Enabling force feedback makes the game crash. But other games work fine. Who to blame, where to dig?

[bringmemyaxe]

I have a game racing wheel. I try to use it while playing ATS. It works fine if the option "Force Feedback" in "Controls" settings is disabled. Once I enable it, it crashes. I thought at first it was the driver to blame. I tried it in Windows 10, 11 and 8.1. Anyway it crashes. But! In Windows 7 it seems to work pretty well. Nothing crashes. There seems to be no vibration feedback drivers for my wheel in Linux, the wheel just works without it and that's all. Okay. I tried another game, Need for Speed: Underground 2. And force feedback just worked perfectly! In any Windows. Either 10, or 7.
So... This is the very moment it occured to me "Perhaps there's something wrong with ATS itself."
Is there anything that can be done? Maybe some suggestions. I tried some silly things, none of them worked. AMA

[Wolfgang]

Update the driver of your wheel.
Also it would help to state which wheel you have.

[bringmemyaxe]

Originally posted by Wolfgang:

Update the driver of your wheel.
Also it would help to state which wheel you have.

SVEN GC-W300
Updating the driver... is quite a quirky issue :D When I bought the wheel, it had a CD with the driver. This driver actually has vibration feedback support. Though, downloading another driver from the official site proved that the driver from the site doesn't have vibration. That's... strange. The driver that was automatically installed by Windows 10/11 was just the same w/o vibration.

[Wolfgang]

That sounds like a driver issue then. Use the most recent driver for your wheel from the official website.

[bringmemyaxe]

Originally posted by Wolfgang:

That sounds like a driver issue then. Use the most recent driver for your wheel from the official website.

Does it sound like this if other games work fine? Is it exactly the driver issue? It just isn't obvious enough for me... Maybe there's some roundabout way to make the game work like it does in Windows 7. Also it's funny I can't figure out what the version numbers are both on the CD and on the official website. Using the driver from the website is an undesirable option for it lacks vibration support.

[Ryu]

Did some digging on Russian forums about this wheel. The drivers are 32-bit and that is likely the cause of crashing, since this game is running in 64-bit.

Have seen previously where users running old wheels with 32-bit drivers won't work on the game or crash, as is the behaviour you are seeing.

[bringmemyaxe]

Originally posted by ~{DCMT}~ Ryu:

Did some digging on Russian forums about this wheel. The drivers are 32-bit and that is likely the cause of crashing, since this game is running in 64-bit.

Luckily, I speak this language as well.
I tried launching bin/win_x86/amtrucks.exe, and it seems to be absolutely the same ;(

[bringmemyaxe]

Originally posted by ~{DCMT}~ Ryu:

The drivers are 32-bit and that is likely the cause of crashing, since this game is running in 64-bit.

Wow, there's an interesting twist of the story. Licensed version of the game still loads the 64-bit version, even if I launch a 32-bit by launching *.exe... But some pirate version works fine and this 32-bit version actually makes the wheel vibrate without crashing! Lots of thanks to you for the idea! :) But I don't need a pirate version... How to make Steam launch the 32-bit game I actually own?

[AyMazingATS]

Originally posted by bringmemyaxe:

I tried launching bin/win_x86/amtrucks.exe, and it seems to be absolutely the same ;(

That is because you still launched the 64 bit version of the game. You need to opt into the unsupported 32 bit version of the game. No guarantees that it make your wheel work.

Right click ATS in your Library >> Properties >> Betas. Scroll down until you see unsupported 32 bit.

[bringmemyaxe]

Originally posted by AyMazingATS:

That is because you still launched the 64 bit version of the game.

Yeah. Both a pirate version and the licensed one have two folders. win_x64 and win_x86. Pirate version launches the x86 as expected, and it makes my wheel work finally :) Though, for some reason, it's not that straightforward with the Steam version.

[Wolfgang]

The 32bit version is unsupported and I would expect it to be dropped soon. Only accessible via the beta tab IIRC. It is inferiour to the 64bit version btw.

Also, if your wheel is so old that it only supports 32bit then it is probably time to get a new one. Taking the massive draw backs of the 32bit game version isn't worth it for just getting the force feedback.

[AyMazingATS]

If I were you I really would not talk about pirated copies of the game here. Chances are those references will be deleted or entire message being deleted.

[bringmemyaxe]

Originally posted by AyMazingATS:

Right click ATS in your Library >> Properties >> Betas. Scroll down until you see unsupported 32 bit.

Tons of thanks to you! Finally I've achieved what I wanted :)

[bringmemyaxe]

Originally posted by Wolfgang:

It is inferiour to the 64bit version btw.

How is it inferiour? Does it lack some features? As I could see, the version numbers of 32bit and 64bit are quite the same.

Originally posted by Wolfgang:

Also, if your wheel is so old that it only supports 32bit then it is probably time to get a new one. Taking the massive draw backs of the 32bit game version isn't worth it for just getting the force feedback.

Well, I hadn't had much knowledge back then, when I had bought that. It was the cheapest wheel available and it still made me really happy haha

[bringmemyaxe]

Originally posted by AyMazingATS:

Chances are those references will be deleted or entire message being deleted.

Yeah I can see why it's undesirable. I don't need those versions anyway, I only use the ones I bought and encourage everyone to do so. I thought it was necessary to share any observations I got about the thing I was trying to make work. Anyway I've solved my issue, so I don't mind it being deleted.

[CookieMonster]

I'm just curious, is the unsupported 32-bit version also game version v1.45?