getting a joystick to work

[foenix phyre]

Hi.

I Recentally downloaded Privateer Parallel Universe and I would like to use my gamepad to play. Could anyone tell me how I can do that? I have a dual analog stick with 12 buttons in my game controllers configuration on my computer its called GGE909 PC recoil pad. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[loki1950]

Welcome foenix phyre first a question what OS are you running just for my reference as i like to tailor my answers to the poster's and they put things in different places.If you are using windows in with the exe and dll's you should find two text files stdout.txt and stderr.txt (run the game with your game pad plugged in first) It's the first file we want stdout.txt near the beginning of it will be a section similar to this from my install

Code: Select all

The names of the joysticks are:
    Logitech Inc. WingMan Force 3D
axes: 4 buttons: 7 hats: 1

which will tell us how SDL sees it then we assign some binding in the vegastrike.config file something like here from our wiki http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/media ... s:Joystick scroll down the page there are two game pad examples a Logitech Dual Analog and PS2 controller with a usb adaptor if that's enough for you to run with fine but if you need further clarification and help just post

Enjoy the Choice

[foenix phyre]

Im' using windows vista. here is what i get.


The names of the joysticks are:
Microsoft PC-joystick driver
axes: 4 buttons: 12 hats: 1
FactionXML:LoadXML factions.xml
Compiling python module modules/dj.py
SITUATION IS 1 force change 1 bool 1
SITUATION IS RESET TO 1
Ppeace
Contents of star system:
<system name="Empty" background="backgrounds/black" nearstars="0" stars="0" starspread="0" y="0" z="0" x="0">

</system>

i am not quite sure wht to do with this info.
thanks

[loki1950]

Well it tells us that it has 4 axis x y z and maybe throttle and 12 buttons and 1 hat switch the d-pad most likely

Now we start the fun stuff first you will need a proper editor to help check that you made valid edits i use Notepad++ windows side now to find where the active copy of vegastrike.config is stored at the beginning of that other text file stderr there is something like this

Code: Select all

found data in /home/denis/Projects/Vegastrike/PlayGround/data/bin/..
Using /home/denis/Projects/Vegastrike/PlayGround/data as data directory
USING HOMEDIR : /home/denis/.vegastrike As the home directory 
CONFIGFILE - Found a config file in home directory, using : /home/denis/.vegastrike/vegastrike.config

that will be where the config file we will edit is that is also where you will find your saves when you have any
when you ran the game with the pad plugged in did any on the buttons respond as we have to figure out how the labels on them match the numbers that the config file uses as the numbers start with 0(zero) try running the setup.exe
and 3-axis and throttle as a joystick setting and experiment a bit see if you can find the bottom that fires your gun as the tarsus only has the one when you start that will be button number "0"

The file is XML so in notepad++ choose it as the Language but we are getting a bit ahead of our selves a bit
try this first and report back when you can.

Enjoy the Choice

[foenix phyre]

here is what i came up with

Found data in ..
Using D:\priv_pu as data directory
USING HOMEDIR : D:\priv_pu/.pu As the home directory
CONFIGFILE - Found a config file in home directory, using : D:\priv_pu/.pu/vegastrike.config

when i run the game with the 3 axis joystick no buttons respond at all. my buttons are labeled on the controller 1 - 8 and in my control panel under game controllers i can see that select and start are 9 and 10 and the two analog sticks when pushed down are 11 and 12. I dont know if this has anything to do with it but i also could never get the mouse to work. my main concern tho is the joystick. again thanks for the help it is appreciated.

also just as a side note i've noticed that whenever i run PU at any detail less then extreme it either wont start or crashes when i try to actually load or start a game

[loki1950]

i run PU at any detail less then extreme it either wont start or crashes when i try to actually load or start a game

Do you have Aero turned off i would recommend that as it will interfere with any OpenGL game and i think that PU's config file needs a bit of work when it comes to those options.
Mouse not working at all then we may have an other problem as a joystick will use the same interface as the mouse so it may not be getting input from the gamepad or the mouse.BTW PU have there own forums now and you can find me there as well WCJunctionbut lets see if the mouse issue can be fixed what did you choose in the setup app and does the mouse work on the bases including the wheel on the cargo screens.

Enjoy the Choice

[foenix phyre]

the moouse works on the bases its only on hte ship that nothing works right. i've tried all the mouse options. and turning off arial worked with hte crashing thanks.

[Darth Smeg]

I may be able to help, having recently spent some time getting my Xbox 360 Gamepad to work with Vegastrike.

The Xbox 360 Controller has 2 analogue sticks, 2 analoge triggers (that act as axis), a digital hat and 10 buttons. However, the axis are laid out a bit wierd, so I had alot of trouble figuring out how to map these. Until I discovered the little tool called js_demo from the flightgear.org site.

This little gem can be downloaded here: http://flightgear.jpn.org/modules/d3dow ... d=6&lid=20
When you run it, it will display status of all detected axis and buttons from your joystick as seen by SDL, and it uses the same axis-numbering as Vegastrike (first axis is #0, and so on). Run it, wiggle your sticks and make a note of which stick corresponds to what axis, etc. This will help editing your config file later.
I would recommend the devs nab this little util from the flightgear boys, and include it in VS, as it was very helpful to me.

Your pad has 4 axis, and I would recommend using the first three for VS x,y and z axis (z axis being used to roll your ship left and right). The 4th axis will be useless as a throttle, as the analogue sticks revert to the "neutral" (0) position when you release them. Instead, map it to a hat, and use it as buttons that you can map to any functions you like.

The Xbox controller also has 2 triggers, that are separate axis that only go form 0 to -1 (whereas other axis go from -1 to 1). As such, these are of limited use if you bind them as axis in VS. Instead, they can be bound as hats with only one direction (or button, if you like). If your controller do not have triggers, ignore all this

Finally, I found that some sections in the config file that should be ignored (settings for other joystick selections) would override those in my selected section. This is probably due to some incorrect tags or comment closings, either by me or the devs, but my solution was to delete all other joystick bindings in the config file, and setting my own settings outside any comment/selection tags.

Hope this helps a little. The wiki-documentation could use some brushing up, it refers to features "currently broken" that actually work, and lack info about how to check the stdout.txt file to see how VS sees your joystick. It took a lot of restarts for me to try to piece together which sticks were which axis, etc, etc.

But now it all works the way I want

Edit: The link to js_demo.exe was borked. Fixed it

[foenix phyre]

The problem is Parellel Universe doesnt seem to detect teh joystick at all. Or the mouse for that matter. Mouse works fine in bases tho.

[Darth Smeg]

Well, the program sees your joystick, as shown in your second post where you refer to your stdout.txt file.
I suppose the issue is whether you've correctly told it how to read this joystick.

As noted in my previous post I had issues where some buttons would not work, because my instructions were overridden by bindings in another section. It's possible (even probable) that I hosed the config file on my own, but to be sure I would
a) make a backup of the config file
b) remove every other joystick-related binding line than the ones you are trying to use

Run the little js_demo program to make sure that SDL is actually reading activity from your stick, and check that the joystick number reported is the same as you are defining in the config file.

Does anything work at all? Can you move the ship around with the joystick?

[loki1950]

Welcome to this site Darth Smeg and tanks for chiming in you mention having problems getting the edit done so that it is valid get notepadd++ that i mentioned earlier it has syntax highlighting for 20 coding languages and XML the config file's format is one of them it also can open multiple files at a time.

Enjoy the Choice