Follow-ups to this post:
First, the Intel Graphics. There are two sets of chips in the bucket of 4th-gen Intel motherboard graphics:
- The older half of the bucket runs Open GL 2.0 only (with GLSL version 1.10). This chipset has never run X-Plane 10. Given how insanely old and underpowered machines with this chipset tend to be, given that the driver doesn’t even support GLSL 1.20, and given how many other problems I have had with Intel GPU drivers, I am going to declare this set of chips as “unsupported”, which I think is consistent with what we have told users with this chipset over time. I believe that no one has managed to make this chipset work on Windows, which is why no recent reports have been with this chipset.
- The newer half of this chipset runs OpenGL 2.1 and apparently runs X-Plane 10.05r1. I am trying to find hardware to test this bug, and I am trying to find a contact on the driver team, so we’ll see how that goes. This isn’t going to be quick to fix, because we don’t have the hardware in house. I strongly recommend against running X-Plane on these chips, but since it used to work, I’m going to try to fix whatever has gone wrong.
Second, joysticks: as far as I can tell, 100% of users with joystick instability are using game-port joysticks and not USB. So (this is getting to be a familiar refrain) I’m going to have to go find a gameport joystick to see if I can reproduce this problem, as all of my hardware is USB.
For gameport joysticks, we may be able to get some cases to work again, but some of what I have seen is way in the bucket of “unsupported.” Here’s a hint: if, to make your gameport work, you have to take OS components from an OS you do not run and copy them into the OS you do run so that you can trick a third party driver into installing, we’re not going to support that. If it works, great, but you’re on your own.
I am not going to hold up 10.20 beta for either of these issues; since they both involve finding hardware, there will probably be some delay in getting them fixed.
Gameport? You must have some extremely vocal red-assed baboons requesting support for this, to even consider taking-up this request! Don’t cave Ben! If you do I’m gonna demand Glide support for my 13 year old Voodoo3!
From Wikipedia “It [gameport] was the traditional connector for joystick input devices [throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s] until superseded by USB in the 21st century.”
Ya know, Ben, I remember the time when there were pumps at the gas station for both leaded and unleaded gasoline. Big Oil had to be backwards compatible. 🙂
Your time is valuable. My take aways from this blog post are threefold. First, you seem to be “looking back” in terms of compatibility further and further as X-Plane moves further and further into the future. So your exposure to video driver (and other) issues expands, and the time spent on fixing your code, or likely injecting work-arounds, expands as well. Dude, you’re only one dude!
Second, they don’t seem to sell gameport joysticks any more. Why worry? They don’t sell leaded gas anymore either. A USB joystick requirement is fair.
Third, you’re a helluva dude. You find time to post these fascinating bits, you remain open about the things you’re doing and, despite the “are we there yet” queries, you manage to maintain an even strain and things go where no flight simulator has gone before (I think).
So…..rip out the leaded gas pump, dude. Equipment that would run X-Plane 6 happily probably needs to be replaced ’round about now. As always, thanks for doin’ that thing you do!
You might want to consider blacklisting gameport joysticks. They are a relic of the distant past and have always had problems with clock speeds > 300MHz or so.
Don’t be picking on us antiquated gameport guys (I’m only 32, and calling myself antiquated now. Get off my lawn!). I’ve got a treasured MS Force Feedback Pro sitting on my desktop, with an equally antiquated copy of WinXP sitting on a partition. XP is that last version of Windows to support an equally antiquated SBLive! card that I picked up cheap, since it had a game port. This is all so I could play Rise of Flight; a WW1 combat simulator. The FFB helps immensely when you’re trying to ride that knife edge between making a high G turn and stalling out.
Incidentally, Ben, if you’re really in the mood to hunt down bugs with gameport joysticks, I’ll be happy to loan my treasured joystick to you, lovingly packed up and shipped your way. Personally, I’m with the other guys; unless you’ve got an old MS FFB Pro laying around, there’s not much reason to stick with a gameport stick. Seein’ as XP doesn’t support FFB without a plugin (and I haven’t seen one around for the MS FFB Pro), I wouldn’t bother with it.
Just my two cents.