I'm getting really hacked off with S2 & my MS Sidewinder now. When I first installed S2, all was well for a couple of races, but then the calibration went on the wheel. I couldn't get it back with any of the options and none of the suggestions at the time worked either.

In the end I re-installed S2 and didn't touch any of the default settings for the wheel. This worked for a few weeks and now it's gone again....

Starting S2 up, the wheels is canted to left by approx 15 degrees. This is kinda drivable, but very frustrating as you over-compensate when returning back to the centre, 'cos the centre isn't where it should be! So, I went into the options and tried to re-calibrate - now, the wheel is completly unusable and the steering jumps from lock to lock with only 1 degree of wheel movement.

As MS haven't made XP drivers for the Sidewinder USB FF wheel (they're built into XP), the only ones around are from Win2K or 98 and as such are useless. So, I can't go the driver route. Instead, there must be a bug in S2 somewhere which is preventing this wheel from working properly.

I stress that my wheel is fine and works perfectly well in every other PC driving game I have, so I know it's not the hardware at fault. And as this has happend to me twice now, I assume it must have happened for other folks??

Has anyone had problems with the USB MS Sidewinder FF?? Did you get them fixed without re-installing S2 and loosing all your built up credits??

If anyone can help, I'd really apreciate it. I was wondering if there was an ini file that I could modify back to std settings to get the wheel working again??? Or some other trick in the book maybe!!

Thanks,

Mark

I'm sure someone suggested this the last time you had problems, but if not:
Press Shift-C in game, and then steer fully lock-to-lock. (Fully left, and then fully right). If LFS has lost the centre of your wheel it will find it again by doing this.

Sorry, doesn't work. When I press Shift + C, I don't have time to move from lock to lock. As soon as I start to steer left the message comes up that it's re-initiated the controllers and the wheel keeps jerking violently from side to side!!

Mark

Nothing unusual is happening (judging by what you are saying), there is always a little delay between pressing shift-c and it doing what it is meant to (restarting the controller). Also, the wheel will of course behave erratically if it thinks you only have a few degrees of rotation lock-to-lock.

Turn off the force-feedback, you don't need that to calibrate. Press shift-c in game and give it a few moments to say "reinitialised controllers" and then do the steering lock-to-lock thing.
Sorry if you've tried this already, but I've got that wheel too, and if I ever have any probs, I do the usual: restart lfs, unplug wheel at usb/plug back in, shift-c, and steer fully lock to lock - and it always works.
Hope this helps, because if not I'm out of ideas

Quote from 2WDinNZ :

I use the same wheel and it works fine.

Install the drivers, they work fine. They do. At least for me.

Another thing.... It could be the calibration on the wheel itself.

Pry off the disc in the centre.
Undo the 4 screws you see.
Pull the wheel off.
Undo the screws behind the wheel. All of them
You will have seen the small, silver, reflective thing by now, and you will ahve understood that the laser or LED on the circuit board uses this to tell where the centre is.

I plugged in the wheel with masking tape on the reflective thing and it just turned and turned and eventually stopped.

So what I'm saying is, that it might not be all software related.

And I'm sure you meant to add "Try this at your own risk. I am not responsible for any damage or injury caused"

*SageNod*

Sorted! The correct procedure is to turn off the force feedback before hitting Shift+C, then wait for the re-initialising message before steering fully left, then fully right. After doing this, turn the FF back on and away you go!!

Thanks for everyone's advise, I can race again without having to re-install!!

Cheers,

Mark

Glad to have helped