CONTEST: Xbox Chatpad Driver Challenge

**Drefsab** · 11-09-2010, 03:44 AM

Hi there, im glad to see progress on this

Can I ask though do you intend to then move onto the wireless controller after the wired on works? As wired controler's are becoming hard to come by and wireless controllers are the norm id really hope to see if we can get wireless support.

If you do plan to add that I will be putting $30 into the pot at the end of the month when I get paid

**GAFBlizzard** · 11-09-2010, 09:41 AM

Turns out that tragically, the hardest part is not the chatpad. The hardest part for me at least, since the chatpad is now pretty easy to control, is meeting rule #4 of the contest, and not breaking compatibility with any games, XInput or otherwise.

I may not make it past the problem of leaving existing controller functionality intact. Guess I should have joined the fight earlier than two weeks ago, lol.

**PhnX** · 11-09-2010, 10:54 AM

Signed up for this forum just to see if there are any updates on the issue. I should suggest advertising this thread on techie forums to get the word out. I doubt there are many people in the community working on the source code at the moment =[

**volcaino** · 11-09-2010, 02:58 PM

Who are the others that have said that their drivers are nearly ready?

Blizzard: You're awesome, it's great to finally have some movement on this

**GAFBlizzard** · 11-09-2010, 06:25 PM

Originally Posted by volcaino

Who are the others that have said that their drivers are nearly ready?

Blizzard: You're awesome, it's great to finally have some movement on this

They're keeping their identities secret so I don't send a team of Ultimate XBox Ninjas to take them out.

Thanks though. I'm gonna try to work hard for at least a few days more, when I can find time in the evenings! If nothing else, it's been a learning experience for me.

**swiat34** · 11-10-2010, 12:36 AM

Originally Posted by Tidder

No offense intended rifleking, but try some punctuation please... your posts are painful to read.

Punctuation and grammar makes the differance between "Helping your uncle, Jack, off a horse" and "helping your uncle jack off a horse." LOL

I'm following this thread and if not for unemployment, I'd donate. Sadly it's not the thought that counts!

I hope to see this done where I (we) can use this on our home and/or car PCs. Thanks to those who know this kind of stuff and are taking their personla time to work on it!

**Heather** · 11-10-2010, 02:06 PM

$595

**GAFBlizzard** · 11-10-2010, 02:31 PM

Originally Posted by Heather

$595

Giving to charity is great, BUT...with that amount, if a community project is set up after a team releases a driver, a couple hundred of that might instead be used to get a kernel mode signing certificate (e.g. from GlobalSign). They have a per-year price, but as long as the kernel driver component becomes stable within a year, my understanding is that it can continue to be used. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Of course, that's only if a kernel mode component is used. Maybe some team has a magical user-space solution.

**Grumbel** · 11-10-2010, 07:05 PM

Originally Posted by GAFBlizzard

Turns out that tragically, the hardest part is not the chatpad. The hardest part for me at least, since the chatpad is now pretty easy to control,

Thats pleasant news to me. Can you read full keypresses? Could you provide any information on how you did that? I have been struggling quite a while back with getting the Chatpad to work in Linux and I managed to make some LEDs blink and such, but after the first keypress, the Chatpad always stopped sending any more information, never found out what was going wrong.

Also did you have a look at http://matt-land.com/xbcd/, couldn't you just integrate your chatpad stuff into that and have both chatpad and Xbox360 gamepad working or did you run into additional trouble?

**GAFBlizzard** · 11-10-2010, 07:19 PM

Originally Posted by Grumbel

Thats pleasant news to me. Can you read full keypresses? Could you provide any information on how you did that? I have been struggling quite a while back with getting the Chatpad to work in Linux and I managed to make some LEDs blink and such, but after the first keypress, the Chatpad always stopped sending any more information, never found out what was going wrong.

Yes, I read a bunch of the work of you and others, and probably some source code you wrote too. Thanks, it was a big help.

You'll get the full source code within the next few weeks if no one beats me to it (and I might finish anyway just to try it).

*edit*
I did see XBCD and I did see the other third-party driver (Japanese?), and I believe I looked through the source for both. Partly, it would probably have been difficult for me to integrate into the source. The main reason is, the rules of this contest say, "4. Driver must install along with or completely replace the original Xbox drivers, and must not effect the original function of the controller in any way." I don't know of any third party drivers that are IDENTICAL in function to the official drivers, so using them would affect the original function. (I could try to be funny and say "effect" isn't a typo but whatever ;p)

In particular, neither of those drivers (or at least XBCD/the modified one) support XInput as far as I know, and the only solution to that involves mucking with replacement DLLs installed on a per-game basis. Mucking with DLLs or call interception makes me afraid of triggering VAC bans or something like that, so I try to stay away from it.

XInput is important because some games like Aquaria (probably others) only support the 360 controller through it, and not generic gamepads.

As far as I know, at least!

I'm learning all this stuff on the fly.