Dude - whipped.
My wife asked how much my Formula Force GP cost.
So I told here - roughly half of the cost of her latest pair of boots.
Strangely quiet round here...

(What he said)
Can't beleive more people don't bang on about the Formula Force - it's GREAT. Got one about 2 months ago after trying to get a FZR round Aston with a PS2 Dualshock drove me insane.The force feedback tells you a lot more than you would think, as I found out when I took all my PC tackle into the office on Boxing day to help kill some (over)time, and I forgot the power supply for the FF...felt like driving a really fast milkfloat with pushbike wheels on ice.

I'm sure it's fairly simple...I used a PSX pad and converter on my PC b4 getting a wheel.
At what point are you having trouble? DO you know where all the Control Options are in LFS? Or is LFS not recognising it at all?

GO into Control Panel - Game Controllers, and make sure Windows can see your pad.
From there, go into LFS and Select Options - Controls. Select AXIS / FF option, and move your pads sticks; you should see bars on the bottom right of the screen moving to show you what your pad is sending to the PC. So - move your pad left and right, see which bar moves, and then click on Steering, then select the axis bar that was moving. Hay Presstoe.
Buttons work much the same way - Click on Buttons 1 or Buttons 2, click on which control you want (eg Horn) and then press the controller button you want to use.
Give it a whirl, see what happens.
Hope that made sense.

If you have Active Desktop - get rid of it.
Disable as many system tray tasks as you can - I personally need to close down Shareaza, my mobile phone sync software, Bluetooth and all Messaging stuff - it all interferes with LFS and steals focus.

Depends what you're after - I look forward to any suggestions towards an H-style shifter, I'm using a Microswitched Joystick - have a look at my recent thread.....


http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=2598

Here's what you call a rig.....

1st car - 1981 Austin Montego - Gearbox dropped out (Meccano holding it together fell off - seriously)
2nd Car - 1984 Rover 216S - Floor rotted out in 12 months.
3rd Car - Suzuki Samaurai Jeep - survived 2 crashes, £4000 worth of damage, wiping out a Ford Fiesta and a Honda Civic. NOT MY FAULT!!!!
4th Car - Audi A4 - No accidents, apart from me accidentally hitting the speed limiter.
5th car - Pug 205 Gti - now we're talking. No accidents, lots of close shaves and fun.
Currently cruising a Pug 406 Deisel Estate - now can you see why I need LFS.....!

Quote from jtr99 :

35. If LFS had been around 20 years ago my chances of finishing high school would have been slim.

HAve to agree. I'm 32, and have been racing this thing for about a month, and already finding it hard to fit my 'chores' around it...all we had in my day (cue New World Anthem) was Elite, on an 8-bit computer, plugged into a black and white portable with no barely sound, and yet it SERIOUSLY affected my exam results. With LFS, I would have been touting the Big Issue by now. I feel sorry for the kids these days, how are you supposed to get down out of a fully functional racing car simulator to do your algebra? Forget it.
I'm 32. In real money. Exams were half my life ago. (YEEEEEEEEEES)
And I'm 33 in January. Capricorns rock racing sims.

Some interesting setups here, it's inspired me to look at sticking my pit request functions onto the buttons -never even occurred to me before. My setup includes something which I haven't seen mentioned in the forums, and I can't believe more people don't use it.

I've bought a basic (but good quality) microswitched old-skool joystick, thus -
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Competit ... 5QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

That's now cable-tied to my chair arm, and using Joy2Key, I've got an automatic, sequential 'tiptronic' style shifter in a joystick, and I've still got 4 free fire buttons, and left and right axis left on the joystick, to assign to anything else I choose. Total cost of project - about a tenner. I recommens you try it, I tend to drive Formula V8's and all the other high-end cars with the Formula Force 'paddles' (Sorry - crappy buttons) and the GTi's and other 'stick-shift' cars with thte joystick. Great Fun.

THANK GOD.
I had already tried Joy2Key before posting, but couldn't get it to work at all. Your reply inspired me to crack on with it, and after much fiddling, finally got it to work! Now I have my shifter on the joystick (Cable-tied to my chair arm - pics soon ;p) AND on the paddles. With the extra buttons on the joystick, and all the buttons on the Formula Force GP, I've now got shed-loads of button options!
Thanks for the help!

Just got the new joystick - lovely, it's gonna be great for MAME too....but how do I get LFS to use joystick axis inputs for gear change? I can't see anyway of doing it in LFS, but does anyone have a Joystick-to-keypress converter that works in XP? I've tried Googling for ages and can't come up with anything that detects the stick. or runs properly in XP.



HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!

Just saved myself a couple of hours soldering - check THIS out.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Competit ... ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


Made for the job. Even got it in blue to match my Logitech Driving Force!WOOHOO!

That's a good link - Thanks. I was hoping to do less work than build a controller though! I was thinking more along the lines of -

Get old Digi joystick
Rip original handle off, bin fire buttons.
Dress with posh gearknob, gearstick gaiter etc.
Plug in.
Brum.

I have a couple of old Quickshot units from my Amiga days that would do perfectly, only they aren't microswitched and don't give that positive 'click' that I'm after when changing gear...might even rip one apart and see if I can retrofit new switches. Can; opened. Worms; everywhere.....

I've been driving LFS for a week or three now using a PSX Dual Shock 2, and am waiting for
delivery of my new wheel I was FORCED to buy because of this damn game : )
The new wheel has gear paddles, but I would quite like to set up a manual gear
lever, 'tiptronic' style, using a very basic DIGITAL Microswitched joystick.
So, just a couple of questions -

Anybody done this yet, and if so, your thoughts / advice?
Anyone know of any suitable units? (I thought these would be easy to come accross, but NO.)
WIll LFS support a second (Hopefully USB) Game controller utilised only for shifting?

ANy help = happy camper (me)

Just a wee thought - reckon this is worth posting in the new 'Newbie' section? Lots of very good tips here!

I noticed a couple of guys here have got nice avatars of LFS replays - kudos.
Whilst I'm familiar with grabbing screenshots, saving replays and recording videos in game with FRAPS and the like, I wondered what software we all use to convert these into animated GIFS, as I have some nice footage saved that I would like to use.......

Mint. That 230v in means you're right, I'll go for the Tesco cheapo option.

I've read lots of mixed views on this wheel, and lots of horror stories like wandering centres, pedals snapping, and other nastiness - do you rate it?

Hi all, and welcome to my first post!

Just got LFS about 2 weeks ago and have already ordered my first wheel, the Logitech Driving Force (Not PRO). But there's a snag. It's a US item, and I'm in the UK. Can anybody tell me what the connection type, input voltage/current and polarity of the beast is, so I can buy a no-name PSU, or can I get a genuine Logitech spare in the UK?Or, in fact, are there any third party PSU's about?

Cheers you guys (and gals?)