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View Full Version : stupid gamepad *sniff*



icewyrm
Dec 30, 2006, 12:31 PM
Ok, so I'm down with the whole keyboard thing but it's starting to cain my wrists a bit for psu. So I think, how about grabbing my old sidewinder gamepad and using that?

So I plug it into my gameport, and tried to get it working, realising a little while later that the port is linked to my motherboards onboard sound card, which is disabled so I can use my offboard soundcard.

Anyways, I decided to hell with it, I'll my sidewinder precision2 usb joystick. Might even feel alright in PSU, at least I could use it for camera panning or such if it doesn't. So I plug it in and start using it and then this weird buzzing noise starts happening.

Huh? I plug in a usb joystick and suddenly my soundcard starts outputting trash over the optical digital out? This is driving me nuts. So I fiddle with PSU and some other games, trying to figure out whats going on. Eventually I unplug the joystick, and find that the noise keeps coming back after a few seconds anyway, as long as I keep using the optical/5.1 profile. So I decide not to worry about it for now, and to just download a torrent I'd been looking for. So I grab it and queue it up, and start browsing some forums.

Now PSU decides it's a good time to lock up, so I fire up task manager and kill it. Then, opera decides to die in the ass(loading a big picture thread). So I kill it too. Then task manager locked. Ugh. So I was gonna run some command line tools to clear up this mess without killing my torrent, when explorer locks. Then all my autohotkeys die (just before I could get a command prompt open), and finally all I could do was wave my mouse cursor around and (somewhat mysteriously) control winamp with it's inbuilt hotkeys.

BAH!

I left the pc for a couple of minutes. Tried using VNC/pstools to get control back via the old dell downstairs, no joy. So I come back and hit the reset button.

Yay! The torrent had finished quickly, there was no write caching errors or such, and the stupid sound problem had stopped. But damned if I'm gonna try using a gamepad again D:

darthsaber9x9
Dec 31, 2006, 09:43 AM
It sounds like you handled a lock-up much better than I do. If stuff locks up I generally just start swearing loads. I'd have given in and hit the power long before you did!

Ruby-chan
Dec 31, 2006, 11:30 PM
I don't suppose you re-enabled your onboard sound card in an effort to get your old gamepad working? Perhaps that had something to do with your problem.

icewyrm
Jan 1, 2007, 09:06 AM
Nah, soundcard is disabled in bios >.>
Did a bios update and the gameport now works independately of the onboard sound anyway. Also, I fiddled some more and the joystick and gamepad both work now. Still haven't been using them in PSU though, I think the old sidewinder pad doesn't have enough buttons/axis >.>

Ruby-chan
Jan 2, 2007, 03:59 PM
Personally if I were you I would just go out and buy a gamepad for $20. Most gamestops stock a Logitech pad that works just like a PS2 pad, and has some pretty nice features if you want to enable the special drivers for it. (I don't think they're worth it, BTW, but some people like shift keys and such.) Or you can pick up a 360 pad too, as those are hand comfy and work, though I think the logitech is better for the price.

Oh yes, Walmart may have pads that do the same thing and are even cheaper than the $20 price point.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ruby-chan on 2007-01-02 13:00 ]</font>