I no longer have a joystick but I wanted to play the 1998 version since the graphics are much better. So I wrote a small program which converts mouse movement into inputs to the vJoy virtual joystick driver.

If anyone wants to try it I have code and binaries available on github.

EDIT: GOG is not letting me post any links at the moment... but my github user is "raptorswing" and the project name is "MouseToJoystick" if you want to give it a try.

Thanks alot!

Is there a way to use both the mouse and a normal joystick like in the DOS version?


Here are the links btw:

https://github.com/raptorswing/MouseToJoystick
https://github.com/raptorswing/MouseToJoystick/releases

Managed to enable the Joystick using this app:

http://www.worldofjoysticks.com/

Here's a working profile:

http://speedy.sh/kHdmr/Tie95.zip (might still require some tweaking and finetuning)

Wow, thank you very much! I can't wait to get home to try this!!

Would it be possible to make the mousewheel control the throttle?

Cool! How well does this program work? I searched quite a bit before writing my own thing, but never came across this. If it works better than what I did, I might use it instead ;) Yes, I think I could probably add that capability without too much trouble. Not sure what you mean by this...

In the DOS version of X-Wing and Tie Fighter you can either use the joystick or the mouse to steer the ship. The mouse is great for accurate and /or long range targeting and the joystick for everything else.

With your pogram only the mouse works (unless you use additional tools). That program emulates Mouse/Keyboard commands on the joystick, so basically it does the opposite of what your program does. The problem with using the World of Joystick emulator with your program is that the Joystick sensitivity is totally different from what I'm used to in Tie Fighter therefore I'm now using Universal Joystick Remapper which directly passes the movement from both my physical stick and your MouseToJoystick program to the game.
In order to enable the fire button and the second button on the physical joystick another application (either JoyToKey or WoJEmulator) is needed at the moment but the developer of UJR is working on adding that functionality.

PS: There is another MouseToJoystick tool but I never got around to try it because it requires installing unsigned drivers.
https://sites.google.com/site/hristotodorov/mousetojoystick

If I start the executable I just get an error message that this is not a valid 32-bit application (yes, I made sure todownload the correct version for my winxp 32bit - also installed vcredist before). Any solution?

I gave your Mouse-to-Joystick a try (with TIE Fighter, X-Wing and X-Wing Alliance) and I couldn't get it working very well, unfortunately.

It worked best in X-Wing Alliance, except that the craft was constantly rolling. However, I think that's because my vJoy is set up with Z axis which was set at 0 (full left) due to no input coming from the mouse for that axis. That could probably be fixed by a change of my vJoy setup to not include that axis.

X-Wing and TIE Fighter (Windows versions) at first would not take the mouse to joystick input at all. Double right-clicking when in-game did nothing. So then I quit back to Windows, then double right-clicked to activate it, then started the game (using Start Menu keyboard shortcuts as my mouse was now tied to joystick control so stuck in the middle of the screen. This time, the game menus still responded to normal mouse movement, but once in flight the mouse was controlling the game as a joystick. However, the joystick was not returning to the centred position when the mouse was still (as the Windows Control Panel calibration check on vJoy was showing it should), and this, coupled with the super high sensitivity (that can be fixed easily though) made a very difficult to control craft.

So was I doing something wrong?

I just tried out PPJoy

http://ppjoy.de.malavida.com/

on my WinXP system and it really works. Just installed the program, added a Virtual Joystick via configuration, opened PPJoyMouse (leave it open) and startet the game (I tested it on my original X-Wing vs. T-Fighter). Works like a charm and I can use the mouse wheel to control throttle. Now it is time to reinstall all my old Wing Commander games :)

Could you export your PPMouse config, mate? Though I've managed to set it up, I wouldn't say it works like a charm: it's either too sensitive or not responsive enough for dogfights. Also finding the apps (especially PPmouse) was a pain.

It will never work like a real Joystick so my expression "like a charm" might not be that correct. I was happy that it worked so easy and that I was able to steer my craft without noticing that it was only a virtual device I am using. The only problem PPJoyMouse has imo is that you cannot fine tune it. But you can use GlovePie and one of the many scripts and change them to fine tune your setting. For example I used this script:


var.resx = 1024 //set this to horizontal resolution in game
var.resy = 768 //set this to vertical resolution in game
var.deltax = delta(mouse.DirectInputX)
var.deltay = delta(mouse.DirectInputY)

ppjoy.digital0 = mouse.LeftButton
ppjoy.digital1 = mouse.RightButton
ppjoy.digital2 = mouse.MiddleButton

ppjoy.analog0 = (mouse.cursorposx - (var.resx/2) ) / (var.resx/2)
ppjoy.analog1 = (mouse.cursorposy - (var.resy/2) ) / (var.resy/2)
ppjoy.analog2 = MapRange(mouse.DirectInputZ, -800, 800, 0, 1)
/*-800 and 800 in the above line specify the range of the throttle.
To adjust the throttle's sensitivity, set a bigger or smaller range.
A big range means you will need to scroll the wheel more.*/


The GlovePIE manual is also easy to understand and helps in writing such a script. You'll only have to install PPJoy and run GlovePIE (no need to run PPMouseJoy for it to work). If you still don't manage to build your script just search for GlovePIE PPJoy Joystick Mouse Script or similar - you should find something.

Yeah I tried GlovePIE before but it didn't work due to botched PPJoy settings. Now when refined this seems more adaptable than PPMouse. I already made myself an alt mode recreating the original TF mouse support, but still need to tweak its responsiveness - still it's already better than before.

One irk - maybe you've encountered it as well - it seems that there's a few pixel threshold for the joystick to react. It seems it's a TF issue rather than a PPjoy issue, but nevertheless it's gonna take a huge amount of tweaking to have perfect responsiveness. Well gonna have me a fun weekend.

I know this is an old post but I just bought the game. Unfortunately when I use the script my screen starts spinning and I can't move - I suspect that there is something that I need to adjust with respect to how the script centres the mouse. Anyone know how I could fix this?

edit: I adjusted the screen resolution of the game to run as 640 x 480 and the spinning speed is less but it still hasn't solved my problem. Inverting X & Y hasn't changed the direction that ship heads towards (up and to the right). Could there be another issue?

FYI: I added very basic mouse/keyboard support to the ddraw wrapper.
It gets activated when it detects no joystick (or you force it on in the config).
I think it doesn't work particularly well, but it's at least an option to try.