Game controller = vibrator

[mila_V]

I just made a simple software utility to control gamepad force feedback feature from a PC (Windows). I tested in on Logitech RumblePad 2 but I think it can work with anything that supports force feedback.

http://depositfiles.com/files/bil5ralse

It works in 2 modes:
In timer mode you can specify random timing and intensity of vibration for both motors.
In display mode you can rig it to grab color from any pixel on screen and use it to switch motors on/off. This feature may be used for "remote" control via, for instance, ICQ client.
Both modes can work simultaneously.
Also it can work in conjunction with any other program that can run external apps. You can check "Autostart" box and specify autorun duration and random in similar way as other timers. On next run the program will start automatically and exit in given number of seconds. Alternatively you may add number (of seconds) to command line to start it in "active" mode.
I think it might be useful for folks out there, so I share
Make sure you have your game controller driver installed. It seems Windows 7 default driver for some odd reason doesn't support force feedback while Windows XP does, I'm not sure.

[qwerty212]

Woooop, seems pretty interesting... I was thinking on something similar to do an exit.exe file that ran a vibrator for x minutes and then it opens the cd tray or something like that... but I never got the time to do that.

Thanks a lot for sharing it with us.

Greets from Barcelona

[mila_V]

It might need one more thing to work - Microsoft VC redistributable.
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/de ... px?id=5555
It comes with most of PC games, so it should be already installed on a machine with a game controller.

[jason88888]

Hello and thanks for the effort!

It doesn't work for me, first I had a error-message that stated a msvcr100.dll was not found, then I read your second post about Microsoft VC redistributable and installed that, now I have a different error - Error Initializing DirectInput RumbleFun will now exit.

Any idea what's wrong?

It's a X-Box Controller for PC, Windows XP SP3.

[Veronica]

most likely need to install DirectX you can find it on microsoft site

or here for the latest version that MS supports for win xp: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=35

[mila_V]

Thanks for feedback. Frankly I've no idea why xbox controller wouldn't run. But now I added log and as many error messages as seemed reasonable. So get new version from the link in 1st post and try. It will create log file that might help indicate the source of the problem.

[jason88888]

most likely need to install DirectX you can find it on microsoft site

or here for the latest version that MS supports for win xp: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=35

Thanks. The installer says that a newer or the same version is already installed and that DX is not needed to be installed.

Thanks for feedback. Frankly I've no idea why xbox controller wouldn't run. But now I added log and as many error messages as seemed reasonable. So get new version from the link in 1st post and try. It will create log file that might help indicate the source of the problem.

This is what the log says -

Log started at 10:58:54'109, 2011-10-02
Error error disabling auto-center spring
Log closed at 10:58:58'546

[mila_V]

Well, that's something. I made this error a warning instead so it shouldn't prevent running the program. Try once more.

[jason88888]

Well, that's something. I made this error a warning instead so it shouldn't prevent running the program. Try once more.

Hello!

Still "Error Initializing DirectInput RumbleFun will now exit." The log now -

Log started at 17:43:52'906, 2011-10-02
Warning: error disabling auto-center spring
Error force feedback effeect

[mila_V]

Ok, I got it. Xbox controller doesn't support force feedback, instead it uses what they call "rumble" feature (it seems to me there's some confusion in feature names here). I need to use different library to control it. I'll try to fix it soon.

[mila_V]

Ok, now it probably should work with xbox controller. At least it will try to start its motors

[jason88888]

Still the same error message, log this time -

Log started at 10:55:19'828, 2011-10-03
Warning: error disabling auto-center spring
Warning: error creating force feedback effeect, trying Xbox controller
Log closed at 10:55:26'015

[mila_V]

Bummer Try this one.

[jason88888]

Bummer Try this one.

Some great news - It works!!!
Thanks for all the effort.

Now that it works, I have some questions about it's settings.
Could you explain a little more what the settings do?
We have there (all for left and right) -

Timer
Timer Random
Duration
Random
Max Force
Force Random

Maybe it's just my bad english, but I don't understand how these settings work together, the only setting which seems clear to me is 'Max Force' - I think if it's 1.0 it's 100% of the motor-power is used, 0.5 would be 50% of the motor power, right?

Would be cool if you could explain a bit more detailed what each setting does, for example we have there a timer and a timer random - for me it's not clear how that works together.

Anyway, seems like a very, very intersting piece of software you made, thanks again for that!

[mila_V]

At last, it's alive

'Max Force' - I think if it's 1.0 it's 100% of the motor-power is used, 0.5 would be 50% of the motor power, right?

That's right. You did press "Help" button, didn't you?
"Timer" is a basic delay between "bursts" in seconds. "Timer random" is a random fraction of that delay subtracted or added from it. So when "Timer" set to 10 and "Timer random" to 0.6 final resulting delay will be 10 +- (10*0.6) seconds (ranging from 4 to 16 seconds).
Similarly, "Duration" is a basic duration of "bursts" while "Duration random" is a random fraction of that time.
"Force random" works a little different, it's only subtracted from max force. So when "Max force" set to 1.0 and "Force random" to 0.6 final resulting intensity will range from 0.4 to 1.0. Note that "force" is not actually force, it's just speed of motor rotation.

I'm not sure it all will work as planned on xbox controller though.