ACT LABS Force RS(tm) Driver Installation http://www.actlab.com SPECIAL NOTE WHEN UPDATING FROM A PREVIOUS VERSION: FIRST completely un-install the Force RS drivers following the procedure in section IIIB below, then install the new drivers. Failure to un-install the old drivers first may result in odd behviour of the test forces and other parts of the Force RS driver control panel. ********************************************************************* TABLE OF CONTENTS ********************************************************************* I. INSTALLING THE ACT LABS FORCE RS DRIVERS 1A. Installation of Device through USB port 1B. Installation of Device through Serial Port 1C. Installation/Update of Device through the Game Control Panel 1D. Testing & Calibration 1E. ImmCheck a. Detecting Microsoft(r) DirectX 5(tm) b. Detecting a Game Port Joystick c. Installing a Game Port Joystick II. KNOWN BUGS III. TROUBLE SHOOTING IIIA. Separate Pedal Mode IIIB. Uninstalling the Force RS Drivers IIIC. Disabling "Gameport Not Detected" Bootup Error Message ********************************************************************* I. INSTALLING THE ACT LABS FORCE RS DRIVERS 1A. Universal Serial Bus (USB) Device Installation: --------------------------------------------------- If your Force RS has a USB connector and your computer supports USB, you can take advantage of the automatic Plug and Play installation. This requires either Windows98(tm) or Windows95(tm) "OSR 2.1" or higher. Your system must also have USB connectors or a USB adapter card. If you have all the above, perform the following installation steps: Windows 95 1) Turn on your computer and boot to Windows95. 2) Plug the Force RS into the computer's USB connector, making sure that the Force RS power is on. 3) Your computer will detect an "Unknown Device." 4) Insert the floppy disk or CD-ROM containing the Force RS (if they are not already somewhere on your hard drive. 5) Click Next. 6) If the Drivers are on a floppy disk and detected, click "Next" or "Finish" to complete the Driver installation. If the drivers are on a CD-ROM, hard drive, or not detected in the root directory of the floppy disk, click on the "other location" button. You can then enter the directory (folder) of the drivers in the box, or choose "browse" and find it's location (eg. "C:\forcers123"). Click "Next" or "Finished" to continue. 7) While installing the Driver, Windows may again ask for the location of a specific file. Simply choose the directory of the drivers, and click "Okay." 8) Click Finish and restart the computer if necessary. Windows 98 1) Turn on your PC and boot to Windows98. 2) Plug the device into the computer's USB connector, making sure that the device's power is on. 3) Your computer will detect the device and report "New Device Found." 4) Click Next 5) Choose "Search for Best Drivers" and click "Next." 6) Insert the floppy disk or CD-Rom containing the I-force Drivers 7) Specify the location of the drivers, either the Floppy Drive, CD-ROM, or somewhere on the hard drive. 8) Click Next. 9) Click Next. 10) While installing the Driver, Windows may again ask for the location of a specific file. Simply choose the directory of the drivers, and click "Okay." 11) Click Finish and restart the computer if necessary. 1B. Serial Device Installation: ------------------------------ If you do not have the necessary USB components listed above, use the serial connector only and perform the following installation steps: 1) Plug the Force RS into the computer's serial connector, making sure that the wheel's power is on. 2) Start up or restart your computer. 3) Windows' Plug and Play should detect the device through Plug and Play. You can then install the device by following the instructions from step 2 above in the "USB DEVICE INSTALLATION" section. If your Force RS was not detected as a Plug and Play device at boot up, you may try to have it recognized as follows 1) Plug the device into the computer's serial connector, making sure that the device's power is on. 2) Open the Control Panel from the Start menu under Settings. 3) Open the System icon and click on the Device Manager tab. 4) Click on the Refresh button. 4) You can then install the device by following the instructions from step 2 above in the "Installing USB Connection" section. 1C. Control Panel Installation ----------------------------------- If Windows does not detect the Force RS through USB or Serial Plug and Play, you can install the drivers manually. 1) Open the Control Panel from the Start menu under Settings. 2) Open the Game Controllers icon in the Control Panel. 3) Click on "Add..." 4) Click on "Add Other..." 5) Click on "Have Disk...". 6) In the "Install From Disk" dialog box, Browse to the directory on your floppy disk, CD-ROM, or hard drive (c:\ForceRS123) that contains the driver files and click OK. 7) Select ACT LABS Force RS and click OK. 8) Click on Finish to continue installing the software. 9) Restart your computer if necessary. 1D. SELECTING, CALIBRATING, AND TESTING THE DEVICE -------------------------------------------------- To use the Force RS, the external power connector and either the serial connector or USB connector must be plugged in (your device may not have a USB connector). If your device has both a serial port connector and a USB connector, DO NOT plug in both the serial and USB connectors at the same time! Only one is necessary for the device to work, plugging both in may lead to odd malfunctions. Set up the Force RS in the Game Controlers Panel as follows: 1) Open the Control Panel from the Start menu under Settings. 2) Open the Game Controllers icon in the Control Panel. 3) Click on "Add..." 4) Choose "ACT LABS Force RS" from the list of controllers and click "OK" 5) The status should read OK. 6) Click on the "Properties" button. 7) Turn the wheel left and right and depress the pedals a few times to auto-calibrate. 8) To test forces, click on the Test Forces tab and press the buttons on the wheel. 9) You can also adjust the strength of the forces by clicking on the Gain Settings Tab and adjusting the levels of the forces. 1E. ImmCheck ------------------ ImmCheck is a program created by the Immersion Corporation to insure that your system has DirectX 5 or greater and a Game Port Joystick installed. With out them, your I-Force Device will not function properly. Should your computer fail to load these devices, ImmCheck will enable and give you a message, informing you of the missing component. ImmCheck can be disabled by deleting the file "immcheck.exe" from either the "c:\windows" or "c:\windows\system" folders. If you have a non-Microsoft gameport driver installed, Immcheck may be fooled into thinking there is no gameport at all. Simply delete the immcheck.exe files (as above) to disable the un-needed warning. a.) DirectX 5 Detection Currently, all Windows 98 systems have DirectX 5 or greater incorporated into the operating system. If you have Windows 95 and are unsure if you have DirectX 5 or greater installed, please follow these steps provided: 1) Click on the Start button. 2) Choose Find, then click on "Files or Folders" 3) In the "Named" box, type DXSETUP.EXE 4) In the "Look in" box, choose the C drive. 5) Click "Find Now" 6) Your computer will now search your hard drive for this program. If it doesn't find it, you probably don't have DirectX installed. If it does, it should find a program of at least 87 kilobytes. 7) Double-click on the little computer icon of the DXSETUP program found. 8) You should have a three column box appear with numbers in the middle column. Check the version number of DirectInput. It should be at least 4.05.XX.XXXX. If your computer reads 4.03.XX.XXXX or less, you probably have an earlier version of Direct X and need to upgrade. You can download a free copy of Direct X 6 from the Microsoft website at www.microsoft.com/directx. You can also find it bundled with most of the more recent games, or find it packaged on CD-ROMS in many computer games magazines. b.) Detecting a Game Port Joystick If ImmCheck detects that you do not have a Game Port or if ImmCheck fails to run and you are unsure if you have one installed, please take the following steps to insure its presence. 1) Click on the "Start" button 2) Choose "Settings." 3) Click on "Control Panel" 4) In the Control Panel box, double-click on the "System" icon. 5) Click the "Device Manager" tab. 6) Double click on "Sound, Video, and Game Controllers" in the list. 7) If you do not see a "Game Port Joystick" appear in the list, proceed to the following directions. c.) Installing a Game Port Joystick To install a Game Port Joystick, please take the following steps. 1) Open the Control Panel from the Start menu under Settings. 2) Open the Game Controllers icon in the Control Panel. 3) Click on "Add...". 4) Click on "Add Other...". 5) Choose "Microsoft" under Manufacturers and "Game Port Joystick" under Models 6) Click Next 7) Click on Finish to continue installing the software. 8) Restart your computer if prompted. ********************************************************************* II. KNOWN BUGS IN THIS REVISION ********************************************************************* 1) Immcheck is disabled if the computer is left on for more than 49 days. Restarting the computer will re-enable the program. Force Feedback device is unaffected by the status of Immcheck, regardless if it's enabled or disabled. 2) Labels for Gas and Brake pedals are reversed in the "test input" screen of the driver applet when in independent pedal mode. This has absolutely no effect in games supporting independent pedal axis inputs. In games that are not capable of supporting a third controller axis, combined mode **must** be used. ********************************************************************* III. TROUBLE-SHOOTING ********************************************************************* Basic Troubleshooting for the Force RS: 1) Check to insure that the Force RS is plugged in properly. The Force RS wheel will return to approximate center when power is applied, even if not connected to the PC. If it does not auto-center, check to see that all cords, including the AC adapter, are plugged in properly and that your power outlet is working properly. 2) Are the ACT LABS Force RS software drivers installed? You can check for installed drivers by looking at the Add Game Controllers list in the Game Control Panel. Simply click "Add" and scroll through the list. If you do not see an ACT LABS Force RS device located here, reinstall uisng the latest driver from our website. 3) Is DirectX 5.x or greater installed on your system? Please refer to the section 1F to insure that it is properly installed. 4) Has the device been configured in the Game Control Panel? Refer to section 1D to ensure that it is. If the status says "ok", but you still do not feel any forces from a force feedback game, highlight the device in the list and click on properties. You can then check the calibration of the device, test forces, and check the device gain setting. The gain setting must be set to at least 50% to feel forces. Also, check the Advanced tab in the Game Controllers. Here, you can view or change the device ID number. Make sure that the ACT LABS Force RS is is set to the lowest possible ID number (#1). If the controller has a status of "not connected" or flickers with an "ok," check all connections and power supplies to insure that they are plugged in correctly. 5) If you are using the serial version of the Force RS, be sure that the device is not conflicting with your mouse, modem. or other devices. Check in your Device Manager to see if you have any hardware conflicts. These will be indicated by a yellow exclamation point next to the problem device. If a conflict is present, contact your hardware or computer manufacturer to clear the conflict. Also, you may have DOS serial mouse drivers running in your Windows environment. These may conflict with the joystick and are not necessary in Windows. Finally, make sure the serial port for the wheel is in fact enabled in the computer's system BIOS setup. 6) If you have/had a Microsoft Gaming or Gravis Game Pad device installed upon your computer, be sure that its Profiler program or drivers are not conflicting with the Force RS. The Profiler program can be safely removed through your Add/Remove Programs Icon in your control panel or unloaded by right clicking on the icon in your start bar in the lower right-hand corner. 8) Do you have any backgrounds programs that are conflicting with the I-Force Drivers? You can TEMPORARILY remove these programs by pressing the Ctrl-Alt-Delete keys together once. This will enable a "Close Program Box" where you can "end task" these programs that may be conflicting. Simply select each program, then hit the "end task" button. Keep the Systray, Explorer, and any other programs that are vital to your computer's function running. If you make a mistake, simply restart your computer, and all programs will be restored. Through trial and error, you can determine which program is causing a conflict with the device. 9) If you are using USB to connect your Force RS, be sure that the USB support is installed onto your computer. UsbReady.exe is a program that checks your computer for USB compliance. It is available at www.usb.org/usbready . Also, you can check your device manager for a "Universal serial bus controller." If you do not see it, you must install the USB support found on most newer WIN95 CD's or in WIN98. Contact Microsoft for proper installation procedures. IIIA. SEPARATE PEDALS CHECKBOX DOES NOT APPEAR AFTER INSTALLING SEPARATE MODE ENABLED DRIVER Sometimes, the Windows Registry does not fully update to reflect the new attributes of the device. To rectify this problem, follow the steps below carefully. Note that mistakes made in editing the registry can cause serious Windows problems so backing it up before editing is recommended. 1. Open the "Game Controllers" applet in Windows Control Panel Make sure ACT LABS Force RS is listed *and* is the only device listed under General. Under adanced, make sure it is Controller ID# 1. Click OK to exit the Game Controllers panel. 2. Click the "Start" button, Select "Run", type "regedit" then click on "OK". Expand the following registry keys in the stated order: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE System CurrentControlSet control MediaResources joystick The path should now be: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\MediaResources\joystick\ You will now see the sub keys: "JoystickSettings" and "CurrentJoystickSettings" Highlight "CurrentJoystickSettings" in the left hand window. In the right hand window, highlight the key "Joystick1Configuration", right-click the mouse and select "Delete" to remove it Expand "JoystickSettings", highlight the sub key "VID_061C&PID_C084" then right-click and select "Delete" to remove it. Close the Registry Editor. Now go back to Game Controllers panel and then add the Force RS back into the list (under the "General" tab). Click on "Properties" to see if the "Separate pedals" checkbox is now there. IIIB. UNINSTALLING THE FORCE RS DRIVERS If the above does not help or you are experiencing odd device behaviour or other problems, make sure you do a clean install of the new driver. The best way to accomplish this is to follow these steps completely: 1. Remove the ACT LABS Force RS from the list of installed drivers in the Game Controllers applet. Do so by clicking on "add" (from the "general"page) and highlighting ACT LABS Force RS in the list of game controllers. Press the "delete" key ***on the keyboard*** and answer OK. Repeat this step if there is more than one ACT LABS Force RS entry. Exit the Game Controllers panel. This method may not work and especially if using DirectX 7, you may have to manually edit the registry to remove the following keys (see IIIA above for info on opening the registry editor): HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaProperties\PrivateProperties\Joystick\OEM\VID_061C&PID_C084 and/or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaProperties\PrivateProperties\Joystick\OEM\ACT LABS Force RS 2. Right click on "My Computer", select "properties" and then "device manager". Double-click on "Sound Video and Game Controllers" then look for any entries for the ACT LABS Force RS. Highlight each one and then click remove. Repeat until all ACT LABS Force RS entries are gone. Click OK to exit the device manager. (If you you are prompted to re-boot, select "NO" at this time). 3. Using Windows Explorer, find the directory C:\Windows\Inf\Other and then look for any files with the name "Immersion????????.inf" or similar. Delete them (or, move them to another directory to be safe). 3a. (optional) Delete Force RS driver system files. See section *** below for list. Drivers are completely uninstalled once system is restarted. Follow the next steps if you want to re-install. 4. Make sure your Force RS is connected and powered up and then re-start Windows. 5. Upon re-start, the wheel should be detected by Plug and Play and you will be prompted to install the drivers. Select "allow Windows to find the best driver" but then make sure it only looks in the specified directory. Browse to the folder containing the new driver files you want to install (eg. c:\ForceRS121-i) and then proceed with the installation. *** Listed below are all the files installed by the ACT LABS Force RS driver. For good measure (or if you need to completely remove the drivers rather than re-install), delete them from the "C:Windows\System\" folder. Files with an "*" are the active system files that must be deleted to remove the driver completely. immdx5.dll * immcpl.dll * iforce2.dll * immdev.vxd * immser.vxd * immusb.vxd * fxpass.sys * immcheck.vxd * immcheck.exe * ifsplash.exe * iforce.cpl * iforce.hlp * immvjoy.vxd * imm_enu.dll * act_w.bmp immwheel.ifr IFStart0.wav IFStart1.wav IFStart2.wav Engine.wav BlownTir.wav Boing.wav Explosio.wav OpenSea.wav TurboBoo.wav Gong.wav BumpyRoa.wav CarCrash.wav Punch.wav WhipLash.wav ForceFie.wav IIIC. Disabling "Gameport Not Detected" Bootup Error Message If you get a message on bootup warning that your "Gameport is not detected" or the "Microsoft Gameport Joystick" is not installed, but your Force RS is otherwise working fine, you may disable the IMMCHECK utility. To do so, simply delete the file "IMMCHECK.EXE" from either the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM or C:\WINDOWS folders. The IMMCHECK utility warns of a lack of a gameport driver. The gameport driver is needed because part of the Game Controller Applet's functionalitiy depends on it, even if you do not have any gameport-connected devices. In the case of sound cards that install their own version of the gameport driver, IMMCHECK does not recognize them and brings up the error message. If you know your Force RS is working fine, then there is no need to worry about the error message. Note: The IMMCHECK.EXE file will be re-installed if the driver is re-installed. ********************************************************************* Other product and company names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective owners.