Questions from New Pilot.

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:09 pm

MKG wrote:
And that's only because I have on-board graphics, so my 2 Gig is greatly reduced in reality.

Mind you, I've never tried running anything else at the same time as Oolite, but then why would I want to?

Thus your onboard-memory solution appears to be faster than "accelerated" OpenGL by ATI on the fastest card they sell! Pretty much proves what every OpenGL ATI user says: Their drivers are defunct.

About running other programs - there's a simple reason: When I hear the "new message" pling, I would switch anyway, and sometimes I do use the trading lanes in the hope to find pirates with cargo, thargoids to remove as a navy mission, the random hits target and so on. In such cases, I do need something to do while waiting for the next thing to happen! Since I do have two monitors and it does NOT slow things further down, I usually have a browser running together with oolite...

Screet

Pitchblack · Post by **Pitchblack** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:42 am

Good news, a freind of mine donated 512 mb ddr ram to me! now Oolite is running fine.

Bad News....Virus troubles, going to get the same freind to help me fix the broken files.

Also My ATI Card has great support for everything, I have never encountered an issue.

_ds_ · Post by **_ds_** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:54 am

Screet wrote:
MKG wrote:
And that's only because I have on-board graphics, so my 2 Gig is greatly reduced in reality.
Thus your onboard-memory solution appears to be faster than "accelerated" OpenGL by ATI on the fastest card they sell! Pretty much proves what every OpenGL ATI user says: Their drivers are defunct.

As well that I'm using xf86-video-ati, then

Pitchblack · Post by **Pitchblack** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 2:09 am

Now im having issues with my joystick. I cant get it to work, is there some other program i need to get it to work? I know the thing works as ive used it on other flight games (freespace,Xwing) when i used those however i had a usb converter, sadly however i lent this to a friend who cant get it back to me for a while so i am stuck with out it. Now this shouldent be a problem as my soundcard actually has a plug for joysticks, but i have not tested it on anything but Oolite. Any suggestions to help me get this working?

Post by **another_commander** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:20 am

If it is a 6-axis stick, try switching it to 4-axis. If this does not help, we will need some more information as to what exactly goes wrong.

Pitchblack · Post by **Pitchblack** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:35 pm

I dont know how to switch axis even if i knew wether it was 6 or 4, but I do know that i dont get any response from any movements, It is supposed to be a plug in and play Joystick ( this is all i did for my other games).

Im wondering if it is simply not working where it is or whether I need To install specific drivers/programs/whatever.

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:45 pm

Pitchblack wrote:
Im wondering if it is simply not working where it is or whether I need To install specific drivers/programs/whatever.

Unless I got the previous messages wrong, you have it now attached to gameport instead of USB. I doubt that Windows or anything else automatically scans that one for changes all the time. Furthermore, if it's not the port on board of a soundcard but on the Motherboard, you may have it disabled in the BIOS setup.

Have you tried to attach the stick and then ask your computer to scan for hardware changes? If so, and if it's not attached to the soundcard but to the motherboard, ensure that the port is enabled in BIOS setup.

Screet

Pitchblack · Post by **Pitchblack** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:25 pm

This may sound stupid of me but how do i ask to search for new hardware changes?

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:39 pm

Pitchblack wrote:
This may sound stupid of me but how do i ask to search for new hardware changes?

Vista:
right click on computer
select "manage"
in the left list, select "device manager"
in the middle list, select your computers name and right click
select "scan for hardware changes"

there are other ways to do that, too...but I think that one's pretty direct

IIRC XP was very similar in that approach. If necessary, tell me and I'll boot up that other machine. I just don't really store these things exactly in my brain, it's just that I need to sit in front of the machine. Then I usually don't need to search or think about it...strange.

Screet

Pitchblack · Post by **Pitchblack** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:43 pm

I am running Xp So the vista idea does not work. thanks though.

Ive tryed the cd that came with it , it runs but then it wont respond to either of the 2 buttons it has (usb or gameport)

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:56 pm

Pitchblack wrote:
I am running Xp So the vista idea does not work. thanks though.

Ive tryed the cd that came with it , it runs but then it wont respond to either of the 2 buttons it has (usb or gameport)

Just launched that XP machine...in that approach I named, it's exactly the same steps as in Vista.

If you use a driver from CD, you most probably can get a newer driver via internet - may solve some problems.

That the buttons do not react does sound like some other problem, though. Via "control panel" you can go to "game controllers". It should list your stick! There you should be able to test it - I haven't got my stick on the XP machine, but it should be "properties".

If that does react to your buttons, then it's probably an oolite configuration problem. If that does not react, then you've got a communication problem between your stick and XP. In that case, search for a newer driver.

Sometimes third party drivers provide their own control/configuration stuff - if such a program is provided, you may want to have a closer look to it, maybe it needs some different configuration.

Screet

Pitchblack · Post by **Pitchblack** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:03 pm

Thanks. Sadly the problems not getting Oolite to run it. The problem is getting the gameport to detect it. I looked under (and have fiddled with) the game Controlers menu but nothing came of it.

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:23 pm

Pitchblack wrote:
Thanks. Sadly the problems not getting Oolite to run it. The problem is getting the gameport to detect it. I looked under (and have fiddled with) the game Controlers menu but nothing came of it.

Hmmmm. That's not nice. Do I get this correct that your driver CD doesn't seem to do anything when you try to install drivers by launching it's installer?

Could it be that you previously had the USB driver installed before you gave away that adapter? In that case, you might need to uninstall that driver first before you can re-install the gameport version. If the driver did create it's own folder in the start menu, you may have an uninstaller there. If not, you probably have an uninstaller accessible via control panels, software.

If that's not the problem, check for newer drivers for that stick as it won't hurt to have them anyway. With some luck, they might install and detect the stick properly by themselves. If not...I'm close to repeating now:

Sometimes Windows still requires to detect the hardware and then have the user to point windows to the proper driver, not the other way around. Therefore, if that driver doesn't want to install by itself, please try that "scan for hardware" thing again.

If nothing comes up and your stick is attached to the motherboard (not the soundcard!), please reboot your machine, enter BIOS setup and verify that your gameport is enabled (usually the default is yes, but I'm one of those who switches such stuff off if it's not in use and I am surely not the only one).

If the gameport wasn't enabled, enable it, save the settings, boot windows and then scan again for hardware changes.

If that doesn't help...let's hope someone else has a good idea of what could be wrong, as that's the typical stuff I'd been looking for.

Screet

Pitchblack · Post by **Pitchblack** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:27 pm

Thanks, your help has been invaluable as you have helped me narrow down the problem. If this last thing does not work then ill simply wait a few weeks for my friend to inevitably find or (or replace it)

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:37 pm

Pitchblack wrote:
Thanks, your help has been invaluable as you have helped me narrow down the problem. If this last thing does not work then ill simply wait a few weeks for my friend to inevitably find or (or replace it)

Really, I'd prefer that the problem could be solved right now. I like to solve problems, maybe because of spending so much time programming and bug hunting...

If the problem is not that you cannot visit that friend so soon but that he doesn't know where he put it, maybe you could ask him to consider where he would put it, if he removes it and is in a hurry, and where he would put it if he removes it and tries to place it in some "safe" place. Another good question is "what have I been doing when I removed it?".

I'm usually asking myself those questions, when I cannot find something. Typically helps! I once lost my keys...could not find them for three days and got worried, as I had a master key for the universities high tech institute. I then did ask myself the same questions. I came up with "I built my computer (from parts) and then put all the metal parts that were not required into the motherboards package!" - went there and found my keys! It also helps with all that hardware stuff I've somewhere in my home. Hell...I've got almost 100 square meters here, and although I'm single, it's FULL. Especially with hardware, both in use and old devices that I didn't throw away as it wasn't defunct, but only outdated

Screet