Gravis Gamepad Pro Troubles

Maybe we need I hardware forum in our software developers forums?

Anyway, this is driving me up the friggin wall.

I have a Gravis Gamepad Pro that hooks up to the serial port on the PC. I'm running WinME and the gameport is controlled by a SBLive Value! soundcard (that should explain it right there ). I have it installed, Windows finds it okay, but here's the thing:

The directional pads don't work, and pressing the L1/R1/L2/R2 buttons causes the directional pad to go nuts like I was just randomly smashing the arrows around. The GRiP monitor I downloaded shows that the pad drops out of GRiP mode when I press L/R whatever, and GravUtil tells me that buttons are being held low and the signal from the pad is unstable. When I try to actually use it in a game, the four colored buttons work ok as do start and select.. but again, pressing the L/R buttons causes the directional pad to freak out and the directional pad itself doesn't respond when I press any of the directions.

I've already done the requisite conflict checking and upgrading of drivers.

Anyone who can shed some light on this stupid problem will receive my everlasting thanks. I've been fighting with this for months now and it just won't work (And I don't wanna hear "Just go buy a USB pad either!" )

Soundcards don't have a serial port! Serial ports use DB-9 which have 9 pins and I think the game port uses DB-15 or something like that.

Is there any new drivers?

Does it behave the same under Linux?

LOL

Yes yes... you just have to be so particularly picky, don't you? This is why I quit the damn CIS degree and went to programming - can't remember the freakin' terminology!

Nope, already updated the drivers.... that made the whole bloody sound card stop working Good updates.. thanks Creative...

Haven't tested it in Linux, I don't have anything to test it on right now in Linux (I try to avoid overloading Linux.. but, I'll go download zsnes for Linux sometime this weekend).

There's apparently a known issue with Gamepad Pros and Creative Soundblaster Live! cards. Unfortunately, when I follow the stops Gravis provides to fix the problem, the whole sound card dies on me, which, of course, means the game port does too. Then I just need to reinstall the old drivers.. that's no good.

Methinks I'm going to avoid Creative cards from now on. I've had nothing but trouble with this stupid thing since I got it....