Author Topic: CH USB troubles (Read 266 times)

Ducati · « **on:** November 21, 2002, 07:48:18 PM »

Hi guys,I posted this in another section but it does not seem to be getting much attention so I thought I would put it here as well in hopes that someone knows what I need to do. I am at a loss.

ORIGINAL POST-

Hello Pilots,
I am brand new to AH (Just DL'd it last night) After hearing so much about it on other boards I thought I would finally give it a try.

Unfortunately I can't seem to get my CH equipment to work. I have (all USB) FighterStick, Pro throttle and Pro pedals. It seems that in the game it wants to default to the pedals as the primary controller . In set up it sees all the controllers, as I can manipulate all the axis numbers. Meaning when I move the throttle the numbers change. And the line graph shows them too. BUT, when I go to fly it only seems to want to use the pedals. I press the left foot forward it accelerates etc.

I tried mapping some of the buttons with the in game interface but either I am making a mistake or it doesn't see the controller. All have been checked and calibrated in WinXP interface and are working properly.

Needless to say I have not been able to get off the ground yet, so any help or advice will be appreciated. I am looking forward participaing in some of the things I have seen here and the greater variety of AC.

thanks

Duc

mkuebeler · « **Reply #1 on:** November 21, 2002, 08:30:15 PM »

Sounds like you don't have the AH controls mapped to the correct axes on the devices. At first it's not at all intuitive to set them up.

Open the joystick selection dialog from setup. This is the one that has three lists: AH Control (left), Joystick (center), Joystick Input (right). Select the AH control you want to map, say "Roll Input", then choose the controller you want to use, in this case the Fighterstick. The list of axes and buttons on the selected controller will appear in the right-hand list. Choose the "X axis" and click on "Set Input". Repeat with all other controls. The confusing thing is that all three controls have an X, Y, and Z axis, so it's easy to think you're mapping the throttle to the Pro Throttle Z axis when in fact you mapped it to the Pro Pedals Z axis.

Buttons are a little trickier. They are numbered 1-16 in Windows Game Controllers applet, but numbered 0-15 in Joystick Input list. Again, both the Fighterstick and Pro Throttle both have buttons 0-15. What I did was figure out which button number was associated with each hat switch or trigger button, then mapped the AH controls But 1-But 16 to the Fighterstick and But 17-But 32 to the Pro Throttle, again using the sequence "AH Control" -> "Joystick" -> "Joystick Input" -> "Set Input". Once that is all done, go to the Stick Map dialog and assign game functions to the buttons. Helps to have a diagram of the buttons and hat switches. I'm attaching one I made up. Bear in mind that I use CH Control Manager which installs its own controller drivers, and the hat switch buttons are numbered differently than without Control Manager.

Ducati · « **Reply #2 on:** November 23, 2002, 04:54:23 PM »

Thank you!!! That helped me get it working. You're right about it not being very intuitive. But it makes sense now. Guess AH will stay on my HD drive for a bit after all. I'm trying to get all the buttons programmed correctly now. I printed your schematic of the button numbers and that was a big help as well, thanks again:) . Have you had much success with the CH programming software? I am keen to give F4 another try with this SPK3 and soon SPK4 and see if I can get into it with all the improvements. Last time I could not get the CH to work with it at all.

Thanks again, I truly appreciate it.

PS- The numbers you have for the Fstick are correct the throttle are the ones that are a bit off.

mkuebeler · « **Reply #3 on:** November 23, 2002, 05:21:36 PM »

I haven't had any problems with Control Manager, but it has its own little learning curve. You will definitely have to use it with Falcon 4, since F4 only lets you select one controller. Control Manager will allow you to combine the stick, throttle, and pedals into a single 32-button 6-axis controller which gives you all the control axes in F4.

When you install Conrol Manager, it will replace the Win XP CH drivers with its own, but I've found that if I unplug the controllers and reconnect them later, Win XP almost always thinks the throttle is "new" hardware and installs its own Pro Throttle driver alongside the CM driver, which then screws up the control map in AH. The only solution I've found is to unplug all the devices, delete the CH drivers with the CHDelete utility (included with Control Manager), reconnect the devices (Win XP installs its drivers in the process), then re-install Control Manager so it can again install its own drivers. The control mapping in AH will then work again and fortunately does not have to be set up from scratch.