DescentBB

Help BUBBALOU! I've installed the CH Control Manager v. 4.51 on my Win XP SP2 system and for the life of me, I can't calibrate my controllers from within the manager! I own the FS Yoke, Throttle Quad and Pro Pedals, which are over 5 years years old and which worked fine under an older version of Control Manager. I even have a brand new Combat Stick. Even though I can ADD them to a map and they show in the main screen after selecting each one, I can't get them to show up in the calibrate select screen AT ALL when I hit the calibrate button. It's just blank, no list of controllers to choose from. My system sees them OK in the Windows game controller interface too.

Do not use the windows game controller screen for any CH Controller unless it is in direct Input mode.

With the changes in the New CH Control Manager software it should force you to the CH Calibration Screen if you try to check it through windows. Exception being if you attempt to calibrate through FSX then it resets everything.

Question how are the Controlers displayed on the system

IE

CH COMBATSTICK USB (windows HID Drivers)

or

CH Combatstick USB (CH Products Drivers)


If you want the best experience when installing the Control Manager software

1 Remove old software
2 reboot system
3 make sure ALL controllers are pluged in
4 install CH Manager software (to install new drivers)
5 after every device has 2 drivers installed by the setup routine unplug all devices
6 plug one in at a time let drivers reload ( usally just the FSY and CS to make them each have CH Device ID1) - reboot


another way is in the CH Calibration Screen Hit the Rescan Button to force windows to reassign the new CH Drivers back to the devices.

Here's what I did. I had an older version of the CH Control Manager installed for years on this particular system and I was using the FS Yoke, Throttle Quad and Pro Pedals with no problems in FS 2004. I've NEVER used the Windows Game Controller screen to calibrate either, everything was done through the Control Manager. When I recently bought my new Combatstick, I uninstalled the older Control Manager (saved my maps first LOL), rebooted and installed version 4.51. Then I plugged in each controller and got the 'new hardware found' warnings and everything seemed like it installed OK.

When you bring up the Windows Game Controller interface after you plug in the controllers, they show up with their proper names, Combatstick, Propedals, etc. HOWEVER, I am NOT using this method to calibrate and never have. I WILL check to which drivers are being displayed in the system, Windows HID Drivers or CH Products Drivers and get back to you. I also tried the 'rescan' button with no luck there either.

OK BUBBALOU, here's what I've got. In the Device Manager, I have a CH Products entry with these sub listings:

CH Control Manager Aux1 Device
CH Control Manager Aux2 Device
Ch Control Manager Root Device

Under the driver tab for each of these it has:

Driver Provider: CH Products
Driver Date: 12/19/2005
Driver Version 5.0.0.0

So what do you think is going on? Is something missing or incorrect?

That's right, but where you should be looking is under the \"Game Controllers\" apllet in the control panel

If the Device names are in all CAPS... Windows HID Drivers

In which the devices were re-enumerated back to windows defaults

--------------------------------------

Go into the CH program Folder and copy CHDelete.exe to your Desktop

Uninstall software(back up your maps)

Run CH Delete

Shut down PC

Plug in ALL CH Devices - YES ALL!

Start your PC

After boot - windows will assign its drivers

Then you run the CH Manager Installer - every device will get their CH Direct Input Drivers (usually 2 drivers per device - joy/keyboard emu)

Device listing will now show Lowercase Letters

IE CH Combatstick USB instead of CH COMBATSTICK USB

Reboot (especially if you use vista or 7)

Fire up Control Manager make a template Set with every device included in and Upload it to the controllers.. you will now get another series of new hardware devices found... Except they will say Device ID 1 ,2 ,3 ,4

Technically One Could have up to Multiple Drivers for each Device

CH Direct Input
CH CM Dev ID 1
CH CM Dev ID 2
CH CM Dev ID 3
CH CM Dev ID 4
....
CH CM Dev ID 16 (yes it supports up to 16 physical Devices)

The Dev ID ones are actually based on how they were plugged in, So when you unplug each device be patient a new driver may load the first time a device \"jumps the line\" (goes from 4 of 4 to say 2 of 4)

Yep, you're right, all caps in the Windows Applet. Something messed up the first time things were installed. I'll follow your instructions and see if I can get things working right. Might be a few days before I get to it though, but I'll let you know if everything gets straightened out. Thanks for the help.

EDIT: One question, what do you mean by "Upload it to the controllers" after I've made the template?

BUBBLALOU wrote:Fire up Control Manager make a template Set with every device included in and Upload it to the controllers.. you will now get another series of new hardware devices found... Except they will say Device ID 1 ,2 ,3 ,4

Download/Upload/Program Mode



By clicking this button your uploading your map (Mapped Mode) to the controller. When you do this the first time after installing the new software, a new wave of Mapped Mode Drivers will load - 2 for each

They basically changing your joysticks to their Mapped names as seen below

Control Manger Device 1
Control Manger Device 2
Control Manger Device 3
(these are from the example map starting from the left tab)



Only when you run the controllers without a MAP (Direct Mode) do they show up in their Lowercase Names

(CH Fighterstick USB)
(CH ProThrottle USB)
(CH ProPedals USB)

After you get the Software installed.. just use the map wizard (blank page with lightning bolt icon) add Yoke, Combatstick, Throttle Quad, and Pro Pedals, all at once. Then select yes/no on combining axis(yes is the option for games that only see one controller), and yes for cms. Then click the Download icon to program the joysticks.

Now the Mapped Mode Drivers load

This way you are getting all the drivers loaded at once for the 4 devices. They may load up again when you change around usb ports or unplug either the yoke or throttle to re-enumerate to 3 devices

ex Device 2,3,4 just became 1,2,3 by unplugging the yoke and using a 3 device map. should only happen 2x's for you

for me it happens 6 times (6 different configurations)
FlightSim Yoke, FighterStick, CombatStick, Throttle Quad, ProThrottle, ProPedals

OK BUBBALOU, things are weird here. I do not have a file called CHDelete anywhere on my system. What I DO have is a file within the Control Manager folder (under the CH Products folder) called CMDelete.

So I tried to run CMDelete.exe from the desktop, I got an error saying it couldn't find CHCMLib.exe. Well, like the idoit I am, I then tried running it directly from within the CH Products directory where both these files are located.

That brought up a box called Delete v. 4.50 which asked if I wanted to remove all CH USB devices. I hit 'yes', then was asked are you sure, so 'yes' to that, and then it asked if all controllers were disconnected and I said 'yes' to that as well.

What smokes me is that nothing seems to be happening. Nothing comes up saying it is finished, the orginal starting box just remains on screen. Is this the right program to run? If so, I will run it again, shut down the system and plug in all my controllers and fire it up as you instructed. Also, do I need to uninstall the Control Manager as well, then do a reinstall AFTER I run the CMDelete program?

I also have figured out why I didn't see the upload button. It's not highlighted in my Control Manager because of the driver problem.

It's just a controller registry scrubber.... Deletes everything related to CH contained in the hive files....

All is good just have everything CH plugged in when rebooting. you might not get new MS driver prompts

Then install CH Manager, you will get New driver installs (lowercase versions) reboot

Might get a couple more from windows with the CH versions as windows realigns the controllers

Only then do you fire up the CH Manager, you should now see the controllers listed in the calibrate utility from inside the Manager software!

If not hit rescan - you shouldn't have to though

Got everything working again, thanks. All I can say is what a giant hairball of driver wizards! Is this an XP quirk or is it any better or worse when installing CH controllers on a Win 7 machine? It also seems a little finicky too if you accidentally plug one controller into a different USB port than the one that was used when everything was originally installed. But it seems to be working, yeah!

Windows 7 is totally different and easier, I also use 2 other machines for Beta testing the CH Control Manager from Bob Church

You mean Microsoft did something better in a later OS?

BUBBALOU, sorry to dredge this up again, but what differences can I expect when installing the CM and my controllers on a Win 7 64 bit system? You indicated it was easier to do on 7 than on XP. I just want to be sure before I go through the install process.

Very Easy!

The one slight difference is your maps will be located in your documents folder in W7

Thanks BUBBALOU. Nice to know where those maps end up in Win 7.