www.jaycrowe.com

Lately, it seems that Windows 2000 on my legacy system and XP on my modern system won't detect the Orb. I have it plugged in on boot, and the serial ports are enabled in the BIOS. The Device Manager also shows nothing wrong with the serial ports.

The thing works fine under Win98 SE, and it turns out that its firmware is 4.35. Strangely, I think it used to be higher...Anyway, I hear that 4.35 is the oldest you can use, while the firmware detection app says I need something higher. Can't I flash the Orb newer firmware or something?

Not being able to use my SpaceOrb with a NT-based OS is starting to get really annoying. For one, on my legacy PC, I have far more space on my hard drive allocated to 2000 than 98, for whatever reason. On my modern PC, I don't have any OS other than Windows XP Home Edition. Finally, games like Independence War and Descent just don't feel right without a true 6DoF device. Does anyone have any hints on getting 2000 and/or XP just to detect the damn thing?

did you try the alpha driver? I haven't tried it, but I hear it supposed to work with all firmware versions.

EDIT 3: I seem to have solved the problem, at least under Windows XP. I just didn't edit my post here until now because I'm lazy. It seems that the trick to get Windows XP to detect the Orb is to, shortly after using "Scan for new devices" in the Device Manager, start pressing random buttons on the Orb. I haven't tested it in Windows 2000 yet. About the only problems I'm having right now are:

-the SpaceOrb is ALWAYS the primary controller; very annoying when a 4-axis joystick with HAT switch would be more convenient for some games
-I still get Spaceware ActiveX error 429, even with the new setup file (but that's for a different thread!)

EDIT 2: Great, my legacy system stopped detecting my Orb again. This is just getting weird. I wonder why it always works fine under W98SE, but not under an NT-based OS...maybe I should order another SpaceOrb to use on both machines, and also find out if the problem is Orb-specific or system-specific.

EDIT: It turns out that my legacy machine now detects the SpaceOrb under Windows 2000. Why it suddenly does this, I do not know. Chances are my newer XP-based machine will also give satisfying results.

I tried it. The problem is that I just get a "The specified directory does not contain information about your hardware" message. You see, I don't get a "Found New Hardware" popup on boot, or anything in my Device Manager that says "Spaceball" or anything like that.

The weird thing is that it used to work fine, and only recently has it been doing this. I'm hoping there's a solution...just why would it act up when I'm going to try out other games like Independence War and Terminus? 6DoF games just don't feel right when you're not using a true 6DoF device like the SpaceOrb.