new computer

[Snowreap]

we just acquired a pair of Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboards. these are like Nostromo gamepads, except with more buttons and an LCD display.

mine is working just fine in Warhammer (my machine is running 64-bit XP) and I'm using the display to show Ventrilo information (since the Ventrilo in-game overlay doesn't seem to work on my machine). I haven't tried using my wife's yet, although I read that I might have a problem with the gamepad not recognizing the game due to a UAC issue. we'll see. edit: sure enough, it didn't work with Warhammer on Vista. but disabling UAC eliminated the problem.

I have all the buttons bound to simple keypresses (row 1: shift-1 through shift-7; row 2: 1 through 7; row 3: tab, f1 through f4; row 4: v, m, c), but you can also bind macros which allow finer control. for example, I can set up a button in 'toggle' mode, where it begins running a macro when you press it, and the macro repeats until you press the button a second time (pressing the button a second time doesn't immediately stop the macro, it runs to the end then stops). macros allow fine control of key-down and key-up events, including customizable delays (so you can set up one macro to press and release a key right away, and another macro to press the same key but hold it down for 1200ms before releasing it). also, running macros aren't interrupted if you press other buttons while they're running. so you could reasonably set up a fire-and-forget macro to twist 3 auras, and it will just run by itself until you hit the button again to stop it. or, you could set up a macro that always swings a ram at 100% power (if you're the leader, anyway).

there are also more advanced things that can be done via LUA scripting, but I haven't looked into any of that.

-ken