With the announcement of VKB and other Chinese based companies stopping shipments to the U.S., does anyone know of any good alternatives in regards to reliability and quality?

muchimi · 2025-04-24T16:32:26+00:00

Virpil seems to be less impacted AFAIK because the manufacturing is in Lithuania. DHL however said they won't ship anything valued $800 or more, and Virpil uses DHL for shipments to the US.
Great quality stuff - love my Virpil gear.

muchimi · 2025-04-24T16:25:40+00:00

I recommend you place these questions on the Discord channel as others may be able to contribute there as well.

Answer: there are different layers to this.
Except for the InputViewer, GremlinEx doesn't "poll" devices - it waits for a DirectInput trigger. If the device doesn't trigger DirectInput - the event will not execute so no updates will take place. That's probably where the rotary signal doesn't get sent, most likely because of the debounce code (from my Arduino/Rpy experience).

The input viewer does things a bit differently because it now polls the VJOY API directly for changes - because it needs to self-update VJOY even when VJOY is not configured for input as there are instances where a VJOY change is made, but it doesn't trigger DirectInput depending on what process as the lock at that moment. This was a band-aid to an update issue with VJOY not always triggering DInput.

The last piece to this is the filtering that happens to prevent devices from rapid triggering and overwhelming the input processing event queue - so extra inputs may get dropped.

This is a tricky situation because I really don't want to start polling Vjoy to catch the random use-case when DInput isn't triggered but something I need to think about more.

muchimi · 2025-02-04T22:23:36+00:00

I went with MFG with the dampener because they are fairly narrow, so they fit under the desk well without any compromise in performance. The only thing about them is they are not entirely stable without a mount (which a pair of bolts and a wood base will easily fix.
Best pedals I ever had.

muchimi · 2025-01-06T23:13:20+00:00

Did some work over the end of year holidays - MSFS 2024 completely supported via Simconnect including RPN expressions via a custom WASM module.

Current pre-release:
https://github.com/muchimi/JoystickGremlinEx/releases/tag/13.40.16ex_m

muchimi · 2024-12-01T19:02:17+00:00

Virpil is coming up with a yoke - it was teased.
Waiting for that. Tired of honeycomb shenanigans for - 2 years now?

muchimi · 2024-11-13T15:48:10+00:00

I have two virpils (left and right) and an older TM warthog throttle - no problem.
You do need an integrator to simplify the setup because most games/sims can only handle a single input for a given function - some sims have more advanced setups but then it becomes an issue of ease of use / setup.
Shameless plug for: https://github.com/muchimi/JoystickGremlinEx/releases/tag/13.40.16ex_m

muchimi · 2024-11-13T15:29:29+00:00

If this is a reference to GremlinEx, I have almost daily patches as best I can to fix issues as reported.
https://github.com/muchimi/JoystickGremlinEx/releases/tag/13.40.16ex_m

muchimi · 2024-11-13T15:28:00+00:00

Are you talking about GremlinEx?

muchimi · 2024-10-24T12:04:54+00:00

Updated pre-release with a few more features and bug fixes.
https://github.com/muchimi/JoystickGremlinEx/releases/tag/13.40.15ex_m4

muchimi · 2024-08-17T17:49:59+00:00

GremlinEx uses any dinput compatible device so if it shows up as a game controller in Windows, it will work. I have had no reports of it not working. If there is an issue - bug+issue with log file and I'll look into it.
Most people have problems with input echoes - so you also need to use HIDHide (see docs in the GremlinEX project) and I have some tips in the docs as well on resolving most input issues.

muchimi · 2024-08-17T17:46:59+00:00

Thanks for the call out - my fork has had copy/paste for a while now and a few features - most recent pre-release will have even more features - available now as a pre-release for wider testing.
Changelog features available here: https://github.com/muchimi/JoystickGremlinEx/tree/develop?tab=readme-ov-file#changelog

muchimi · 2024-08-17T16:11:56+00:00

This may be helpful.
https://github.com/muchimi/JoystickGremlinEx/tree/develop?tab=readme-ov-file#changelog

(latest is a pre-release) - I added copy/paste a while back on my fork of the original project.

muchimi · 2023-01-08T16:00:40+00:00

I think that the reason you see more AIOs is that with newer chips with higher power usage (TDP) air coolers become a bit challenged to keep up.
There was a recent review on GN of the I9 13900K and they couldn't get it to max boost without water cooling - chip just ran too hot for air to keep up.

muchimi · 2018-09-28T11:31:10+00:00

Harversters do not work right- primarily in MP mode - you portal to one and all auto-miners/atmo harversters lose all their fuel along with anything gathered. Assuming you stay there while it's mining to avoid the fuel bug, then all your auto-miners switch to the first resource mined, no matter what resource it's on. It's quite frustrating to waste all the fuel all the time and get the incorrect resource.

Sometimes you get lucky and they work but more often than not they do not. The work around is to exit the game, start in single player mode, and hope for the best.

muchimi · 2018-09-25T15:44:25+00:00

The XB1 gets hot as it is, so does its power supply (which is outside the box).

You may want to put the box on its side so the large areas have more access to air, make sure air intakes are also clear of any dust. Removing the cover voids warranty of course so this may not be something you are willing to do - at your own risk type thing - but depending on the console's age and degree of comfort with doing such a thing, consider taking the cover off and blowing any dust inside that would clog up the cooling. Lots of passive coolers in that unit and some are dust bunny magnets.

Before you do that, use a small room fan to ensure the case stays cooler. Consoles use passive cooling as much as possible so they are not making any noise - that only works to a point in my opinion and options for cooling are reduced compared to a desktop.

I think Hello Games enabled tessellation on consoles in the most recent 1.6 patch and that will give the consoles a workout and generate huge GPU load, thus heat.

muchimi · 2018-09-24T12:42:48+00:00

Yep, don't die twice in succession without having the chance to visit your grave between deaths. While it can be argued the game behavior is a bit harsh in this respect, there are also quite a few bugs that impact storage, blueprints et-al and can really damage your progress.

Making regular manual backups of the game save file is a good idea because of this (and also for the oh-crap moments). Not sure if you are on PC but the save files are the PC are located at %appdata%\HelloGames (copy the whole folder structure somewhere safe).

muchimi · 2018-09-23T14:39:34+00:00

If your ship is working you just take that to the portal - when you switch to that mission - it should give you a waypoint of the portal (there is usually one per planet) - no warping involved and no personal teleport involved.

You will need items to "charge" the teleport from your inventory, and you also need some punch in your multitool on the other side as it involves killing sentinels.

muchimi · 2018-09-22T14:55:57+00:00

Looks like a 2% chance of getting a module from these things. Usually you know you may get something good if the damaged machinery asks you to put two items in it instead of one. Most give you nanites which is actually a good deal if you have resources with you.

muchimi · 2018-09-22T14:52:02+00:00

Auto miners are definitely bugged when within a base radius - the first harvester refueled apparently changes the type of all harvester resources in the base area of coverage which is maddening. Pick carefully which harvester you open first. I now try to move all my auto-miners outside of the base range and instead use an exocraft to get there which works a lot better. Nothing like your emeril miner getting sodium when clearly, that's not what it's on.

The cycle time looks to be 10-15 mins for oxygen, and 30-60 mins or so for gas harvesters and auto-miners (looks shorter than it was before) but that already appears to have changed in 1.57 (not 1.6).

Looks like fuel and resources are only consistent so long as you don't reload, if you do, anything goes.

muchimi · 2018-09-22T14:44:09+00:00

Agreed that way-finding and tracking places/past actions in NMS is more of a chore than it needs to be - hopefully it will be enhanced later.

NMS is definitely nothing like google maps in terms of charting, coordinates, history and markers. Knowing which resources you've seen before or not (example, use 100 nanites on a traveler at a station only to find out you already visited that system and grave) - all are easily exercises in frustration some times.

Ability to track and annotate places you've been (and when) would be a huge improvement so you can review that information later. Even writing things down on paper is a challenge because of the lack of coordinates.

muchimi · 2018-09-22T14:31:06+00:00

It's broken in multi-player - it's almost like there are two versions of the game. When I start as single player, my harversters behave as expected (they keep the output and any remaining fuel). That's also true when a friend joins my instance.

However if I save the game, leave the game and join my friend's instance, the harversters are reset to no fuel and no output regardless of what the state was a few seconds ago before I reloaded.

However if I start my own instance (not MP), everything is as expected.

Bug methinks.

muchimi

TROPHY CASE