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hey folks, I decided to give my old school classic MS Sidewinder joystick a test with Open Arena.. Everything worked fine except I couldn't get "free look" on the right free-moving side of the Sidewinder Joystick

I tried to select it in the controls menu by moving it, but I either got "up" or "down" or even "right" depending on where I moved the free-moving side, but this never achieved free look, instead I would get it where moving the piece up would make me look up but then stay there, there was no "free look" even though that's what the piece is built for

anyone? does anyone know anything about this?

if you're lucky someone might know something, but it's rare that people play openarena with joystick.

I use a dual shock sometimes for exploring new maps but I've never seriously tried configuring it for deathmatch and the like. Unlike console shooters, OA/Q3a has no crosshair magnetism.  Still, it might be amusing to play with.

Which sidewinder do you have? I was aware that Microsoft has been using that name for years, but after a quick look at wikipedia, I was surprised to find over 10 models!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SideWinder

Does your joystick work for you in other fps?

What operating system do you use?

I'm not sure what free look is. Is that the auto-centering feature found on most analog joysticks?

You have:

Setup > Controls > Joystick: On

set, right?

Snickersnack: freelook is the ability to look around freely, e.g. using a mouse or joystick, as opposed to using arrow keys or page up/down, pre-1995 style

Oh, I thought that was +mlook. Hmm ... I see freelook cvars.

Is freelook different from mouse look?

Edit:

There's also the option of using your joystick like a mouse. Xorg has a joystick input driver (this seems to work for OA but I need to make adjustments). Joystick mouse emulators like qjoypad for Linux and glovepie for Windows are another possibility.

EditEdit:

Hmmm... can't seem to control jumping with X11 joystick input. Will try qjoypad.

Oops. Hit quote instead of modify. :(


EditEditEdit:

It looks like qjoypad is a pain to get going. I think it has been abandoned. :(

I moved on to js2mouse. This emulates a mouse with your joystick. The keyboard is not emulated. It's laggy but works in OA. Free look works just like a mouse.

http://freshmeat.net/projects/js2mouse/

Considering the lag, I don't think this particular program is worth the fuss. A different program may be able to a better job.

This is one of the really old models, and I'm using Ubuntu

Joystick is on for OA, I can make it look up and down but not left and right and OA only has key selections for up and down even though free look is on

how do you install this js2mouse?   I paste in the code for installing it, then I press enter to type my password but it said 'invalid authentication'

You can make the stock joystick driver look left and right. In controls under the 'move' submenu, bind your joystick to"turn left" and "turn right". It's not very good though. The game seems to treat the joystick axes as a 4 directional dpad. Yuck. :( It's no good for serious play but can be useful for exploring new maps.

I think the free look setting is only for the mouse.

In its current state, Js2mouse is only useful as a proof of concept (gain free look on joystick by emulating a mouse). It works, but the controls can lag by over a second and outside OA you're stuck with a joystick controling your mouse pointer. If this method is interesting, you're probably better off seeking a different program. Qjoypad seemed well respected but looks to be suffering from bit rot. There may be others (this type of emulator seems to be more plentiful on  Windows).
 

ok thanks for your help and everyone else's!

I'll update if I find anything interesting!

unfortunately ioq3 is not designed for joysticks/gamepads and there is little interest to support those.

Quake and Quake2 has better joysticks support

:(