Mundane PC Tech: Gameport PCI Cards?

Factual Questions
1
      • I need a PCI card that has a game controller port on it. I have found cards with every other type and combination of connectors except gameports.
        ???
        Does anyone make such a thing? - MC
2

Game port cards were quite popular at one time, until the sound card manufacturers all started building game ports into their sound cards. They’ve pretty much disappeared off of the market since then. I’ve never seen a PCI version. If your computer has an ISA slot, you can probably get an ISA game port very cheaply if you search a bit (lots of us computer geek types have things like this tucked away on shelves in our basements).

Is there some reason you can’t just use a plain old ordinary sound card?

3

sound cards regularly come with a game port on a PCI card.

try the creative website for some of their PCI sound cards, they have a game port along with audio jacks.

4

There definetly is such a thing. PCI game cards were all the rage in the flightsim crowd when they first starting hitting the shelf. I haven’t seen one in quite some time since (as xash mentioned) most (if not all) PCI sound cards include a game port.

5
      • Okay, a half hour later I did find a couple, one a close-out and the other one used. Hmmm…
  • The problem is this: I have two gameport peripherals I’d prefer to leave hooked up all the time for convenience’s sake. The motherboard has onboard sound with one gameport, and I have a SBL installed that has another gameport. Problem is I have to disable the onboard sound in the BIOS or else Win98 tries to play all its regular sounds out the onboard chip, and not the SBL card (which is where the only speakers are hooked up). I could use the onboard sound for playing audio and just use the SBL for MIDI input, but the onboard sound chip sounds lousy by comparison. If I enable the onboard sound in the BIOS but disable it in Win98, Win98 plays its system sounds out the SBL but the onboard gameport still don’t work… - MC
6

Instead of trying to find a gameport adapter if your computer has USB ports go with a USB joystick/gamepad.
If no USB ports on your computer get a PCI USB adapter(about US$25.00 at most computer hardware stores)
Peace
LIONsob

7

MC, don’t disable the onboard sound from the BIOS settings. leave it enabled.

then once you boot to windows, go to start/settings/control panel/ sounds and multimedia / audio. then under Sound Playback : Preferred Device : select the SBL card for audio playback. then at the bottom of this window, tick “use only preferred devices”.

before doing this, make sure that when you go to start/settings/control panel/system/devices, you have no yellow ! (exclamation) signs or red crosses.

you should be able to use both game ports and the SBL for sound out ( and also the onboard sound if you like to mix and stuff ).

8
      • (sigh)-
  • That don’t work (enabling two sound devices). No matter the order I do it in, when I try to re-enable the onboard sound in Win98, it’s BSOD. -I ain’t pulling the SBL just to try from the beginning. The joystick’s kinda old anyway, and the new model is a USB. So…
    :smiley:
  • Next question: the mobo has two regular USB ports, and an (internal) hookup for a dual USB expansion slot-thing that I haven’t used. The USB hub I have is full already, and I don’t want to buy another whole hub just to get one more USB port. I want the added USB port(s) in the front of the PC though, in an unused 3.5 inch bay. Anybody make dat? (-I can’t use one that needs a 5.25 bay…)- MC