Do games like Wing Commander 2 and 3 on GOG work fine with USB flight sticks?

Decay

Ensign
Because this is the type of joystick I have (found it for $3 at a goodwill)

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-WingMan-Extreme-Joystick-Throttle/dp/B00001W01M

I like, have my finger on the trigger ready to buy both these games on GoG but I have this fear of what happened when trying to get my copy of Strike Commander working through dos box with the joystick.

Strike Commander itself loaded up and played fine buy whenever I used the joystick with it, the cursor would constantly slide to the left side of the screen, I messed with it for like 2 days straight using various fix methods i found on google (there aren't many topics where people are trying to get Strike Commander working lol) but absolutely nothing would fix it so I gave up and uninstalled the game. :(

So yea, I am all gung ho for buying and playing WC2 and 3 on GOG. But if they won't support my joystick without issues I can't justify it.
 
- Are you running logitech profiler software?
- Do you experience "drifting" in other games as well?

Games themselves allow you to configure the "deadzone", making it less sensitive.. There is a link on the GOG forums here, and possibly providing a solution: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/wing_commander_series/joystick_deadzone

Yep I use the profiler software, but Strike Commander through Dosbox is the only game that gives me this issue. I know GOG games basically just run in preconfigured dosbox. So I am a little wary about the joystick support.
 
Dosbox supports all USB joysticks, it is essentially the whole point. In actuality it emulates the joystick for the game, and has a list of various joysticks that it emulates ranging from a simple 4 button joystick to, a thrustmaster. It then takes the calls from whatever joystick you have plugged in and inputs them as the emulated joystick. You can technically configure whatever keyboard button you want to make a joystick call or viseversa by pressing ctrl-f1. Your issues could be related with timed intervals which you may either have to turn off or on, as joysticks work fine in Strike Commander though i did remember it being real finicky for some reason. Did you make sure your joystick was calibrated in your OS before you launched dosbox? that would also cause whatever internal game calibration to fail.
 
Dosbox supports all USB joysticks, it is essentially the whole point. In actuality it emulates the joystick for the game, and has a list of various joysticks that it emulates ranging from a simple 4 button joystick to, a thrustmaster. It then takes the calls from whatever joystick you have plugged in and inputs them as the emulated joystick. You can technically configure whatever keyboard button you want to make a joystick call or viseversa by pressing ctrl-f1. Your issues could be related with timed intervals which you may either have to turn off or on, as joysticks work fine in Strike Commander though i did remember it being real finicky for some reason. Did you make sure your joystick was calibrated in your OS before you launched dosbox? that would also cause whatever internal game calibration to fail.

As far as Strike Commander, I did calibrate my joystick through the Windows 7 joystick settings. but I don't know how to check out "timed intervals". This is the problem I have with Strike Commander...detailed on one of the posts here...

http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?showID=548&letter=S

Logitec extreme 3d pro and mouse interaction (2009-11-18 17:22) caskeyma
DosBox .72 and.73 both have the same problem after installing the game I have a strange interaction between the mouse and joystick. After calibrating the joy stick the mouse wants to travel to the upper right hand corner of the screen. The only way to get control over the mouse is to take the joystick and hold it in the lower right position. Then you have control over the mouse. I have seen other posts on the mouse and joy stick not operating correctly and do not see any posts on solution. DOES THE DOSBOX TEAM HAVE ANY IDEAS

Then another post here is most likely a similar issue (which ironically this user has the same joystick as me)...

Joystick (2007-03-10 11:04) hawk83
Now strike commander finally works, but I am having joystick problems.(I have a Logitech extreme 3d pro). I have tried several times to calibrate the joystick in the game, but it doesn�t change. The plane keeps rolling around like the joystick is totally uncalibrated. How do I fix it??

Here is another topic about the issue...he mentioned something about "timed" which I assume is the timed intervals thing but he claims it disables the joystick completely.

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=18493&sid=9c3c10ec4b98780589bb55ff2f4f54e4

I've tried all the solution presented on that page and nothing worked. So frustrating cause I got the game working fine apart from the joystick, and I miss playing Strike Commander soooo much! I hope GOG adds it to their store some day, along with Privateer 2!
 
Don't forget the profiler software could be messing things up. By taking out the middleware, and setting up your joystick directly in windows(joy.cpl), you might have more success.
 
Don't forget the profiler software could be messing things up. By taking out the middleware, and setting up your joystick directly in windows(joy.cpl), you might have more success.

Hmm I didnt think of that, I can try it as well. I also wanna figure out where this "timed intervals" option is.
 
timed=true / false in the dosbox config file. or you can just type "timed true/false" in the dosbox console. No it doesn't turn off joystick, only changes the way inwhich it behaves. Cycles could also have an effect. Perhaps setting to a fixed setting rather then auto. Some games like armada has issues with this as well.
 
Back
Top