Discussion for GamePort+ Plugin Version 2.7.0......New!

[BrettS]

Hi Dan. Hopefully this is the right place to post comments and questions about the gameport plugin. I *finally* got around to wiring a few switches and getting the gameport plugin set up.

First, the plugin started, but it didn't register any button presses. I decided to open the 'gaming options' in the control panel to see if that saw anything. I added a 2 axis 4 button controller and went into the properties for it and sure enough everything worked. I left the controller setup and restarted the gameport plugin and this time it saw two gameport interfaces (I only have one gameport and before I added the controller the gameport plugin only saw one). This time, however, in the gameport plugin gameport 0 would see my button presses and gameport 1 saw nothing. Is this the way it should work? Am I supposed to add a controller to the gaming options in the control panel?

Second, is there a big CPU hit or other side effect to using a low polling interval? I'm thinking maybe 200-500ms for some of my ports.

Last, it would be nice if there was an option to minimize the application to the system tray. I'd really rather not have it on my task bar all the time.

Thanks,
Brett

[electron]

if you use a real gameport, and not those usb->gameport converters, then you do have to add a joystick with 4 buttons in your control panel. Your first physical gameport will be 0, not 1.

Second, 200-500 is high, I use 50 on my ports, and I have 9 gameports (eventho not all are enabled), I can't even see a different in my process list.

The option to minimize to tray is on the list, it's a high priority actually, I just wanted to see if the software works before starting to play with cosmetics. Thanks for testing! I will post an update soon.

---
Do you cocoon?
http://www.CocoonTech.com

[ldragon99]

Hey Dan.

I got your new app running again but I am having a problem. When I start the app my home seer gets filled with the following:

send X10 from ext interface [1 Off dim: 0 extra: 0

i get this for each of my devices and it is continuous. If I turn off the app it stops.

any thoughts?

[electron]

did you check "Update on status change only"?

[ldragon99]

Sory I forgot to post.

I did and that stoped the polling problem. However My system is not playing nice, the status does not change in HS. I think that it is my 4 port usb to gameport unit though. The systme says the drivers are not installed, however I have installed them about three times.

Has anyone had this problem with the USB to Gameport device? Any fixes known. I am using windows 2000 pro.

[electron]

The device doesn't require any drivers, eventho I ran into strange problems myself, both units on different machines. When I first plugged them in, each port showed up in the game control panel, even if there was no joystick plugged in (so 5 ports would show up, 1 onboard, 4 from the usb device), so my software would pick those up of course.

But now for some strange reasons, only 1 shows up, the one that has a joystick plugged in (the way it should have been), but it is confusing the gameport software, I am trying to figure out what happened.

[ldragon99]

I get five devices showing up, however only one works. and sometimes not at all. I have to plug in a joystick and restart, then one port works. I plug in my stuff and it works for a while then stops. I cannot get the other three working. the devce manages says that the drivers are not properly installed?

[bruce l]

Sounds like the "drivers" are built into windows as it supports standard USB joysticks without extra drivers. I bet the OS checks for a joystick plug in before it allows any calls to that interface. Now to figure out how to force it to recognize a joystick on each port.

Dan if I remember right to get 8 inputs you are using the 4 standard buttons and the 4 analog inputs. Have you noticed if it recognizes the ports with resistors on the analog inputs all the time and not the ones that are open ? That would be the most logical way to detect if a joystick was really plugged in.

Maybe just rambling but something to think about.

[smee]

Do you need to plug in a "dummy" joystick to make sure the ports are recognized? This was discussed (indirectly) in
gameport thread

The fake joystick is discussed here:

fake joystick

The fake joystick would replace your analog inputs. But if this is the reason Windows doesn't think you've got a joystick connected, this should be sufficient to allow you to recognize button presses.

[electron]

Kirk, I have the same issue with these ports disappearing etc, but I don't have any errors with the drivers, it works fine (except it confuses the joystick API which affects my program).

Bruce, I am only using the 4 buttons right now (digital inputs?), as I am not too familiar with electronics and didn't feel like screwing around with that to get a few more buttons as I have 9 gameports right now.

The OS thinks a joystick is there when certain pins are closed, so that part works fine, it's just that it will load the ports as a joystick, eventho there might not be ajoystick connected to it. This isn't a big deal, but when you reboot, these empty ports disappear, screwing up the gameport configuration. I still have to do some more research, worst case, follow smee's instructions (Eventho I would love to use the analog inputs too eventually).

[srodgers]

How do I setup an event to trigger on changes in the Axis values? I see the Script examples to check for a value. Using Device Value Change or Device Status Change does not work. I am using the Gameport Plugin 2.7.0. I can see the GUI update when one of the axis change just want to use this as an event trigger.

I have the buttons working fine. Thanks

[srodgers]

Can anyone else confirm if they also have this problem. I am trying to use the GUI to build an event that triggers from X,Y,Z, or R axix changes.

[Phill]

Electron.

Are you the current author of the Gameport 2.7.0 plugin (I ask as the thread was originally started by Jebus).

Anyway the reason I ask is that I was wondering what development is happening on this. I use the plugin for 2 gameports and it works great, however I have a small feature request. It would be nice if the plugin logged information to the Homeseer log so that we could see what actions are being triggered.

For example I use the plugin to monitor 3 doors. I would like to be able to configure it so that whenever a door is opened or closed, the name associated with the device is logged to the log along with the configurable "on" and "off" values.

What do you think ?

Thanks

Phill

[ldragon99]

anyone have this happen

I love this plugin, and more importantly the wife loves it as well. We hav all doors windows and a bunch of other things on it. I have events setup that speak if a door or window is opened or closed based on the alarm status. However for some reson all events that function with calls from devices on gameport 3 stoped working. HS still shows the change with the device. Open or closed shows beside the device. but I cannot get hs to speak. It was working.

Any ideas?

[flagg]

Malarcy HID Plugin 1.2.1 Hat Switch added.

Check out the Plugins section for a HID based joystick plugin. Doesn't require polling and supports as many joysticks as you can plug in. Also supports up to 8 axes and hat switches each.

Here is link.

Plugin and source code at bottom of page 4

http://ubb.homeseer.com/showthread.p...light=joystick