*** *** Readme file for the Adaptoid driver, ver 1.2.78 (beta). *** 1. Installation Instructions ---------------------------- The driver file NA1_1278B.EXE is a self-extracting zip archive which will extract to the A: floppy drive by default. It extracts the following files: _readme.txt 12,934 5-21-00 5:11p This file butord.exe 32,256 5-05-00 6:39p Button Order utility setup.exe 44,544 5-19-00 11:31a Driver Installer test.exe 32,768 5-05-00 1:17p Rumble test program testdx.exe 43,008 5-05-00 3:16a DirectX test program wishna1.inf 10,265 5-19-00 11:31a Installation script wishna1.sys 25,088 5-21-00 4:23p Kernel driver wishna1f.dll 9,728 5-19-00 11:33a Force feedback driver wishna1m.dll 100,352 5-19-00 11:34a Mempak filesystem driver To install this driver: a) Insert a blank formatted floppy in the A: drive. b) Run NA1_1278B.EXE and click the unzip button. This will create the driver floppy. c) Run the setup.exe driver installer from the floppy. (Start | Run | a:\setup.exe) d) Click the "Install" button. e) Plug the Adaptoid into a USB port. It will automatically install itself. f) Click the "Exit" button. If you don't want to create a driver floppy, you can extract the archive to a hard disk folder instead and run the setup.exe from there. You can run the driver installer before, during, or after you plug in the Adaptoid. If you plug in the Adaptoid before running the driver installer, you may see a driver installation wizard pop up. Just cancel out of this wizard and run the driver installer program. To remove this driver: Run the setup.exe driver installer program. Click on "Uninstall". To remove just the mempak driver (and the Adaptoid icon on the desktop) but leave the rumble driver installed: In the control panel, select "Add/Remove programs" and remove the entry with the description "Adaptoid Desktop Icon (Mempak Driver)". 2. Force Feedback support ------------------------- To enable force feedback in a DirectX game which offers it, just plug a rumble pack into your N64 controller before starting the game. The Adaptoid force feedback driver should be detected automatically by the game. Some games may require that force feedback be enabled via a menu item in the game, or require you to enable or set up a joystick using a configuration menu in the game. Since force feedback commands used by DirectX games usually control the forces applied to the joystick itself, the driver translates these commands into ones suitable for a rumble pack. The Adaptoid's rumble driver uses two methods of doing this, either rumbling when the game calls for a steady force or rumbling when the game changes the direction of a force. The default is a 50/50 mix of the two, but you can change this, as well as the overall rumble strength, using the "on the fly force tuning" feature. ON-THE-FLY FORCE TUNING a) Press the following buttons all at the same time and then release them: Left-flipper + Right-flipper + Z + Start Be careful to keep the joystick centered when you press this button combination, as this also resets your joystick center calibration. b) The rumble pack will start rumbling to indicate you're in "force setting" mode. c) Move the stick up to increase the force effects in the game, or down to decrease them. Leave the stick in the center for the default setting. While you are doing this, the rumble pack will speed up or slow down to reflect the new setting. d) Press any button on the controller while holding the stick at the desired force setting. This will end the "force setting" mode and will return control of the rumble pack to the game in progress. e) ADVANCED: Moving the stick more to the left or right while in the "force setting" mode will select which type of forces you want the rumble pack to respond to, with the left side responding to changes in force direction, and the right side responding to steady unchanging forces. Again, the center is the default setting. While you are in the "force setting" mode, the rumbling indication will be rougher or smoother to indicate the method mix, with rougher indicating more "direction change" response, and smoother indicating more "steady force" response. In general, with more "direction change" response, the rumble pack tends to rumble only when something happens in the game, while more "steady force" response causes the rumble pack to rumble more often. But each game differs, and everyone's tastes vary, so you just have to play with it to see what you like best. f) ADVANCED: While in the "force setting" mode, you can decrease or disable spring effects by pressing the D-pad up for full strength, diagonal-up for 50%, right or left for 25%, diagonal down for 12% or down for OFF. Spring effects are usually used for steering wheel tension in racing or flying games. Since spring effects are sometimes used to convey collision forces, the Adaptoid simulates these types of effects with the rumble pack. If you find it annoying that you get rumbling when you move the stick, reducing or disabling the spring forces will usually stop it. Spring effects require force calculations whenever the stick moves, so turning them off may improve system performance. g) The on-the-fly force tuning is separate from the game's force feedback strength settings. You may want to change the game's force feedback strength settings to control the relative strengths of the different force feedback effects (eg, a racing game's road effects vs. collisions). 3. Mempack Data Transfer ------------------------ Memory paks are used to store data used by N64 games. The Adaptoid allows you to transfer this data to and from your computer. This is useful for backing up this data, archiving important game saves, sending game saves to your friends, or downloading game saves from the internet to help you through a tough part of a game. The way the Adaptoid gives you access to this mempak data is by extending the filesystem on your computer to include files that are on a mempak which is plugged into a N64 controller, which is plugged into an Adaptoid, which is plugged into a USB port on your computer. The mempak files are located in a special Adaptoid folder which exists on your desktop, similar to the "My Computer" folder or the recycle bin folder. This folder can be opened in either an explorer window or a folder window. The easiest way to get to the mempak files is to double click on the Adaptoid icon on your desktop. This will open a window which shows what files are on your Memory Pak. You can drag these files from the Adaptoid folder onto your desktop or into another folder, and you can drag these files back into the Adaptoid folder at a later time to restore them. To delete files from a Memory Pak, select them in the Adaptoid explorer window and press the "Del" key to delete them. You will be prompted to confirm deletion of each file. When you drag files out of the Adaptoid folder, they are encoded into .a64 files. This file format is a text format which hex-encodes the binary mempak data. This text format allows you to add notes to the file (in the a64-notes section). When you drag an .a64 file back into the Adaptoid folder, the data section in the file is parsed out and decoded before copying it back to the Memory Pak. Any text preceding or following the a64-data section is ignored. You can also import other memory pak file formats by dragging the file into the Adaptoid folder. Formats supported for importing are 32768 byte raw binary files, and 36928 byte .n64 files. There is no method provided for exporting to other data formats in this beta version. Before a brand new mempak can be used it must be formatted by a N64 console. To do this, insert the mempak and power up a game which uses the mempak while holding down the "Start" button. This will launch the mempak manager, and will automatically format the mempak if it isn't already formatted. 4. Button Order --------------- The default order of the controller buttons reported by the Adaptoid is: A, C-down, C-right, B, C-left, C-up, Left, Right, Start, Z, D-up, D-down, D-left, D-right This button order is similar to that used by the majority of gamepads, and provides the best compatability with existing PC games. If you wish to change this button order, you can use the supplied "butord" command-line utility program to select a different order. Button order changes are temporary and will be reset to the default order when the computer is rebooted. Run the "butord" utility program from a DOS box and it will give usage instructions and show the current button order. The button names are 1 or 2 letter abbreviations, with CU/CD/CL/CR meaning the yellow "C" buttons (up,down,left,right), and DU/DD/DL/DR meaning the gray directional pad (up,down, left,right). The other buttons are named A, B, S, Z, L & R. 5. Limitations -------------- This beta version of the driver has the following limitations in the mempack support: a) If more that one Adaptoid is installed, the Adaptoid folder will show only the contents of a mempak in the first Adaptoid. The first Adaptoid is the one in the lowest numbered USB port. b) Exporting mempak data to file formats other than .a64 is not supported yet. c) Sometimes when you drag a file into the Adaptoid folder, the file is opened as a text file in an Explorer window instead of transferring it to the memory pak. To get Explorer to stop doing this, close the window and re-open it from the Adaptoid icon. d) You cannot transfer game saves to or from a mempak by using a single explorer window. You must open two windows and drag/drop between them, or drag/drop between one window and the desktop. e) Writing to mempaks is somewhat slow in this beta version, requiring up to 30 seconds to write a 123-page file. Reading is considerably faster. The slow writing is due to a workaround for a bug in certain USB host controllers which caused system lockups in certain cases. In a future release, this workaround will be disabled on systems which do not require it, which is about 99% of the systems out there. 6. Programming API ------------------ A SDK is available which describes how to programmaticaly communicate with the Adaptoid and includes some sample programs with C source code. This SDK can be downloaded from www.wishtech.com/drivers/sdk_1163b.zip 7. Change Log -------------- Rev 1.2.78 - 5/21/00 * New DirectX force effects engine for rumble pack * Added on-the-fly force tuning * Improved support for 3rd party rumble packs by enabling rumble command retransmission Rev 1.1.63 - 5/7/00 * Fixed bug in device detection process (doh!) Rev 1.1.59 - 5/5/00 * New driver installer application * Added support for Win2000 * Added support for force feedback on multiple Adaptoids simultaneously * Added communication timing workaround to get Arcade Shark joystick working (controls only... no mempak or rumble pack support for this joystick) * Fixed problem in mempak driver regarding game save name corruption when transferring saves from hard disk to mempak that have an extension as part of the name. * Fixed incorrect detection of some 3rd party memory paks as rumble paks * Added DirectInput escapes for SDK * Enabled octagonal-rectangular mapping transformation when using rumble driver * Fixed bug in DirectX force feedback where rumble effects were not being stopped when they should * Added capability to remove desktop icon & mempak driver from within Add/Remove programs control panel (leaves rumble driver installed) * Gave proper names to buttons for DirectX * Added capability to rearrange the order of the controller buttons via a command line utility program. Altered button arrangement persists until a reboot occurs. Rev 1.0.0 - 12/29/99 * Initial release 8. Legal Stuff -------------- The Adaptoid is a product of Wish Technologies, Inc., and is not manufactured, distributed or endorsed by Nintendo of America Inc. N64 and Nintendo are trademarks of Nintendo of America Inc.