They're not actual USB HID devices though, but instead required specialized USB drivers. Unfortunately, these are no longer supported in Vista due to how they function and interact with the onboard USB drivers. I can pass on your request to the software development team, but I cannot promise that we will be able to create new Vista drivers for this product.
I would highly recommend looking at a new wheel though. Once you start using a 900 degree race wheel, you'll be amazed you went to long without one.
I would highly recommend looking at a new wheel though. Once you start using a 900 degree race wheel, you'll be amazed you went to long without one.
Not garbage at all. In fact, the device is working rather well considering it's a gaming device that was made over 8 years ago. There are just some technical impediments to having it supported on modern OSes.
These devices (Wingman Force, Formula, Formula Force) were some of the first DirectInput gaming devices. These were designed when USB was still a small market technology, and are in fact [technically] serial devices, even though they have a USB port. Because of the bandwidth constraints of having something being serial compatible, original force feedback devices had to load the forces into the device's memory, and then would execute the force when instructed by the PC. Simple forces allowed up to 10 effects, but later/more complex force feedback executions caused the memory to be constrained, possibly to 7 or less effects.
Later Force Feedback devices, basically all devices supported by LGS 5.01 and above, have a different way of managing effects. The PC could send and execute individual effects, as well as actively remove and replace the effects without closing and reopening the game. This, combined with greater memory banks and no need for legacy serial support, allowed for a significantly greater amount of effects and this is the standard basically used by all the games developed in the last few years.
We had to pull a lot of tricks to keep force feedback working properly on these devices, and simply put, the way force feedback is implemented in games moved past what the standard was when we launched this product line (September of 1998). We also couldn't make current games compatible with this device, so even if we got the driver working, I can't guarantee you would even be able to use this device with the games that are designed for Vista. Modern games simply would throw too much information at this device for it to handle reliably.
We are not ending Vista support in some sort of malicious way. PC technology has simply progressed so far that we have to recognize where we have to limit the technology. We still support these wheels/joysticks, but we have to do so on the OSes they were designed for (Windows 95-XP, depending on the LGS version).
Message Edited by CharlesB on 03-05-2008 09:22 AM
These devices (Wingman Force, Formula, Formula Force) were some of the first DirectInput gaming devices. These were designed when USB was still a small market technology, and are in fact [technically] serial devices, even though they have a USB port. Because of the bandwidth constraints of having something being serial compatible, original force feedback devices had to load the forces into the device's memory, and then would execute the force when instructed by the PC. Simple forces allowed up to 10 effects, but later/more complex force feedback executions caused the memory to be constrained, possibly to 7 or less effects.
Later Force Feedback devices, basically all devices supported by LGS 5.01 and above, have a different way of managing effects. The PC could send and execute individual effects, as well as actively remove and replace the effects without closing and reopening the game. This, combined with greater memory banks and no need for legacy serial support, allowed for a significantly greater amount of effects and this is the standard basically used by all the games developed in the last few years.
We had to pull a lot of tricks to keep force feedback working properly on these devices, and simply put, the way force feedback is implemented in games moved past what the standard was when we launched this product line (September of 1998). We also couldn't make current games compatible with this device, so even if we got the driver working, I can't guarantee you would even be able to use this device with the games that are designed for Vista. Modern games simply would throw too much information at this device for it to handle reliably.
We are not ending Vista support in some sort of malicious way. PC technology has simply progressed so far that we have to recognize where we have to limit the technology. We still support these wheels/joysticks, but we have to do so on the OSes they were designed for (Windows 95-XP, depending on the LGS version).
Message Edited by CharlesB on 03-05-2008 09:22 AM
