comanche 4 joystick use...

[vracan]

Hi there,
I am very interested in buying comanche 4 and joining multi-player.
To make sure my PC system works good with comanche, I downloaded the demo.
All seems working fine except it does'nt "see" my saitek cyborg evo force joystick.
Flying using keyboard is just not immersive enough for me, so I would like to know if this is a known problem and what is solution?

I've tried contacting novalogic and search the net, but no answers yet...

p.s. my joystick works fine in MS FS4(2004) and combat wings battle of britain on same system!

Thankyou

[Bluetiereign]

Sorry. I'm of no use here. I use a logitech which loads a profile for the game and then starts it.

[RED BARON]

If you have the drivers and software , you need to make a profile for comanche 4, if not go to saitek.com and download the drivers and software for your joy stick. If you have the EVO I might have one on an old computer but you still need the profiler for it.

[Knuckles]

I have an X-52 (non-pro), and one of the things I had to do, was make sure the joystick is connected and the pro-filer software was not running. Then you can start your game and go into the Options and Remap your controlls. Make sure you click OK so it will save your settings. After that you can file tune your joystick by starting your pro-filer software and adding keyboard commands to joystick buttons to meet your personal needs.

If you decide to go with a different stick, I go with the Logitech like BTR has. Its easy to set up and pretty inexpensive. I believe the 3D Pro is only $35 bucks at Best Buy...

Good luck with it and keep us posted on your progress!

[vracan]

ok I just tried installing the saitek joystick profiler and ran it and left all mapping to it's default values.
This software definitely acknowledges the joystick's control inputs. But when I run comanche and go to it's joystick mapping setup, it does not acknowledge the joystick control inputs!

The saitek manual says that the joystick does not need the profiling software, for the joystick to be seen by games (just need the drivers).

And like I said, my other flight games like FS4 and battle of britain run just fine without having to run any joystick profiler.

So what's wrong??

[Knuckles]

The only other thing I can think of is start the game and go to Options / Controls... make sure the Joystick box or Both box is checked.

[Phaser]

Make sure; in Comanche 4's 'Options > Controls > Flight Control' you have selected the 'Use Joystick' you can then see more options in the profile, just choose your settings! Also make sure you select 'Advanced' in the 'Enemy Difficulty Level' under the 'Advanced' tab at the top. I also deselect 'Heavy Rotor Damage' and 'Limit Cyclic Range' and leave 'Slip Control' Selected, but these are just my preferences.

[Knuckles]

+1 Phaser.
Spot on with the Advanced settings :)

[vracan]

Thanks alot guys for your help.
I tried evrything you everyone mentions and still not working!
One thing is for sure, when I set the game to using joystick, my joystick is not seen at all. So forget that. Remember my other flight games like ms flight sim4 works perfectly with no remapping done at all.
When setting comanche to use the keyboard and then using the in-game keyboard profiler it does see the sticks button presses but not the stick's x/y axis. So, if for example I assign a button on my stick to keyboard "shift" key (which is used for "raise altitude" in the game, it works! But as I said before, the stick's x/y axis is never seen.I know for a fact that saitek's profiler works because when i run notepad, the correct keyboard strokes are spit out from moving my joystick.

As anxious as I was to play this game, I don't think this game is worth it anymore....
unless someone comes with a magic solution for me!
Maybe someone here who actually uses saitek cyborg evo stick can email me their profiler file?...

Thanks again I appreciate everyone's help.
Victor

[vracan]

Ok here's update:

I went out and bought a logitech joystick and with some mapping manipulation i was finally able to get comanche working with a joystick! So obviously saitek is incompatible with comanche (unless you are a computer whiz - you may find a work-around).

However now that I am actually able to play comanche, every few minutes the game automatically suspends itself into the windows toolbar and like 10 seconds later comes out of it! I am running winxp with intel dual core (1.8GHZ), GEforce 2 video, and 2GB memory. I thought it was much more than I needed but apparently not....

Anyways I've had it!
Now I remember why I never got into PC gaming!!! Way too much incompatibilities out there which takes way too much time to figure out and money buying stuff to accomodate it.

I've decided to go the PS3 console way. I hear there are some good combat sims for it!!
Goodbye conflicts, Hello big screen video gaming!!!!!
So don't bother replying cuz I'm not putting anymore time into pc gaming.

Again, thanks everyone for your help anyways!!!
Victor

[Knuckles]

Sorry to her that bud...
It's too bad you were not able to get to work properly.
If your looking for true flight sims, pc is the only way to go.

As far as your game kicking back to desktop, make sure your screen resolution in-game is different from whatever your desktop resolution.
And also make sure none of your joystick buttons use the ALT + TAB key at the same time.

[vracan]

Thanks Knuckles,
But from what i experienced, comanche 4 is definitely NOT a true (or even close) heli sim. For example if you take your hands off the joystick, the heli stays in perfect hover position. In real life a heli is constantly moving about and the pilot NEEDs to give CONSTANT input just to keep it in stable hover! Maybe there other pc games which better simulate heli flight characteristics, but comanche is definitely not one of them! That was another thing I was dissapointed about comanche !

[HotShotFWP]

Well, if you want a more realistic heli flight sim, Knuckles is the right guy to tell you what to get.

For starters try Enemy Engaged 2 and even more realistic than that is BlackShark. :)

[Knuckles]

Thanks HotShot,
C4 is pretty much as advertised, "first person shooter in the sky".
It's pretty fun when you can get a game going online and shoot the mess with everyone.
But as far as being a sim, far from it im afraid.

If your looking for a good pc sim, check out www.digitalcombatsimulator.com
Blackshark is an a great chopper sim for the rotor-head.
A-10c is without a doubt the best flight sim out, and its only in beta stage.
You can pre-order the game and it comes with the beta version.
FC2 is a pretty good game. Lots of jets to fly with the own unique characteristics.

But dont give up on C4, keep picking at it and hopefully you'll find a solution.