Update: DragonRise USB Controller OSX

Update: Seems like I'm still suffering from support and that it doesn't always work.  Not sure what the cause is.

As a quick update, apparently, I don't need to do much of anything except to keep the controller plugged and then boot the MacBook.  The driver pick it up right away.  Cool.
 

Random Thoughts: OSX Kext Patching USB Generic Gamepad

I've been digging up Mac OSX support for my old Vinyson gamepad which is recognized in Linux as the DragonRise Generic USB Gamepad.  From my readings and testing on Linux, I know that the gamepad is recognized as with the Vendor ID 0x0079 and Product ID 0x0006.  Further readings point out that the drivers for Linux is hid-dr.ko (loaded via sudo modprobe hid_dr).

The controller doesn't load on Android because this driver is missing.  On OSX, the driver doesn't exist and according to this post, the com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver should about cover it.  Obviously, the posted resource doesn't work right off the bat, but it did let me start reading about OSX drivers.

Apparently, kernel objects in Linux are referred to as kernel extensions in OSX.  They reside on /System/Library/Extensions and inside are kext folders with hardware information on what the drivers load for which vendor, product combination among other things.  Use the kextload binary to force load specific drivers but I think all I need to do is to find the HID driver for OSX and add the vendor, product IDs of mygamepad.  This article on patching Info.plist is pretty handy.

Wine-ing About Everything

So, the past few weeks of using Wine was interesting to say the least.  I had not realized how big this post was going to be until it was all done, so I'm putting this all after the jump!

Brütal Legend and Steam

So, after going through some really disappointing Indie games, I get to Brütal Legend which was a great surprise.  It works on Linux and it plays really well.  I had minor problems figuring out the controller support but this Steam thread should be helpful.  First thing is first though, you should configure the gamepad on Big Picture.  The shell script needs some Linux reworking to get rid of the dos \r stuff, but once you've cleaned it up, it will grab the SDL configuration for you.  The script is modified for Costume Quest (which funnily enough is modified from The Cave), but it's easy to change the paths for your install of Brütal Legend.

Good luck and save that SDL config file!

Making gamepads work

Thought I'd drop this little link here for those who need help with getting gamepads to work on Steam.  Here's another link based on Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection.