Can you combine Joysticks

[CaptJR]

Hello everyone. Since I'm new I think I'll tell a little about me before I start. Well fairly new, I think I did post here once a long time ago. Long enough ago that I had to register again. How long have I been flight simming? I'm getting a little old so my memory isn't what it use to be but I remember there being sort of airplane icon with a couple lines of dots on the screen of my IBM PC junior. For those of you who don't know what that was, I think it had 128k memory and no hard drive. 5 and 1/4 in. 360k floppy drive. This was way before MS Flight Simulator came out. When the original MS Flight Simulator came out I was so excited and I've had every version since. Always tweaking my Autoexec.bat file and config.sys file to try to get more out of my computer that it actually had so I could run the latest version. Then got into over-clocking. The entire route. I've become more busy in my 'off computer' life now and don't have the time to spend simming as I once did. There ya go, that gives you an idea where I'm from.

Down to my question. What brought up my question is finally having to switch to XP a short while back. When I made the switch to XP, I found out the my CH Products throttle couldn't be programmed and my CH Products Force FX wouldn't work in XP. I got out an older stick. The one that looks just like the ForceFX but without the force feedback.

I need to go USB. Wouldn't be a problem if I didn't want force feedback. Yes I know that the force feedback in the MSFS isn't as good as I think it could be and if that was the only thing, I'd probably drop it. It's not the only thing. As you might have guessed from the first paragraph, flight simming is not the only thing I do on a computer. I have my bass fishing game, Battlezone 2, Decent 3, etc. etc. All of which have force feedback. So if I'm going get a new USB setup I want it to have FF.

I just simply don't have the time to research the way I use to. A while back I looked into it a little and the problem I came across was finding a USB force feedback joystick that could be used with a separate throttle and rudder peddles. (don't know what I'd do in Decent and Battlezone if I didn't have rudder peddles) So here is what I want. A force feedback joystick, a programmable throttle with lots of buttons and rudder peddles.

Does it all have to be the same brand? With USB, won't they all work together? I don't know.

Any suggestion will be very much appreciated.

JR

[noell]

As long as all devices are USB there will not be a problem mixing and matching. For example, you could have the CH Products Throttle Quadrant, CH Products (or some other brand) rudder pedals and a force feedback joystick all working at the same time.

...Noell

CPU: AMD Athlon 4000+ (San Diego)
Mobo: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
RAM: 1 GB OCZ DDR400
Gfx: BFG 6800Ultra OC
HDDs: 2 X WD Caviar SATA 120GB (RAID 0)
1 X Seagate 80GB SATA
Audio: SB Audigy Gamer
PS: OCZ 520 Watt

[kc10]

Just avoid input to the same axis from multiple joystics/controllers. You could see sporatic behavior in your elevators, ailerons, rudder and/or throttle.
For example, I had to disable the mini joystic on the ch throttle because of this. It was "arguing" with the input from the ch yoke.

[CaptJR]

>Just avoid input to the same axis from multiple
>joystics/controllers. You could see sporatic behavior in your
>elevators, ailerons, rudder and/or throttle.
>For example, I had to disable the mini joystic on the ch
>throttle because of this. It was "arguing" with the input from
>the ch yoke.


This interference is just what I'm afraid of. I take it that the throttle axis on the throttle didn't argue with the throttle on the yoke?

Is anyone using rudder peddles anymore. Is anyone successfully using rudder peddles with a stick that has a twist rudder on it?

[CaptJR]

I just got a response from Saitek. They said their FF Stick will work with USB rudders. They said the more valid question is if the game will recognize more than one joystick. They said MSFS 2000 and later will.

I think I'm going to go ahead and buy what I want figuring at a minimum I'll get it to work in MSFS. Hopefully I'll get it to work in other games as well. Thank you for the responses folks.

My choices? Seitek Cyborg evo Force, CH rudder peddles and throttle.

[noell]

Just to ease your mind a little further perhaps, I once had a Saitek Cyborg Evo and it worked fine with my CH pedals.

I now have Saitek X-52. It has a neat feature where you simply pull a tab at the base of the stick to disable the twist function. As an experiment and to refresh my memory on this, I just tried unlocking the X-52 twist function and found that I could then control the rudder function with either the stick or the pedals without any problems.

Short story - Saitek is right and there will be no conflict with your pedals and the Saitek stick at least as far as FS9 is concerned.


...Noell

CPU: AMD Athlon 4000+ (San Diego)
Mobo: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
RAM: 1 GB OCZ DDR400
Gfx: BFG 6800Ultra OC
HDDs: 2 X WD Caviar SATA 120GB (RAID 0)
1 X Seagate 80GB SATA
Audio: SB Audigy Gamer
PS: OCZ 520 Watt

[Kimber]

My husband builds flighsim controlers!! You can have as many as
you want at the same time!! You can not program two with the same
axis!! You can not have two of the same joystick at the same time!!
My yoke stepup has five joysticks in it to get all the functions I
wanted!!

http://xs6.xs.to/pics/04504/D-03.jpg

[Logan826]

"As long as all devices are USB there will not be a problem mixing and matching"
This is no longer true. You can mix and match gameport and usb devices. I have both running. The only downside (atleast for CHproducts) is that the control manager will only program usb devices. You have to use windows game controler for gameport or better yet Church's utility.
Dan K

[kc10]

Kimber, wow that's a great looking setup!

>I take it that the throttle axis on the throttle didn't argue with the throttle on the yoke?<

It will, but not if you keep the unused throttle at zero, or just disable the axis, or you could possibly just remap it to something else usefull (spoilers maybe?), not sure.

[Kimber]

The two throttles will fight each other, just go to assignments and
delete the one you are not using!! Or you can use it for props or
trim!!

[jboweruk]

I used to have the one on my control stick assigned to spoilers, till the actual throttle I had started to fade out, now it's become the throttle (most uncomfortable) and the other one had to be deleted. :-(

Oh well, trouble is I'm still debating between an X52 or a CH Throttle quadrant.


Regards

John B.

[Logan826]

Go with the Throttle Quadrant. You won't be disppointed. I love mine.
Dan K

[noell]

Think long and hard before buying an X52.

I've had mine for about 3 months now. It is great to be able to program so many functions (I hardly need to use the keyboard at all in FS9) and the throttle has great feel to it but:

- The Saitek software conflicts with my keyboard software (its a BenQ X120). In order to program the X52 to use any of the function keys, I have to un-install my keyboard software first.

- Sometimes when I booted up, the joystick would not work, I contacted Saitek and they said on some systems the X52 only works reliably when plugged in to a PCI USB card. So I bought the card. It fixed the problem but cost me $35 on top of a stick that had already cost me almost $300 (that's Canadian $).

- The X52 has a mouse function. Sometimes while using the regular mouse, the mouse pointer will start to drift all over the screen. The only way out is to re-boot. And the only way I've found to keep this from happening is to disable the X52's mouse function. While this is a common problem with the X52, Saitek has no fix. So the only thing to do is dis-able a feature I paid for.

- The stick is not very accurate. It moves in a series of small, jerky movements. It also has a lot of slop around the center point. I registered FSUIPC (yet another $35) which gave me better control and now it feels much better.

- Saitek have new drivers available but many users find they don't work. I tried them and I could no longer use any of my saved profiles.
Saitek admitted some users are having problems and they (Saitek) are working on. They also told me to not install them quoting the old addage "if it aint't broke don't fix it". But why are they releasing new drivers? It must be to fix something. And why, if the drivers are causing problems, can you still download them?

I think those are all my issues. And I'm not alone, BTW. Most if not all the issues I've experienced you will find discussed on the various user forums.

....Noell

CPU: AMD Athlon 4000+ (San Diego)
Mobo: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
RAM: 1 GB OCZ DDR400
Gfx: BFG 6800Ultra OC
HDDs: 2 X WD Caviar SATA 120GB (RAID 0)
1 X Seagate 80GB SATA
Audio: SB Audigy Gamer
PS: OCZ 520 Watt