Thread: CONTEST: Xbox Chatpad Driver Challenge

Originally Posted by GAFBlizzard

Bah, I just remembered that since forum stuff like a month ago, you can't change your email/password on this forum since it's hidden. =(

On the plus side, my wireless controller, receiver, and new chatpad arrived yesterday/today. Plus the chatpad has the headset thing with it so in theory if I get around to it, I can make sure that part still works with my drivers.

Awesome! Please post updates if there are any.

Hello everyone.
Please write any information about the driver for the wireless chatpad. I don't understand why the version for the wired controller was created as first. Chatpad is useless with the wired version. It only makes sense if you can sit far from your PC. I have a wall projector and it would be really something if I could use the wireless chatpad instead of the screen keyboard. For now I use Xpadder for my X360 controller and it works very fine but only a screen keyboard is available. I already bought a chatpad but still waiting for the PC drivers. Regards and waiting for the driver.

I don't think the guy that made the wired drivers is working on wireless ones. Maybe if we can donate, it can be done. http://code.google.com/p/chatpad-super-driver/

I wrote an e-mail to Microsoft in my country asking about the official driver. The answer was the chatpad is currently not supportet by the PC and there are no plans to change it. Pity. I gave my chatpad back to the store. 42$ less for Bill G.

There are two things that complicates writing the driver for the wireless chatpad.

1. USB traffic to the wireless receiver is encapsulated and is hard to hack.
On wired controller, we have different ports for each kind of traffic, but on the wireless receiver all kinds of communications go through same ports (two ports for each of four controllers attachable).
This limitation comes from the limited number of ports each USB device can have. This makes harder to hack because we have to decipher the encapsulation method.

2. There is no easy way to get reference for analyzing traffic.
It is easy to intercept traffic on the wired controller because the connection is a standard USB. You just need a USB-2.0 capable protocol analyzer and attach it in between the xbox360 and the chatpad to capture reference traffic.
If you want to capture traffic on the wireless controller, you either have to rip open a xbox360 or find relevant connector on the wireless controller's receiving chip and intercept there.

Who can I pay to hurry up and create the wireless chatpad drivers? My HTPC is begging for it, and it seems to me that someone out there has the capabilities to make it happen. Is anyone even still working on it, or should we abandon hope?

Sooooo disapointed! ordered a wireless contoller receiver and chatpad expecting that by now this wireless issue would have been worked out and still nothing.
seems like the issue is with the xbox wireless comunication... i have been checking out alot of videos about the chatpad and saw one where the guy modded it by attaching a usb wire to the chatpad that connected it directly to his pc. maybe a similar mod with a standard wireless transmiter (maybe bluetooth) could bypass the microsoft bull$# and the controller and chatpad could comunicate seperately with the pc or maybe even mod the contoller too with the "bypass". i dont know, thought maybe starting a discussion about a hardware solution instead of a software one couldnt hurt?
Just trying to keep things moving, seems like alot of people are excited about the potential here but the powers that be dont seem to see the potential.
rick

I gave up waiting, bought a Sony DualShock3 & Keypad attachment . No backlit keys, keys at the top & awkward feeling, controller feels oddly unbalanced with it on, BUT... -- IT WORKS. Screw Microsoft, I will never give them another penny. Also, Xbox controllers work about as well on Linux as on Windows.

Kudos on actually making this happen though guys & making it OPEN SOURCE, so I'm sure someone will come along and get everything going much smoother with wireless. GAFBlizzard, what you have done is amazing. Nice to see so much progress being made on this front. Seeing some of the initial reports on the data transfers type I thought a driver seemed like it would be near impossible. The XBox 360 Controller+Chatpad is a far superior gaming mechanism when compared to anything I've ever witnessed, however, the DualShock3 has better compatibility with Microsoft's products than, well... Microsoft's products. So I'll give Sony some money. (Hopefully they've learned where suing their consumers gets them...)

...Wouldn't put it past Microsoft to patch against your driver though...

Originally Posted by elrieger

Sooooo disapointed! ordered a wireless contoller receiver and chatpad expecting that by now this wireless issue would have been worked out and still nothing.
seems like the issue is with the xbox wireless comunication... i have been checking out alot of videos about the chatpad and saw one where the guy modded it by attaching a usb wire to the chatpad that connected it directly to his pc. maybe a similar mod with a standard wireless transmiter (maybe bluetooth) could bypass the microsoft bull$# and the controller and chatpad could comunicate seperately with the pc or maybe even mod the contoller too with the "bypass". i dont know, thought maybe starting a discussion about a hardware solution instead of a software one couldnt hurt?
Just trying to keep things moving, seems like alot of people are excited about the potential here but the powers that be dont seem to see the potential.
rick

i dont know if this changes anything, but i emailed the person that worked on the driver for wired controller. heres his response
"Hey,
>
> I finally bought a wireless controller recently so I can look into it,
> but I have not actually started running tests yet. So I still PLAN
> to, but I don't have one yet. "