On Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:02:59 -0400 Todd Showalter <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 10:23 AM, nerdopolis > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > What about rumblepads? How would the protocol control the rumblepad > > in some controllers? > > I think rumble is beyond the scope of the proposed gamepad > protocol. The problem is that (at least in my experience) whereas > many controllers have some form of rumble, the actual physical rumble > hardware has very little in common between devices. Some things have > linear motors, some have rotary motors. Some have both. Or multiples > of one or the other. Some (like the wiimote, IIRC) aren't actually > rumble per se, and are actually a speaker you stream sound to at low > bit rates. > > The other problem (at least to me) is that rumble flows in the > opposite direction from input; in the gamepad protocol I'm proposing, > all the data is flowing from the hardware through the server to the > application. Rumble runs the other way. Rumble in general is far > more akin to sound playback than it is to input; you're basically > feeding a control stream to an actuator. > > Beyond that, at least with some gamepads, the rumble hardware is > subject to restrictions; in particular, at least one bit of kit I've > worked with that's still in circulation doesn't get enough power over > the controller cable to run all of the rumble motors at the same time, > and if you turn too much on the board-level logic in the gamepad can > start acting wonky. > > So, the short version of my answer is (1) I think rumble is a > totally different problem domain that wants its own protocol, and (2) > I'm not sure there's enough commonality or sanity in rumble hardware > to build a useful protocol. Sounds like this should definitely be punted to the evdev file descriptor passing interface. There the game needs to know (via a library or by itself) how to drive the particular controller, anyway. And the display server will not be in the way for relaying rumble commands. Thanks, pq _______________________________________________ wayland-devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/wayland-devel
