NFS4 (HS) and a MS Sidewinder FF wheel?

[Remko]

I was just curious if anyone here had experience with getting Microsofts wellknown Sidewinder FF Wheel to work properly with good old nfs4? I bought this wheel from Alrik a while ago, and it performs good with both NFS PU and Rallytrophy (<-That one's a blast with a wheel, btw)
But when I try to use it for High Stakes, it goes 'limp', meaning the wheel provides no center spring tension at all: you can literally steer it with your pinky finger. I have tried to play with deadzone etc. in the game's options, and also made sure I had picked the profile for HS in Sidewinder's game controllers options... in those options, you can set the center spring tension at various levels. Even when I choose highest, and it feels very strong while i'm still in the NFS4 menus, as soon as the actual race starts, all feeling's gone again.
Now, while racing, the car does respond to the wheel, but because it feels so loose, it reacts very abruptly and jerks suddenly to the left or right... pretty much unplayable. Force Feedback effects (collision, bumpy roads) also work in the game.
I'm trying this now under Win XP, but I got the exact same results when it tried it on my Win 98se partition. I use version 4.0 of the Sidewinder software. (there is no newer than that)

I did a little search on this subject in alt.games.need-for-speed, but all I found were more people with the same problem, yet no one replied with a solution. I can hardly imagine that it's a given that such a popular racing game doen't respond well with such a popular controller. :? Does anyone of the other HS veterans have any experience with this? :help:

[jtace]

I think this is a problem with the FF code in NFS HS. I don't know about the MS FF Wheel but Act Labs has a checkbox in the drivers to automatically set a certian amount of centering spring independent of the games. I suspect that is for the games without FF, so it will act normally. Does the MS FF settings have such a thing?

[Remko]

Thanks Josh. I'm afraid the MS Sidewinder software doesn't have such a feature. :(
It's so strange, that you can feel the centre spring forces work when you move the wheel a little while you're still in the game option, choosing car & track and such, but everything disappears as soon as your car comes into view... I've tried it with and without the game profile in the Sidewinders software...

I've done a bit more searching in the Deja newsgroups, and while there are a few more posts that descibe this exact thing,
example 1, (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=nl&selm=8sm40g%24b1h%241%40nnrp1.deja.com) example 2, (http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Sidewinder+High+Stakes+group:alt.games.ne ed-for-speed+group:alt.games.need-for-speed&start=10&hl=nl&selm=92cjk1%242mk%241%40nnrp1.deja.com&rnum=13) example 3. (http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Sidewinder+High+Stakes+group:alt.games.ne ed-for-speed+group:alt.games.need-for-speed&start=10&hl=nl&selm=1RuL4.107%24IY6.1716%40nntp0.chicago.il.ameri tech.net&rnum=14)
but there are no explanations given.

The closest thing was this thread, (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=nl&threadm=93atat%249vl%241%40nnrp1.deja.com&rnum=74&prev=/groups%3Fq%3DHigh%2BStakes%2Bsidewinder%26start%3D 70%26hl%3Dnl%26selm%3D93atat%25249vl%25241%2540nnr p1.deja.com%26rnum%3D74) where one person describes how this only happened to him using the USB-connected version of the MS FF, and that a gameport-connected MS FF wheel did not give him these problems... he says also the problems didn't start until he 'upgraded' from Directx 7.0a to 8.0, and that reinstalling windows and Dx 7.0a did solve the problems for him.
But all this was in january 2001, and I can't imagine re-installing Win XP and applying such an old DirectX version instead of my current v8.1 would be a good idea.

I'll keep on trying to find a solution, because I don't feel like switching my controllers everytime I want to try a different racing game. &(