TonyLSharp.com

Microsoft Force Feedback Pro With Windows XP Pro 

I used to do alot of online gaming with the Microsoft Force Feedback 1 joystick years ago. Towards the end of Windows98's lifespan, and when USB ports became popular, alot of people quit using that stick. I thought it was the best stick that was ever made. It was rock solid and had a good feel to it. I saw one on EBay for $10 and decided to see if I could make it work somehow with WindowsXP. It is posted all over the web that this stick will not....and absolutely refuses...to work with WindowsXP. It arrived and sure enough on my

XPS rig, I no longer have a 15 pin DShell port, or more commonly known as a 'game port'. I hopped on line and went out to compusa.com. They make a low end sound card that has a 15 pin game port on the back of it, for $20. I picked it up and brought it home. Loaded the drivers and it took over as the primary sound card on my pc. I did not want it that way, I have a kickin Sound Blasster X-FI Exteme Music on board and I sure didn't want that $20 sound card to think it's the boss -). There was no way on the card to disable the sound without killing the game port, it was either have the whole thing on or off. So I went into my sound devices in the control panel and told it to use my X-FI as the primary sound card. Once that was done and a few reboots to make sure it was going to work, I plugged the stick into the game port and whataya know? It works..... 

Tony Sharp