Old PCI Sound card as joystick port

[Gordon Freeman]

Hi all,

I wonder if anyone has ever tried this...

I have an older joystick (Suncom Talon with SFS throttle) I'd like to keep using because frankly they're made like tanks. They're joyport devices and of course my Asus motherboard (M4N72-E) doesn't have a joystick port. I've tried one of those USB-to-joystick converter dongles and have had limited success. It seems to want one of four kinds of stick which this one isn't.

I have boxes of computer parts here, among them are at least a few PCI sound cards, so here's what I'm wondering:

Is it possible to install a sound card, but NOT use it's sound-card features (disable those) and ONLY enable the joyport?

 

[fireberd]

If the card is Windows 7 compatible and has drivers it MAY work. Not all old hardware is Windows 7 compatible or will even work in, for example, a Windows XP Compatibility mode.

You can try - if it works great, if not you haven't really lost anything.

 

[stormy13]

If the card is Windows 7 compatible and has drivers it MAY work.

Operative word being may. The problem is that there is no longer support for gameports in Windows since Vista. It is possible to get it to work, but only in 32 bit Windows as there are no 64 bit drivers and using a modded driver. Here is the link to it on the Creative forums (formatting of it is broken since the forum upgrade there),

http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=386462

and mirrored version laid out properly,

http://www.roychaffin.com/MIDI-Gameport-support-pack-for-Vista-32bit.html

 

[cyclic]

I would prefer using one of these http://www.cables2u.co.uk/game-port-adaptor-p-185.html then you would have no problems.

 

[Gordon Freeman]

I would prefer using one of these USB to game port adaptor. Connect your Joystick to the USB port using this adapt - USB To Midi - USB to RS232 Serial - USB To Parallel - USB printer Cable - USB CA, USB Cables - Printer Cable - Camera Cable - USB Extension Cables - USB Mini - US then you would have no problems.

I may have one of those still, but as I recall they don't really work worth a flip. At least they didn't for my old Suncom monster.

 

[Gordon Freeman]

If the card is Windows 7 compatible and has drivers it MAY work.

Operative word being may. The problem is that there is no longer support for gameports in Windows since Vista. It is possible to get it to work, but only in 32 bit Windows as there are no 64 bit drivers and using a modded driver. Here is the link to it on the Creative forums (formatting of it is broken since the forum upgrade there),

Gameport support pack for Vista 32-bit (x86), updated on 07/07/2009

and mirrored version laid out properly,

My name is Daniel Kawakami

Cool, I'll try hacking around with that.

Incidentally, the "mirrored" version isn't an accurate mirror; rather, it is an older copy. The really messed-up formatted one has a newer version of the driver hosted somewhere (one of those "download hostings wouldn't you like to pay us to download this faster" sort of things).

This is the direct URL to the Vista 32 driver:

Hotfile.com: One click file hosting: Gameport_Vista.exe

Now, I have an older printer (dell AIO A960) that - at least when I installed it back once upon a time when I first installed 7 - had no 64 bit Windows 7 drivers, only ... hrm, it was either Vista or WinXP drivers in 32bit, but someone was kind enough to put together a guide to getting it to work (flawlessly, I might add) on 7.

So I'm hopin/thinkin' this might work.