[oharag]

Does anyone have a clue whether Apple is going to support GameSprockets on MacOS X? Apple had some great support for input devices (ie gamepads), playing over a network, support for voice, etc...

The reason why I'm asking is because I tried getting updated drivers for my Gravis GamePad. Gravis states that the drivers are part of Apple's GameSprockets, and users should go to Apple website. Everyone here probably will point me to USBOverdrive, but I went to their site and they stated that the beta for MacOS X does not yet support gamepads.

[KaptainKaya]

AFAIK Apple killed gamesprockets as we know them. I'm not sure on anything else they are doing/not doing about it though.

[oharag]

I can't believe that Apple would kill this. GameSprockets ruled for input devices et al. Also, Apple made a big point of supporting games on the Mac. What kind of support are they making for MacOS X? Go to Gravis' site and they state that gamepad support for all of their products are part of inputsprockets. This is even for their newer gamepads. I hope that Apple gets on the ball.

[Anomalous]

GameSprockets are no longer necessary because they incorporated their most important features directly into the OS.

[Millennium]

Some parts of DrawSprocket and NetSprocket survived in OSX.

The rest seems to have been put out to pasture. For most (SoundSprocket, SpeechSprocket, etc.) it was just lack of use. Were there any games out there that actually supported, for example, SpeechSprocket? Honest question; I don't know of any.

For InputSprocket, though, it was because a better mechanism was created: HIDManager. Unfortunately, game developers don't seem to have caught onto using it for some reason. We should be lobbying harder on that score.

What gamepad are you using? HIDManager seems to support most Gravis stuff; my GamePad Pro works fine. Your efforts may be better directed at game developers, asking them to support this important API.

[oharag]

Millennium, I also have a GamePad Pro. I plugged it in and nothing happened. I thought you could access a control panel after installing the software from the GamePad CD. Inputsprocket was needed to recognize the device. Using the control panel one could program the buttons on the GamePad Pro to do certain functions (ie jump, move etc...). How is this different on MacOS X? Do you still have the same capabilities on X?

[calumr]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Some parts of DrawSprocket and NetSprocket survived in OSX.

The rest seems to have been put out to pasture. For most (SoundSprocket, SpeechSprocket, etc.) it was just lack of use. Were there any games out there that actually supported, for example, SpeechSprocket? Honest question; I don't know of any.

I never heard of SpeechSprocket. I know there was a speech driver for InputSprocket.

Originally posted by Millennium:

For InputSprocket, though, it was because a better mechanism was created: HIDManager. Unfortunately, game developers don't seem to have caught onto using it for some reason. We should be lobbying harder on that score.

Better? Better? The HID manager is the most awful API I have ever had to use. Devices have to report various pieces of information (such as their name, elements, and the info on each element), and most do it very badly and inconsistently with each other. Some devices have axis that go from 0 to 255, others from 1 to 1024 etc. Making sure every device works, and is properly calibrated & that their names are reported as readable names (gamepads report their buttons as "Button #1", "Button #2" etc. where they should really be "Red button" & "Start button") is a time-consuming task that can only be done properly if you have every possible input device that may be used with your game.

I could go on for pages on how awful the HID API is, but then I wouldn't even have mentioned the fact that there is no GUI for configuration. There is no way to autoconfigure devices to actions in the game, and there is no way to save your settings without doing it yourself.

Apple seems to have been too busy to do a proper input library. Expecting game developers to use it is asking too much.

[Big Mac]

Now we have two highly conflicting opinions on HID. Does anyone care to provide a third? I believe such issues are quite important.

[Mafoo]

From most of the developers ive spoken too arnt too pleased with HID. Apple sells HID as a gamesprokets replacement, but frankly it falls short in most areas.

and what about netsprokets? OpenPlay fell flat on its face from what i have seen (any other games appart from pod racer?)

--mafoo

[BlackGriffen]

In the meantime, I've found that GamePad Companion works quite well. It lets you map the input to keys on the keyboard. Not the greatest for analog (since it translates it to digital), but better than nothing. Right now it is a control panel + daemon combo (daemon only runs when it is turned on). I don't know how complete or up to date the demo is nowadays, but I registered quite a while ago and I'm still getting all of the updates. At any rate, he used to do a lite version that was a couple revisions behind for the demo (judging from his web page the demos expire now), and only tells you where to download the full version after you've paid.

It's a handy little app, and worth $15 until this whole HID mess gets straightened out.

BlackGriffen

Edit: Ooops, forgot to mention that you can get the util from http://www.carvware.com/ .