Wing Commander III : Excellent Performance, But Joystick Query

Szegedin · 03-10-2010, 07:40

Hey CIC, I've just installed Wing 3 on Dosbox 0.73.

I run cinemas at 20,000 cycles, then jump up to 100,000 cycles when flying and I must say, performance and visuals are beautiful - much better than when I originally played the game on my Pentium 90mhz!

But lets see, all in all my controls are working great - I'm using a CH Fighterstick USB combined into a single device at the driver level with a pair of CH Pedals. Through Dosbox's keymapper I've been able to reassign most of my keyboard commands to the stick's various buttons as well as tell Dosbox that my Pedals' axis is actually the Insert and Delete keys, which is great cause in-game I can roll with the pedals and still have full use of my stick's X and Y for yaw and pitch, enabling wild corkscrew action....

The thing that I'm curious about though is the 'chunkiness' of the controls. Lag is nonexistent, dead-zone is fine, sensitivity is fine - but there's no artistry in the movement. I remember Wing Commander was always a bit 'flat' in the flight control dept, especially when compared to X-Wing for example...I can't say controls felt any better when I originally played WC3 -

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But I was curious if any of the joystick patches available help smooth out the controls, making for a more refined flying experience. I'd imagine they're just compatibility patches, the Wing Commander III readme mentions WC3JOY and states that its for folks experiencing lockups and bad calibrations...

That's not me, - but since I have the game running at such a fantastic frame-rate, a smoother control response would be appreciated, wondering if anyone has some tips from their own playing experiences to offer....

ChrisReid · 03-19-2010, 15:27

Nothing comes to mind off the top of my head. You're right that the WC3 patches pertain to compatibility rather than playability. Your best bet would be to continue tweaking DOSBox itself, although it sounds like you've already gotten pretty far with that.

03-10-2010, 07:40	#1
Szegedin Cadet Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 47	Wing Commander III : Excellent Performance, But Joystick Query Hey CIC, I've just installed Wing 3 on Dosbox 0.73. I run cinemas at 20,000 cycles, then jump up to 100,000 cycles when flying and I must say, performance and visuals are beautiful - much better than when I originally played the game on my Pentium 90mhz! But lets see, all in all my controls are working great - I'm using a CH Fighterstick USB combined into a single device at the driver level with a pair of CH Pedals. Through Dosbox's keymapper I've been able to reassign most of my keyboard commands to the stick's various buttons as well as tell Dosbox that my Pedals' axis is actually the Insert and Delete keys, which is great cause in-game I can roll with the pedals and still have full use of my stick's X and Y for yaw and pitch, enabling wild corkscrew action.... The thing that I'm curious about though is the 'chunkiness' of the controls. Lag is nonexistent, dead-zone is fine, sensitivity is fine - but there's no artistry in the movement. I remember Wing Commander was always a bit 'flat' in the flight control dept, especially when compared to X-Wing for example...I can't say controls felt any better when I originally played WC3 - . . But I was curious if any of the joystick patches available help smooth out the controls, making for a more refined flying experience. I'd imagine they're just compatibility patches, the Wing Commander III readme mentions WC3JOY and states that its for folks experiencing lockups and bad calibrations... That's not me, - but since I have the game running at such a fantastic frame-rate, a smoother control response would be appreciated, wondering if anyone has some tips from their own playing experiences to offer....

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03-19-2010, 15:27	#2
ChrisReid Super Soaker Collector Administrator Join Date: Jan 2000 Location: Seattle, Washington, USA Posts: 10,988	Nothing comes to mind off the top of my head. You're right that the WC3 patches pertain to compatibility rather than playability. Your best bet would be to continue tweaking DOSBox itself, although it sounds like you've already gotten pretty far with that.