Gamepad decreases performace

[woel]

Hi!

I have two Gravis gamepad pro wich I connect to my soundblaster live's gameport. When they are connected my computers performance decreases a lot. For example I usually get 8500 3dmarks in 3dmark2001se but with the gamepads connected I get lower than 7500 3dmarks. Should I buy usb gamepads or what?

I have a thread about this in the rage3d discussion forum. Until now I've just got replies from people also having the same problem.

[K6-III]

Sounds like either the SBLIVE or the gamepad drivers are to blame...

[Helevitia]

I have a Logitech Wingman Extreme Digital and a Microsoft Gamepad both connected to my computer the same time and it does not effect my scores. They are both USB devices.

Dave

[K6-III]

Yeah, but he's going through the gameport...

[the maddman]

The original PC gameport sucks, it's a horrid design, someone at IBM came up with the idea of writting a 1 (pulling the line up to 5 volt) and timing the voltage decay. So it's time dependant when you're reading from the game port, your processor gets to spinlock with IRQ's disabled to get a good reading . Go USB, your PC will thank you.

[woel]

I guess I will do that. Thanx for the help!

Does someone have any gamepad recommendations?

[MetalCartman]

I have got the Logitech Wingman Rumblepad USB and I'm absolutely satisfied with it. I use it for every game (Comanche 4, NFS Porsche, etc.) except for Solitaire or Minesweeper.

It costs about 35€ here, dunno what the price in Sweden is.

[Technoid]

I have to check this out
I have two MS SideWinder game port devices and I have never experienced any slowdowns...

[dZeus]

I've got 2 MS Sidewinder game pad (and gameport as well) devices as well, and I hate them. They haven't run properly since I switched from my SB16 ISA to different PCI soundcards (I've tried about 5-8 different cards, all gave the same problem. The controller which is plugged into the one connected to the gameport (they allow for hooking up 4 controllers per port) has a weird glitch: it detects a 'left-top' button-press on the d-pad after random periods... often once within every 5-10 seconds. The d-pad on that gamepad is also much less responsive than the one hooked up directly to the gameport.

I guess I'll have to switch to USB to play Guilty Gear X against flatmates

[Ribbit]

If you must have gameport devices, get a digital gameport card like the PDPI or find a soundcard with such a gameport built-in. Examples of the latter are Trident 4DWave (obsolete), Aureal (ditto), and Crystal SoundFusion-based cards like the TB-Santa Cruz.

Yes Maddman, the PC gameport does suck. I used to have an Apple ][, and that gameport worked the same way, presumably to save parts/costs, but even on that machine the timing was done in hardware.

Edit: Gameport devices, not gamepad.

[dZeus]

though it's not a guaranteed problem-free solution, as I've got a TBSC. Other cards I tried include the SBLive! Player 1024, Terratec X-Fire 1024, Diamond Monstersound MX100 and others.

[isochar]

Hey Ribbit, do you know whether anyone still sells the PDPI digital gameport cards?

[Ribbit]

No idea, I only mentioned them as an example that I'm aware of, sorry.

PS: I should have mentioned gameport-to-USB adapters in my last post, but I'd completely forgotten about them. No idea how well they actually work, though.