, Albert I don't think that different computer speeds or operating systems could have much impact on the jitter. The values from the Stalladaptor should get passed through to the emulator pretty much directly. But since the Stelladaptor checks the voltage to read the paddle, it might be possible that getting slightly unstable power from the USB port might cause some jitter. It might be worth trying out, if the situation improves, if you connect your Stelladaptor to an active USB hub with it's own power supply. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted April 3, 2004 Share Posted April 3, 2004 Joysticks and paddles work the same, no matter if they are emulated with a Stalladapter or a normal PC-joystick. But the driving controller emulation needs to be handled differently on the Stelladaptor. Since I couldn't come up with a better way to autodetect the Stelladaptor, I'm assuming that a joystick with only 2 axes and 2 buttons must be a Stalladaptor. For some reason Windows detected your Stelladaptor as a joystick with 2 axes, 6 buttons and a PoV head. Therefore the autodetection in z26 fails and the driving controller emulation doesn't work. I know you can't edit the joystick properties in the Windows controller dialog. But maybe it would work, if you deleted the Stelladaptor from the controller list and manually created a new entry for it. The new entry should be for a "2 axes, 2 buttons joystick". In any way, I guess I'll better add an override funtion to the next version of z26, that lets you enforce Stelladaptor mode. You never know what other weird thinks Windows can come up with. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Posted April 3, 2004 Author Share Posted April 3, 2004 Eckhard, Thanks for the detailed description of how the Stelladaptor works. Although you can't edit the properties of the HID device using Gaming Options, they can be modified in the registry. So I changed: FROM: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetControlMediaPropertiesPrivatePropertiesJoystickOEMVID_04D8&PID_BEEF] "OEMData"=hex:00,00,00,10,06,00,00,00 "OEMCallout"="joyhid.vxd" "OEMName"="Stelladaptor 2600-to-USB Interface" TO: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetControlMediaPropertiesPrivatePropertiesJoystickOEMVID_04D8&PID_BEEF] "OEMData"=hex:00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00 "OEMCallout"="joyhid.vxd" "OEMName"="Stelladaptor 2600-to-USB Interface" Restarted and it worked :) Thank you for all your help and especially for coding z26 to work with the Stelladaptor. JL P.S. In any way, I guess I'll better add an override funtion to the next version of z26, that lets you enforce Stelladaptor mode I think that is a great idea! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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