USB gamepad confusion

[Guest watchitman]

Joystick support in Linux has always confused me. The documentation is generally terrible and I sometimes wonder if more then a handful of people in the world understand it at all. The nice thing about Mandrake is that when I bought my AxisPad and plugged it in, it worked - mostly. Some games see it, other games don't (even if they have joystick support). It's still very confusing. There are a few games I'd like to play with a gamepad that don't offer joystick support. So I went and tried qjoystick and joy2key, niether of which see my USB gamepad. I've looked in HardDrake but I see no listing for a gamepad or even a USB device that might be the gamepad. Oddly, there is a listing for the 'rumble' feature of the AxisPad and it's not supported.

 

If that is as clear as mud, I think it illustrates my confusion. Is there anyone anywhere that can either explain this in terms a dummy can understand or link me to some documentation that a dummy can understand? Any help would be appreciated.

[devries]

Basically what happens when you plug in your AxisPad a driver (called module is Linux) is loaded and depending on what features the driver support you can use your gamepad. (most manufacturers don't release the specs or don't provide for a linux driver so some features might be missing).

 

I'm not much of a games expert (use only xmame and that works very well with my Microsoft Sidewinder) but my guess would be that the games you're trying to play lack gamepad/joystick control (in xmame you have to compile it in else it doesn't work) or you haven't changed the playersettings. :). Or you're using cedega to play partially supported windows games.

[Guest watchitman]

That doesn't really answer my questions or if it does, it's not penetrating my thick skull. Why doesn't my gamepad show up in HardDrake? How do I use joy2key with my USB gamepad for games that don't support joysticks? Obviously, someone wrote a module, whether the manufacture relesed the spec or not and it's working so why isn't there better documentation? Wouldn't we all benefit from a better explaination for this stuff? I'm totally confused and what you just said doesn't supply any information I wasn't already aware (befuddled) about.

 

I don't have a clue what "cedega" is.

[devries]

It does show up in Harddrake (as the rumble feauture) only harddrake makes a mess of showing it to you. If you can use the Axispad it is working. Forget about harddrake. :)

 

The people who wrote the Linux driver (module) I'm pretty sure have documented there efforts (though I've been to lazy to look it up). But programs like Joy2Pad have nothing to do with this module. It's a seperate project. If you have problems getting it to work you should gve us some mor information: like what have you tried, do you get any error messages etc etc. Just saying it doesn't work isn't very helpfull.

 

Really there isn't much more explaining then I just gave you. You plug it in, a driver is loaded, it works and depending on the feaures games or appllications like joy2key need you can use it.

 

If it didn't work you would need to look up what module you need, check if there is a newer version, maybe build a new kernel etc etc but you don't need all that. It works. :)

 

Now you just eed to configure games and joy2key. So I suggest you forget about the modules and all that USB stuff and try solving you rproblems with joy2key and your games.

 

Have fun :D

[Guest watchitman]

I guess that makes sense. :)

 

When I start joy2key I get this message:

 

Error opening /dev/js0!

Are you sure you have joystick support in your kernel?

 

But we've already established that the module is working. I can only assume the gamepad is not mounted at /dev/js0. I'd like to point out that I compiled this thing from source. I'm surprised it compiled at all as I really don't know what I'm doing. I'm not a programmer. It did error out when attempting to compile/create/whatever the manual so I can't type "man joy2key" and read the documentation. The binary did compile and install however.

 

When I attampt to use qjoypad I get this message:

 

No joystick devices are currently available to configure.

Please plug in a game device and select

"Update joystick Devices" From the popup menu.

 

I guess that means qjoypad doesn't support USB gamepads or at least not this one. Btw, attempting to Update joystick Devices doesn't help. :P

[devries]

Do you perhaps have a/dev/js or a dev/js1?. Else look in /dev/input to see what charcter device is for your AxisPad. Then try pointing the joy2key program to that one (ie. not to /dev/js0 but to /dev/js or /dev/js1)

 

Good luck

Edited September 13, 2004 by devries

[Guest watchitman]

Do you perhaps have a/dev/js or a dev/js1?. Else look in /dev/input to see what charcter device is for your AxisPad. Then try pointing the joy2key program to that one (ie. not to /dev/js0 but to /dev/js or /dev/js1)

 

Good luck

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

There is no /dev/js or /dev/js1. There is a /dev/input directory. In there are four items: event0, event1, mice and mouse0. I tried joy2key -dev /dev/input/event0 and joy2key -dev /dev/input/event1 and all I got was this error: joy2key: error getting axes: Invalid argument.

[devries]

Well I think we can conclude a joystick and gamepad are not the same then :) (btw my guess would be that event0 is your keyboard. do a cat /dev/input/event0 and press a key. If you see something happening it's your keyboard. (do this only if your curious :) ) Try the other input devices in joy2key))

 

And since joy2key seems to be just for keyboards try using this: http://qjoypad.sourceforge.net/ It should work with gamepads.

 

Good luck.

Edited September 14, 2004 by devries