XWA vs XWAUCP OPT Differences

Here we can have in-depth discussions about which missions need to be adjusted because they are broken either by original design or by XWA models.

Re: XWA vs XWAUCP OPT Differences

Luke_Skywalker
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Post by Luke_Skywalker » Sun Sep 20, 2020 2:11 pm

Will T wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 1:35 pm

One thing I've noticed is that I've never had to calibrate my T1600m. But back in the day of XWA, joystick calibration was basically mandatory. Do you suppose there's any chance it's a calibration issue? Does XWA need to read some calibration data from somewhere?
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Or as Luke suggested is there any chance this is a hardware issue caused by XWA not being able to get full input from certain joysticks?
First thing, it's not about not getting the "full" input. It's more of a case of "too much" input. Joysticks from that time were 8-bit, with a value range of 0-255, though I'm not sure if joysticks like the Precision Pro were strictly 8-bit due to the wizardry of their internal design. Rather, I think there's some kind of translation issue when getting into the 12 and 16-bit ranges, where we're talking 0-50,000+. That's where the Small Movements fix comes in, because I think the engine briefly interprets values greater than 255 as negative numbers, so without the fix you get those little instances of reverse axis input before going in the proper direction. Precision Pro joysticks and those like them, if any, probably had translators built in. This is just a hypothesis borne from a moment of inspiration than anything, so I may be totally wrong.

As for calibration... eh. It might be a tossup. Windows Calibration is something of a relic from a bygone era that hasn't totally outlived its usefulness and is primarily used as a reporting tool today. The T-16 is self-calibrating whenever a TARGET script is run, or if it's powered on. If you get any kind of drift, there's a dedicated app for calibrating the T-16. The same goes for the Warthog base as well as the bases from Virpil and VKB: their calibrations are internalized unless something goes very wrong or you need to overwrite the default firmware with dedicated calibrators. Saitek I don't even want to think about. Too much goes wrong with those soon-to-be paperweights, why add more? :D tl;dr, what Windows Calibration sees is pretty much the same as calibrating it from there. All it does is kind of "intercept" the signal if you did use it, and that's not a good thing to screw with.

Our mutual problems lie elsewhere, I think, in how the XWA engine calculates its position and heading data. It's possible that while we're able to ram thousands of polygons of detail into each mission and actually be able to run it relatively smoothly, the engine might be choking in other ways, such as figuring out where it wants us to look or aim and where it doesn't. The enlarged gimbal lock zone is proof something's different. It's literally a circle now, about ten degrees in radius. It's about half the size in a vanilla GOG install, which is still bigger than I remember it being, (it used to be that you could just skip over the 0,0 point, not have a whole circular zone to maneuver around) but still definitely larger when playing the two versions back to back.
Last edited by Luke_Skywalker on Sun Sep 20, 2020 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
When 900 years old you reach, look as good, you will not. Hmm?" -Yoda

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Ace Antilles
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Post by Ace Antilles » Sun Sep 20, 2020 2:24 pm

If you have Joystick issues please see this post
https://www.xwaupgrade.com/phpBB3/viewt ... 33&t=12446

Jeremy has made a new tool to try and support multiple devices and settings
Chief XWAU Team annoying nitpicker.
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Luke_Skywalker
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Post by Luke_Skywalker » Sun Sep 20, 2020 2:45 pm

Interesting. I'll take a look but I don't exactly have confidence that it'll fix the particular issues noted here.
When 900 years old you reach, look as good, you will not. Hmm?" -Yoda

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