Can someone suggest a gamepad that can be used with Pillars of Garendall on MacOS, if such a beast exists? If it just supported any old gamepad, then call me an idiot and recommend your favourite. I didn't notice gamepad controls in its prefs, but I don't have the machine it's on in front of me right now.

The main reason I ask is that I'm playing on a 'Pismo' PowerBook, and my 'x' key is starting to get 'sticky' from constantly pushing it. I really would not like to have to replace my keyboard from playing PoG.

Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks!

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You can use any gamepad. Just customize the keys in the gamepads controlpanel to the ones you need for PoG.

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Quote

Originally posted by FrogLogic:
**You can use any gamepad. Just customize the keys in the gamepads controlpanel to the ones you need for PoG.

**

And if your gamepad does not let you set keys, you can have USB Overdrive do it for you.

I use the cheap but effective Gravis GamePad Pro.

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Quote

Originally posted by ArcAngel Counterstrike:
**
I use the cheap but effective Gravis GamePad Pro.

**

i also have this game pad but cant get it to work, what is gamepad control panel? and what is USB Overdrive?

thanking you in advance for you help

stray

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The gamepad only shows up if the game supports input sprockets,
USB Overdrive helps by setting keys and commands to buttons of the gamepad to get around this. Its shareware. (url="http://"http://www.montalcini.com/")http://www.montalcini.com/(/url)

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(This message has been edited by ArcAngel Counterstrike (edited 09-17-2001).)

Okay, so the only message I got before I left work was the one saying that any USB gamepad will work just fine. I think, cool! That's easy. I traipse off to the store to pick up a cheap USB gamepad in order to save my keyboard from certain death.

I look at all the models with the refrain going through my mind, "Any USB gamepad will work." I pick up an AxisPad Colors gamepad from Interact Accessories. It says Mac and PC right on the box, and is USB, with a pretty comfortable feel at an affordable price.

I get it home, and go to follow the installation instructions. The CD, however, doesn't contain the Mac software they tell you to install. After scouring it for a while, I give up and go to their website. I download and install the drivers from there. I go into the gamepad's control panel, and all seems to be working. I was expecting, based on the message, to be able to customize keypresses for each control or something, but I guess not. Anyway, whatever. I run PoG. No dice.

I come back here and see the next message saying that if your gamepad doesn't work for you then you can get USB Overdrive to make it work. I download it and follow its instructions (remove any joystick-specific extensions and control panels, run the installer and reboot.)

I'm greeted by a shareware message. A little irritating, but whatever -- I'm expecting something like $5. It's $20 USD. That's more than the gamepad cost! It would actually be cheaper to go out and buy a gamepad that worked out of the box, if someone could recommend one, and just give this one away to someone for free.

Okay, but I decide to configure it and try it. This is where I notice that my system is totally screwed up with this USB Overdrive thing installed. I can't manipulate lists at all -- whenever I move the mouse at all they fly all over the place to random points on the list. Eventually, using a lot of luck and keyboard shortcuts, I manage to get the gamepad configured to send the right keystrokes for PoG -- up, down, left, right for the D-Pad, 'x' for button 3 (the bottom of the button quad), and 'z' for L2. I figure I'll start with that.

I go into PoG, and of course, it totally doesn't work again. The game doesn't react to the gamepad at all.

So what gives? It took me about 20 minutes just to deactivate USB Overdrive because I the extension manager list kept flitting all over the place, after which my audio interface wouldn't work. A few reboots and tweaks later, things seem to be back to normal. However, I now have a $29.95 (CAD) hunk of useless plastic and still no gamepad control for PoG.

Any more suggestions?

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did you set what program the pog key set went too in USB Overdrive? you may have set the universal set that effects the finder and all programs.

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Yes, I had set it in the general config. I'm not sure why this would cause it to -not- work in PoG, given that that's supposed to be the config for everything, but hey.

I reinstalled USB Overdrive, and got the same problems (lists not working, etc.). Then I disabled both joystick and mouse for the general config, and everything settled down. I then made a special config for PoG, disabled mouse for it just in case, enabled joystick, and set up the various key mappings. I went into PoG to test it out.

The gamepad now -did- stuff in PoG, but seemingly random things. I could make the guy move downward or fire. About half the keys or directions moved him down. About 1/4 of them made him fire. About 1/4 of them did nothing.

I went back into the USB Overdrive control panel and poked around. I noted that it says that you can use a custom driver instead of the built in driver if you are having trouble with your joystick or gamepad. Just for the hell of it, I tried enabling Custom Driver, and I reenabled the driver for my gamepad and rebooted.

This resulted in my Graphire tablet not working at all (and the driver producing an error, which it doesn't even do if I unhook the tablet), my mouse being unable to click on anything (despite moue support in USB Overdrive being disabled), and thus me being unable to even use the Mac. Unhooking everything and booting it, I was able to remove USB Overdrive, since the trackpad then worked okay.

The net result is that this still doesn't work. I know it's not your problem, since you don't make USB Overdrive. However, to be fair, I think that the correct answer if someone asks if PoG supports USB gamepads in the future is that no, it does not at all. All games which have USB gamepad support in them work fine with my new gamepad and even show a little picture of it that I can use to assign keys, so the gamepad itself is fine, and its MacOS support is fine. For completeness, it would be acceptable to then note that if your gamepad is capable of sending keystrokes or if you buy this third-party utility and your gamepad happens to work with it, then you can use that to send keystrokes, and to recommend specific gamepads known to work in this configuration. I think that that would keep the frustration level down to a minimum.

Any idea why they didn't just build normal inputsprocket support for gamepads and other controllers into Coldstone? In talking to some developer friends about this issue overnight, they all seem to think that not having this support in this day and age is a totally braindead thing.

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Sorry if my suggestion has caused problems...every gamepad that I, or my friends, have used you can just customize in the control panel...

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Which specific gamepad are you using that allows customization that works with PoG right within its control panel? As mentioned, it would be cheaper for me to just buy a new one and give this one away to someone than for me to buy the utility, even if it worked. By in the control panel, you mean in the gamepad's control panel, not in USB Overdrive's control panel, correct?

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Quote

Originally posted by Epiphyte:
**Any idea why they didn't just build normal inputsprocket support for gamepads and other controllers into Coldstone? In talking to some developer friends about this issue overnight, they all seem to think that not having this support in this day and age is a totally braindead thing.
**

Well, one issue is that InputSprocket is not supported on OS X. The equivalent is the HID manager, which was not documented to any appreciable extent until WWDC this year, so it would've been tight to add it in time. Beenox may have decided that with no simple 9-and-X Carbon solution, it was easier to remove support altogether.

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There are three types of mathematicians: those who can count, and those who can't.

Re: use of "x" key...

Personally, I never use the "x" key. I click instead. It's a habit from using the bow of destruction a lot (if you click you are much more accurate than if you press x). Get where you need to be, hold down Z, and click like mad in the direction of your enemy (this also lets you target which enemy if you're fighting more than 1).

Or you could just pop the "x" out of your keyboard and clean up the spilled coke.

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--Ptolemy

I actually haven't used a gamepad for a while. When I got it I ended up not using it that much and gave it away, but in the control panel of the pad I was able to set what all of the pad's keys did, then use it in any game I wanted. It's been about a year, but I think it was a gravis pad...I also have a friend with a newer pad, not sure of the name, but it looks like one of the N64 pads and he has a similar control panel. I also have a joystick and a mouse, both of which come with control panels that allow you to customize the keys. Guess that not all pads do come with them then...

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Hello group and sorry for digging up this old thread;-/
I'm looking for a way to change the control keys for attack and defense - since I'm a lefty and used to mouse playing style a la Baldurs Gate, the 'x' and 'z' keys are waay out of range from either the arrow or number keys. Since PoG doesn't have a .ini file to modify (sigh...), is there any way to hack into the engine and change it there?

TIA