Privateer with a digital Sidewinder Joystick (Win 95 + MyJEMM)

[Mars]

Hi,

I am trying to play Privateer 1 on my old Windows 95 box, which principally works fine thanks to MyJEMM. There rests one major issue, though. I can't seem to make it work with my Sidewinder Precision Pro joystick. That's a digital one, which is why I don't intend to play the game in pure DOS, but principally MyJEMM should enable any joystick that works with Windows.

For some strange reason the most I can get out of it is to work in the up and left directions. Down and right don't work. I am sure that this is related to some messed up calibration, but even after numerous attempts I don't get any better results. And the generated file with calibration info are in some illegible binary format. So tinkering with it wouldn't be easy.

It works with my Gravis Gamepad Pro, but that's no fun at all.

Has anybody got any pointers? Maybe some joystick calibration files that might work for me?

 

[THE_WUQKED]

I'm not sure if I can help you, cause I never used myJemm. But I found this in another older Thread. It's a slightly different problem, but maybe it still helps you:

I was getting an error when attempting to calibrate my joystick upon running Privateer for the first time, through MyJemm. It would say that the calibration was invalid or something similiar. I would then be stuck in an endless calibration loop.

But I have discovered a work around for this. The joystick I was using was working fine. It was a simple two axis, two button model. But it couldn't get past the calibration routine. If the joystick was unplugged the game would proceed normally, but even if the joystick was then plugged in, it would still not work.

Here is the solution. I discoved that if I plugged in a gamepad, in my case a Gravis Destroyer, (A cheap ten dollar model.) I could calibrate the gamepad normally and get into the game. I then discovered that if after that I plugged in my joystick it worked like a charm.

The reason why the joystick didn't at first work is beyond me. But apparently, the game will not allow any joystick to function until SOMETHING has passed the calibration check.

So, short end of the story is try to use a gamepad to get past the routine. Another joystick might work, but I have my doubts.

Hope this helps.

 

[Mars]

Yeah, I tried that already. But the joystick with the calibration data from the gamepad worked even worse. And the problem isn't that I can't pass the calibration screens. While they may take a couple of tries, I can get to the main screen. But then the calibration data is just messed up. I guess Windows is sending some unusal information to the dosbox when it emulates a normal joystick.

I remember quite well that I used to be able to play Privateer 2 - The Darkening on the same computer with the same joystick back when it was pretty new.