Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Biggles on September 20, 2011, 12:02:19 PM
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Since switching to USB flight controls less than a year ago, I've noticed that once in a while (actually, frequently) when I'm in a dogfight something in either the hardware or software of my computer will seem to "grab" the controls and prevent smooth flight. This isn't in-game compression or over-control that I'm talking about. It's almost like some sort of "governor" kicks in and tries to impede smooth reaction to my control inputs. Has anyone experienced this who knows of a fix? Could it possibly be background programs polling my USB hardware (at the worst possible times), or something like that? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Perhaps there's some third party software that I can use to start up AH, that temporarily turns off all unnecessary background programs that might be running? Again, any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Biggles2
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what are your system specs and what version of windows are you using?
what kind of joystick do you have and what other usb devices do you have plugged in to the system?
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what are your system specs and what version of windows are you using?
what kind of joystick do you have and what other usb devices do you have plugged in to the system?
I should have included all that in my post. I have a Core I7 950 64-bit 8 gig of ram, Windows 7, 1-gig ATI Radeon video card (HD 5700). I have CH joystick and pedals, both are USB (using CH Control Manager). I also use a USB keyboard, mouse. I have a webcam plugged in that is unused 98% of the time.
That should cover it. Any thoughts? I could switch to a regular mouse and keyboard for testing purposes, and unplug the unused webcam.
P.S. I have the system tweaked for FSX, where I get very good, smooth frame rates, and none of these control problems.
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Biggs, I'd suggest you try a powered usb hub for your flight controls.Some JS use more power than most usb port can put out,depending on MB and PSU.
Most players who use X52 equipment find that a powered usb hub stops the constant loss of calibration. If you have CH,warthog or an x52 a powered hub is most definitely the best way to go.
YMMV.
:salute
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Can't hurt, so I'll give that a try and report back. Thanks!
Biggs, I'd suggest you try a powered usb hub for your flight controls.Some JS use more power than most usb port can put out,depending on MB and PSU.
Most players who use X52 equipment find that a powered usb hub stops the constant loss of calibration. If you have CH,warthog or an x52 a powered hub is most definitely the best way to go.
YMMV.
:salute
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Biggs, I'd suggest you try a powered usb hub for your flight controls.Some JS use more power than most usb port can put out,depending on MB and PSU.
Most players who use X52 equipment find that a powered usb hub stops the constant loss of calibration. If you have CH,warthog or an x52 a powered hub is most definitely the best way to go.
YMMV.
:salute
I HAD mine ( CH Combat stick) plugged into a hub initially, then moved it to one of the mobo spots. Got rudders, always work fine, but the stick....some days it's fine, some other days, I'm reduced to mere suggestions about what I'd like my plane to do. Noticed having my phone charging off the powered hub exasperated things, so I leave that off now. At times, elevator works fine, other times, I pull on stick, plane acts like I'm compressed in a 500 mph dive, then, after a second or two, plane will lurch up. I DID have a USB headset, so I killed that and went back to standard audio....little change. Game has been largely unplayable for weeks, driving me nuts. (problem wasn't there last night, as I could tell) CH said to calibrate it with their software, which seems an improbable solution at best
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I HAD mine ( CH Combat stick) plugged into a hub initially, then moved it to one of the mobo spots. Got rudders, always work fine, but the stick....some days it's fine, some other days, I'm reduced to mere suggestions about what I'd like my plane to do. Noticed having my phone charging off the powered hub exasperated things, so I leave that off now. At times, elevator works fine, other times, I pull on stick, plane acts like I'm compressed in a 500 mph dive, then, after a second or two, plane will lurch up. I DID have a USB headset, so I killed that and went back to standard audio....little change. Game has been largely unplayable for weeks, driving me nuts. (problem wasn't there last night, as I could tell) CH said to calibrate it with their software, which seems an improbable solution at best
you know, a while back ( in the 90's ) those combat sticks had a little design flaw where I think it was the "green wiring" was pinched in between the 2 joy stick side halves..... ( or between some 2 piece part??? )
I had the same problem you are experiencing now, back then........ an that is when I first met AKAK when he was the CH products tech rep and we both told each other we played AW while on the phone trying to figure my problem out......
now I do not know if they ever remedied that production design flaw when going from game port to USB model......... but it is a possibility I think
edit: I also recommending going in and taking a set of pliers or wire crimpers and clamping down on the terminal wire connectors to get rid of any erratic spiking issues
I found back in the gameport days of CH products that sometimes the female spade connectors would be loose and would move when the stick was moved in different directions and this would cause sporadic & eratic little spiking issues
food for thought
TC
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Had a similar issue with my combatstick - if I plugged it into a powered hub, it gave me a nice delay between me moving the js and onscreen doing what I wanted.
Fixed it by leaving everything else on the hub, and plugging the combat stick directly into a usb slot on the back of my computer.
Wurzel
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Things are better now, maybe 95% improved. I switched to a PS2 mouse and keyboard, now the only USB items plugged into the MB USB ports are the CH stick and rudders, and my Dell printer. Much better in AH now. I may get a powered USB hub and plug the printer into that (and trackir, when I use it, and the webcam) and see if things get even better.
Biggles2
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Bigg's plug the stick into the hub,that way it will get the power required! Been using a powered hub for years,have a 8 year old X52 that still works great.
:salute
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Biggs, I'd suggest you try a powered usb hub for your flight controls.Some JS use more power than most usb port can put out,depending on MB and PSU.
The problem isn't that some joysticks "use more power", that's not the case. Joysticks are made to the industry standard and use 5 volts, the problem is that some motherboards (usually among the inexpensive or bargain brands) do not output the necessary 5 volts needed for the controllers. This is the reason why some need a powered USB hub for their controllers to work properly. The problem can also arise if the player has too much hardware connected to his PC without a sufficient power supply to keep up with the increase power demands of the system.
ack-ack
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the problem is that some motherboards (usually among the inexpensive or bargain brands) do not output the necessary 5 volts needed for the controllers power demands of the system.
I once told a simplified theory on another subject, and this explanation carries the same symptoms... Nothing personal, just clarifying for those less knowing than I am, but wanting a little bit more than your explanation. :salute (Gee, but it's terribly difficult to be polite and accurate at the same time typing a foreign language!!!)
Now, according to my very little knowledge of electrics, all motherboards output 5 volts from e.g. USB ports, and that 5 volts mostly comes from the PSU through the motherboard. The question is, how much, and it's measured by amperes. Now as volts multiplied with amperes roughly results watts, the need of amperes can be calculated by watts divided by volts. So, we do know that USB outputs 5 volts and if we can get the information about the combined wattage of our USB devices, say e.g. 15 watts, we get the following: 110W / 5V = 22 amp. If the PSU label claims the max for 5V is more than that, you should be fine. Remember, though, that there is a 5V line (the red wire) going to most every drive in your computer, too. Like every hard disk drive, optical drive and even the old floppy drive.
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The problem isn't that some joysticks "use more power", that's not the case. Joysticks are made to the industry standard and use 5 volts, the problem is that some motherboards (usually among the inexpensive or bargain brands) do not output the necessary 5 volts needed for the controllers. This is the reason why some need a powered USB hub for their controllers to work properly. The problem can also arise if the player has too much hardware connected to his PC without a sufficient power supply to keep up with the increase power demands of the system.
ack-ack
I agree with this somewhat....
a post I made in another thread:
a few years back in one of these threads discussing USB controllers, MB USB ports and using USB hubs ( powered/non powered ).....
I had asked a question wondering if certain Mother Board manufacturer's had better quality components and drivers USB controllers ( programming wise )
for the simple fact, is I have never used an USB hub powered or un-powered......... and have always used the back I/O panel of my MB for any controller I have ever used.......
I have yet had a gaming controller( stick/pedals/throttle etc.. ) go bad on me outside of just wearing out and becoming sloppy......
although, I do research which USB host controller is controlled by which bus & IRQ and I also research and watch how many components are sharing the same IRQ at the same time.......
some said that it is a good possibility that certain MB's had better quality and their for might perform alot better and with less problems over other MB manufacturer's.......
of course this is all on personal views and opinions, which everyone has
TC
Bizman,
you posted:
Now, according to my very little knowledge of electrics, all motherboards output 5 volts from e.g. USB ports, and that 5 volts mostly comes from the PSU through the motherboard.
I would be willing to say that the USB port (hub/host controller) on MB's gets every bit of its power ( the 5 volts ) from the PSU and nothing else
it is how the MB Manufacturer has designed the MB to divide it out and provide each PC component the needed power which is the problem
edit: for spelling
cheers
TC
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Thx for correcting me, TC. This shows one shouldn't comment on anything if he can't express himself correctly in the language given.
What I tried to say, was that the 5V from the PSU for USB's and other ports comes through the motherboard, but that there are also 5V wires going directly to some devices like drives. The "mostly" was intended to direct to the point of dividing the 5V line two different ways.
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my bad, Bizman.....I was not trying to correct you
I understand though now about the having to deal with translating from your native language to our's here in the US
I was just expressing how I viewed the USB port powering subject
is all good
<S>
TC
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Well, I was wrong. It wasn't 95% fixed. In fact last couple of days it's been worse (or seemed like it). But, my controllers work perfectly in FSX. Why not AH? So I looked at my controller settings in AH. Even though I don't have any force feedback controllers, I decided to click on that option anyway. Turns out force feedback was turned on. I never turned it on myself so it must have installed that way when I reinstalled AH after getting my new computer at the beginning of the year. I turned off force feedback and now everything is 100% as it should be. I've even gone back to using my USB keyboard and mouse without problem. So it wasn't a USB problem after all. :lol
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Biggs, glad you got it sorted out,I'd still use the hub for your flight controls.That way you can leave all the other usb stuff plugged in and not worry about your controls getting the required power.
:salute
PS: I sort of knew that AckAck,that JS followed an industry standard,but I dont always explain myself as elegantly as others. If you read my post again I did mention "depending on PSU and/or MB" but you explained it much better than I did. :aok
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Biggs, glad you got it sorted out,I'd still use the hub for your flight controls.That way you can leave all the other usb stuff plugged in and not worry about your controls getting the required power.
Thanks, morfiend, I definitely will still get a powered hub.
:salute
PS: I sort of knew that AckAck,that JS followed an industry standard,but I dont always explain myself as elegantly as others. If you read my post again I did mention "depending on PSU and/or MB" but you explained it much better than I did. :aok
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... I'd still use the hub for your flight controls.That way you can leave all the other usb stuff plugged in and not worry about your controls getting the required power.
I do it the other way round - X52 is the only thing using onboard USB, everything else on a hub. reason is that a USB hub introduces additional latency and my reactions are slow enough as it is :uhoh. I'd also use onboard USB for TrackIR for the same reason.
I suspect the problems people have with sticks and USB has nothing to do with power but the USB controller getting overwhelmed with data, just because that 5V is also powering all your drives, PS ports, audio, mobo, PCI and GPU etc ...
:headscratch:
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I do it the other way round - X52 is the only thing using onboard USB, everything else on a hub. reason is that a USB hub introduces additional latency and my reactions are slow enough as it is :uhoh. I'd also use onboard USB for TrackIR for the same reason.
I suspect the problems people have with sticks and USB has nothing to do with power but the USB controller getting overwhelmed with data, just because that 5V is also powering all your drives, PS ports, audio, mobo, PCI and GPU etc ...
:headscratch:
Interesting, it hadn't occured to me about the latency issue with using a hub. I guess I've been running a hub for so long that I dont notice any difference but I'm willing to accept this could be an issue.
Is there any USB controllers that are better than others? Is it possible to install a controller or make changes that can increase the performance of any of the USB ports?
:salute
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I dug into my pile of cables running through the desk and found my stick and pedals ARE plugged into a powered hub, sharing a printer (2nd hub, on other end of desk, has mouse, keyboard...couple of flying leads for phone, mp3 player, gps, etc....the latter aren't plugged in whilst I'm playing) I'm quite certain my deal is something bogging down the bus, have heard that strange 'ding-dong' sound in-game, which indicates something has been removed from USB....anyhow, last few times up, I've calibrated in Windows, then in-game, and killed printer, and things seem ok.....other than people shooting me down, of course. That problem seems a bit more complex
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:O you have a lot of stuff plugged into that system, even on powered hubs.
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Interesting, it hadn't occured to me about the latency issue with using a hub. I guess I've been running a hub for so long that I dont notice any difference but I'm willing to accept this could be an issue.
Is there any USB controllers that are better than others? Is it possible to install a controller or make changes that can increase the performance of any of the USB ports?
:salute
Wow, what a can of worms that questioned opened for me. I goggled a bit looking for any clues. I eventually came back to Wikipedia since I could mostly understand it :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB
I'll try and hit the high points of the entry, what follows is my edited version:
USB was designed to accommodate hubs, no mention I could find about powered hubs. It is a tiered star topology allowing branching with up to 127 devices per host controller. Communication is based on pipes (logical channels). A pipe is a connection from the host controller to a logical entity, found on a device, and named an endpoint. A pipe correspond 1-to-1 to endpoints.
There are two types of pipes: stream and message pipes depending on the type of data transfer. I assume the pipe we are using with our joysticks is a stream interrupt transfer pipe, these are devices that need guaranteed quick responses. An endpoint of a pipe is addressable with its device_address, endpoint_number.
When a USB device is first connected to a USB host, the USB device enumeration process is started. The enumeration starts by sending a reset signal to the USB device, the devices on the bus are assigned a unique 7-bit address.
In USB 2.0, the host controller polls the bus for traffic, usually in a round-robin fashion. The slowest device connected to a controller sets the bandwidth of the interface.
From my understanding of the above, whether a hub is involved or not really doesn't matter since the device is being addressed directly by the host controller. What matters most in getting the best performance out of USB is the fact that the slowest device on the bus controls the bandwidth of the interface, and the number of devices on the bus since it is polled round-robin.
For best performance only have the joystick connected to the hub.
Hopefully some USB engineer can read this and comment one way or another.
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I do it the other way round - X52 is the only thing using onboard USB, everything else on a hub. reason is that a USB hub introduces additional latency and my reactions are slow enough as it is :uhoh. I'd also use onboard USB for TrackIR for the same reason.
I suspect the problems people have with sticks and USB has nothing to do with power but the USB controller getting overwhelmed with data, just because that 5V is also powering all your drives, PS ports, audio, mobo, PCI and GPU etc ...
:headscratch:
Actually it's not the hub itself that introduces the latency - it's the excessive number of devices that people often have installed into them that does it. If you have a hub with only the X52 plugged into it then it would not have any more latency than plugging it into the computer directly (and ESPECIALLY not enough to even be remotely noticeable).
I have my G940, my BU0836 controller and my TrackIR all plugged into one hub. I get no lag whatsoever! I even had my USB headset installed into that same hub (but not since I upgraded to a non-USB one)!
Personally I think you're just being a bit over-paranoid about it. I'd rather benefit by taking the load off of the computer's power supply than by reducing insignificant lag...
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everything in the data chain introduces latency, from almost none (eg. a short optical link) to lots where a device's processing is slow. it all adds to the input lag, whether you notice it or not. how much latency a domestic powered USB hub controller adds when its jugling mice, keyboards, phones, printers and a stick I have no idea, but it could be significant.
as for power I'd be interested to know how sticks draw, given the USB spec is max 0.5A per port :headscratch:
(my X52 pro reports 230mA required)
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:O you have a lot of stuff plugged into that system, even on powered hubs.
It's mostly just cables with nothing hooked to them
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I've purchased a nice powered hub, will install it and try it both ways (joystick and pedals on the hub, then switch to everything else on the hub) and see what happens.
Too bad there's no way of actually testing all this via some sort of benchmarking utility....or is there?
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everything in the data chain introduces latency, from almost none (eg. a short optical link) to lots where a device's processing is slow. it all adds to the input lag, whether you notice it or not. how much latency a domestic powered USB hub controller adds when its jugling mice, keyboards, phones, printers and a stick I have no idea, but it could be significant.
as for power I'd be interested to know how sticks draw, given the USB spec is max 0.5A per port :headscratch:
(my X52 pro reports 230mA required)
While technically correct you make it sound like having a hub is going to slow everything down to a crawl. The truth is that having a joystick plugged into the computer is not going to have any more (discernable) amount of latency than a joystick that is plugged into a powered hub that is plugged into the computer. Now if you have twenty other devices plugged into that same hub along with the joystick then latency can become a problem but the hub itself is not an issue.
And while the USB spec may be 0.5A per port (500mA) when you run into a power supply that is starting to fail.. or is simply cheap and not built to spec it can sometimes not provide enough power for the USB ports to be able to provide the full 500mA required. Even if it does supply enough amperage the power supply might not be stable resulting in voltage fluctuations that can affect the accuracy of your devices. From what I've seen the 5V supply from the power supply is often its weakest point and the first to fail when a power supply goes south. Even through working on computers as a hobby I can think of six cases where a new power supply fixed issues people were having with external hard drives not working or peripherals not working correctly due to a low amount of amperage available at the USB ports.
Even my dad's computer was having problems recognizing several USB thumb drives. It was hit-or-miss (usually miss) even with thumb drives that worked correctly on other computers. Then he kept complaining about his wireless keyboard eating batteries. He said that every few days he was replacing it's AAA batteries to get it to work. Honestly I think he was throwing away a bunch of perfectly good AAAs because after replacing his power supply his keyboard didn't require new batteries for another 14 months! Also after doing that he's never had a problem with flash drives since!
In my opinion using a powered hub is CHEAP INSURANCE against overstressing the 5V circuit of the power supply. It also helps somewhat to prevent voltage spikes and shorts in devices from frying the motherboard and/or power supply. It can also act as a band-aid to allow you to use powered devices in lieu of a borderline or failing power supply. If these things were expensive it'd be a different story but it's not difficult to find a decent powered hub for under ten dollars.
And in my opinion, the extra latency induced by having a hub installed between a joystick and a computer is so negligable that it doesn't even come close to being a deciding factor in whether or not to use one.
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Right now I have my flight controls plugged into my new hub, and everything works flawlessly, absolutely no perceptible in-game lag of any sort. Happy camper.
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Right now I have my flight controls plugged into my new hub, and everything works flawlessly, absolutely no perceptible in-game lag of any sort. Happy camper.
great to hear this Biggs. :aok
:salute
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:aok
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My problem has been quite sporadic, I thought I'd cleared it away by maKing sure I'd calibrated in Windows, then calibrate in AH,. Upon closer inspection, I found that of the 2 hubs I have, the CH pedals and stick share a hub with the printer....so I turn off the printer as well, which leaves the CH stuff, trackball, and receiver doo-hicky for wireless keyboard as the only USB devices.
Once in a while, I hear the peculiar sound of a USB device disconnecting, (yet the 4 afore-mentioned devices still work) after this, stick works like crap the rest of the night. Hard to tell if pedals are affected, and mouse/keyboard are fine. I don't see a record in event log of what USB devices come and go...is there a way to track that?