Posted October 03, 2023
Recently my previously working Microsoft Sidewinder Forcefeed 2 (the one with USB that technically works on modern OS's ie Windows 10) suddenly stopped activating correctly with Powerslide which is tragic since it has incredible highly detailed FF for a game of its ages and honestly in general. It took me a couple of hours to determine this so I thought I'd post this up here in case anyone suffers from the same issue (or if you're having trouble getting it working).
The short answer is to kill Logitech G Hub (which could also extend to any alternative software that handles FF controllers but I can't speculate what those would be). Just by closing out Logitech G Hub it instantly started working again. Presumably G Hub discreetly updated at some point and broke it, which checking online it appears to not be an uncommon issue but relating to Logitechs own line of Force Feedback wheels.
It's a pain in the ass because it doesn't *completely* break it as the Force Feedback still worked with other games like Incoming and Urban Assault but Powerslide at least completely stopped activating Force Feedback. My best guess (not a programmer/hardware person) is that Powerslide is getting conflicted about its steering wheel usage since that's at least what G Hub takes control of (steering wheels with Force Feeback) and not detecting the force feedback 2 distinctly as a controller somehow.
A little surprised that it somehow caused a non-system wide issue for a controller that it doesn't have anything to do with but Logitech G Hub or similar could be your culprit.
Note - This isn't a catch all fix and have I haven't been able to reliably get the FF feature of Powerslide to activate given how many fail points there could be, Powerslide is extremely finnicky and if it doesn't seem to work or stops working you might have to try any/all of the following possible fixes restarting your computer, altering the controls options ingame, relaunching the game, activating/deactiving the FF support in game or in the ps_clo.exe file, turn read only off for the games install folder, disable anti-virus (either windows or external AV just remember to turn them back on). I've also had the possibility raised to me that it could be I/O, IRQ, and DMA access related/conflicts.
The short answer is to kill Logitech G Hub (which could also extend to any alternative software that handles FF controllers but I can't speculate what those would be). Just by closing out Logitech G Hub it instantly started working again. Presumably G Hub discreetly updated at some point and broke it, which checking online it appears to not be an uncommon issue but relating to Logitechs own line of Force Feedback wheels.
It's a pain in the ass because it doesn't *completely* break it as the Force Feedback still worked with other games like Incoming and Urban Assault but Powerslide at least completely stopped activating Force Feedback. My best guess (not a programmer/hardware person) is that Powerslide is getting conflicted about its steering wheel usage since that's at least what G Hub takes control of (steering wheels with Force Feeback) and not detecting the force feedback 2 distinctly as a controller somehow.
A little surprised that it somehow caused a non-system wide issue for a controller that it doesn't have anything to do with but Logitech G Hub or similar could be your culprit.
Note - This isn't a catch all fix and have I haven't been able to reliably get the FF feature of Powerslide to activate given how many fail points there could be, Powerslide is extremely finnicky and if it doesn't seem to work or stops working you might have to try any/all of the following possible fixes restarting your computer, altering the controls options ingame, relaunching the game, activating/deactiving the FF support in game or in the ps_clo.exe file, turn read only off for the games install folder, disable anti-virus (either windows or external AV just remember to turn them back on). I've also had the possibility raised to me that it could be I/O, IRQ, and DMA access related/conflicts.
Post edited October 05, 2023 by KaL_YoshiKa