So, my MS Precision Steering wheel arrived today! All excited, I hooked up the wheel to the computer via the USB port, watched the popup message from windows saying the wheel is installed and I'm all ready to go!

NOT SO FAST!

I go to lfs controls and spend about 45 minutes trying to setup the wheel with various forms of success. At one point, I *think* I got the accelerator and the brake working. But I cannot, in any way, get the steering itself to work. I've tried all possibilities and options, but, basically, after a calibration, the wheel is perfectly centered, but after I move it just slightly, it starts jumping around madly. After a few seconds it settles, but the deadzone just jumps around from ten o'clock to two o'clock.

Wondering if any other games would do that, I loaded up NFS Hot Pursuit 2 and voila! Absolutely no problems, and even the brakes and the gas pedals work perfectly fine(and are not detected as a single axis as in LFS).

So, this is obviously no a wheel problem, but an inside LFS problem. I would appreciate any help and advice.

Yours,

truly frustrated

Anyone?...

Did you calibrate the steering properly too? Turned the wheel from lock to lock?

I use the same wheel for many years now and never ever had such problems.

Did you install the drivers?

And another point is: since this wheel is not manufactured any more for some years now you must have bought it used. So maybe it's just damaged..??

Christian,

Well, the wheel has NO drivers, per se. Windows XP just installs the drivers by default, so it's plug'n'play.
You guessed right, I bought it used (from Germany, har har!), but it can't be defect or broken, because other games run it perfectly fine. I've just ran it on GTL and in NFS MW2, in addition to NFS HP2.

Matrixi: YES! I did the calibration test several times, and I even ran the game in alt tab to see what windows sees. Let me upload a screen shot.

EDIT: here it is. As you can see, the wheel is perfectly centered in the windows settings, but is totally off in lfs.

there is a driver for it, you can download it here: http://www.technikteam.de/software/download.php?id=500

i only use it to change pedal axis to seperate though.

did you lock the calibration in lfs?

Thanks for the link, I will try the drivers, though I heard that they usually do NOT work.

Calibration lock causes my wheel to stop responding.

I tried the drivers, but all they do is point me at the standart microsoft xp settings, nothing else.

Also, I noticed one more strange thing. The axes indicators in LFS work perfectly fine!! That is, they detect wheel turning just fine. However, the actual turning of the car is sporradic and jumps around.

I am absolutely clueless.

When the drivers are installed, then you should have access to a custom control panel for the wheel (see attachments).

And if you PM me your email I could send you the original drivers I copied from the CD that comes with the wheel when you buy it new. That's because AFAIK the drivers V. 4.0 usually only contain the drivers for one single controller and the ones you find for download on the net are mostly for the FFB wheel. For example the drivers from my CD are unpacked about 10 MB and the ones from the link provided by dodo.ger are 15 MB. So they might possibly not be the correct ones.

But on the other side the wheel should still work even without the drivers, just with combined pedals.

Thanks Christian, I sent you my email adress. Indeed, your program looks different from what I downloaded. I will, of course, try it and pray that it works, even though I am skeptical, as it seems to be a LFS-specific problem...

Christian,

I got the program, and it has not really helped a dime The problem is the same, and I cannot possibly imagine what else I could do. I will try reposting this in the Bugs forum, as it might seem like an LFS specific problem.

Quote from dodo.ger :

there is a driver for it, you can download it here: http://www.technikteam.de/software/download.php?id=500

i only use it to change pedal axis to seperate though.

did you lock the calibration in lfs?

I was reading this thread because I have a MS wheel as well (a Sidewinder Force Feedback USB).
I'd like to have seperate pedals zo i tried the driver from the technikteam site.

It installs nicely. and in the test function i do have seperate pedals which move fluidly.
But in LFS, no matter what calibration i trie, throttle is working great, but the break pedal has only 3 options, off, on or halfway.

The new driver doesn't have a calibration option either
Any idea's ?

i really dont know why there is a problem with the sidewinder, i once didnt work for me too, but after reinstalling xp with sp2 and usb 2.0 drivers it worked without any problem.

i dont think its a problem with lfs though, just like most times microsoft...

Quote from dodo.ger :

i really dont know why there is a problem with the sidewinder, i once didnt work for me too, but after reinstalling xp with sp2 and usb 2.0 drivers it worked without any problem.

i dont think its a problem with lfs though, just like most times microsoft...

That was my guess as well, but the weird thing is that the testfunction shows that it works beautifully, but LFS wont.

Ill try another game, maybe it'll make a difference

Thanks for the reply !

[edit]
I tried (the uber realistic racing simulator) Flatout...:P Same problem.

What i need is a calibration in windows. The normal control panel version is gone after installing this driver.

I got DXTweak. This shows me that the "raw" input of the pedal is fine, but the DirectInput value is the crazy one...

Somehow pressing apply a couple of times fixed the DirectInput one to comply with the raw value.

Im gonna test for a second.
Yeah she works
Now i can brake and throttle at the same time funfunfun !

Tnx

Quote from frant!c :

That was my guess as well, but the weird thing is that the testfunction shows that it works beautifully, but LFS wont.

Ill try another game, maybe it'll make a difference

Thanks for the reply !

[edit]
I tried (the uber realistic racing simulator) Flatout...:P Same problem.

What i need is a calibration in windows. The normal control panel version is gone after installing this driver.

I got DXTweak. This shows me that the "raw" input of the pedal is fine, but the DirectInput value is the crazy one...

Somehow pressing apply a couple of times fixed the DirectInput one to comply with the raw value.

Im gonna test for a second.
Yeah she works
Now i can brake and throttle at the same time funfunfun !

Tnx

Wow!

Sounds weird...

I just can't help but wonder what you guys do with your PCs that the MS SW controllers don't work properly - like I already mentioned I never ever had any such problems...

But what you wrote makes me think if a re-install of DirectX might have helped too...??

Quote from Christian Seidel :

Wow!

Sounds weird...

I just can't help but wonder what you guys do with your PCs that the MS SW controllers don't work properly - like I already mentioned I never ever had any such problems...

But what you wrote makes me think if a re-install of DirectX might have helped too...??

Could've

And I've never had any trouble either. Wheel allways worked beautifully, Great in LFS as well.

The only thing is , that i installed drivers which aren't made for XP and, i was ****ing around with the pedal setup