I have played TR1 on both PC and PS1. And though I've put in many more hours on the PC version than the PS1 edition, I still find the PS1's controller feels more natural than the keyboard.
So I set out to find a decent gamepad solution for the PC.
I've been through two solutions. The first was unsatisfactory, and the second is terrific.
About the first solution:
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- I bought a Logitech Dual Action gamepad. It appears to be virtually identical to the PS1's DualShock controller. It has all the same inputs in all the same locations (except for select and start, which are situated a little further forward - not a problem). For $20 US, this seemed at first glance ideal.
It wasn't long before the problems began. I encountered three, and there's talk online of a fourth. I was only able to solve the first, and I'm not waiting around for the fourth to happen to me.
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- The first is that the gamepad's included driver and profiler treat all eight D-pad directions as separate inputs. This doesn't work so well when both up-arrow and right-arrow need to be pressed simultaneously to make Lara turn right while running forward. This one I was able to solve by downloading an update that lets you treat the x and y dimensions of the D-pad as independent axes ("FPS" mode).
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- The second problem is that the D-pad is poorly designed or badly manufactured. Having the control as a bowl to rest your thumb in feels nice, but there are no guide ridges underneath to help you feel which way is which. As a result, you often get the direction input next to the one you tried to press.
This means that if Lara is standing next to a trap and you press right to turn her to look at it, you may get right+up instead - she turns and jumps into it!
As this is a mechanical design or manufacturing flaw, no software update will fix it.
So I tried setting the direction keys on the left analog stick instead (which the Logitech profiler supports). This exposed
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- The third problem: The driver/profiler does not support a null zone (aka dead zone) for the analog sticks. This has two symptoms. The first is that the slightest miscalibration results in continuous input in some direction even when the stick is untouched. The second is that the slightest movement of the stick in any direction results in an input, with much the same results as the D-pad flaw - you get the compass direction next to the one you wanted. Unacceptable.
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- The fourth problem is that apparently Logitech uses very poor quality potentiometers in the analog sticks. After a couple of months of use they will stop working. The pots get noisy or entirely quit. Though I haven't experienced this problem myself, I've owned a Logitech joystick (Extreme 3d Pro) with exactly the same problem, so I don't doubt the truth of the complaints.</font>
I contacted Logitech customer support (getting that URL was an adventure in itself) and sent a request about problems 2 and 3. I asked if any of Logitech's other gamepads have a better D-pad, and I requested that they add null zone support for the sticks.
Their response was to tell me that the D-pad is "designed for easy navigation" and that I should run a recalibration tool for the sticks. Easy navigation? Ha. Recalibration - how's that going to help with the lack of a null zone? And the calibration tool doesn't work with the Dual Action gamepad!
So I gave up on Logitech. I'll note here that while my experience with their gaming controllers is terrible, I love their mice. And I have a friend who swears by their marble-mouse trackball.
About the second solution:
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- I bought a Radio Shack adapter that lets you plug in a PS1 or PS2 controller as a USB gamepad. Cost is $10 US.
The Playstation controller is rugged and reliable, and its D-pad is accurate. So if I could make that work it would be ideal.
The included driver supports using the DualShock as a gamepad - with rumble! - but doesn't come with a profiler. There's no way with the provided software to map DualShock buttons to keyboard keys.
I went hunting for universal profilers. After struggling with several freeware and commercial (trialware) offerings, I settled on JoyToKey. It's freeware and supports just about everything you'd want to do - including null zones. I've only found two drawbacks with it, both of which can be worked around.
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- First, it doesn't let you address controllers by device name, but only by device number. This means that if your game controllers end up in a different order - say by unplugging and replugging them - the profile you set up now applies to the wrong one. But this is a minor annoyance. I handle it by disabling all the controllers I'm not using at the moment through Device Manager.
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- The second is that it has some trouble with DOS programs such as TR1. In particular, it has trouble sending certain non-printable characters to DOS programs. Some of the ones that it had trouble with on TR1 were the arrow keys, Page-Down, and End.
This too has a workaround: I used TR1's User Controls section to map all the commands to alphanumberic keys, then mapped the gamepad buttons to those keys.</font>
It works great! I can now maneuver Lara on the PC with the same natural precision as on the Playstation.
Dan
[ 30. July 2005, 21:24: Message edited by: dbhankins ]
30-07-05, 20:10
