Joystick driver in Windows 10 64-bitOS

Question

Hi All,

We would need to write a software for Joystick in Win10 64-bit OS. It is connected to Intel processor through I2C interface. I have a few queries regarding this.

I. Intel has provided I2C driver for their processor and it is written based on SPB (Checked in INF ). Intel did not provide any API document to communicate with their driver. I have checked in MSDN site but they mentioned only about driver not API. Does Intel need to provide API details or is there any generic API which I can call to communicate with I2C device?o

II. Shall i get the data from Joystick by calling HIDClass API directly without installing any new driver if Intel driver is installed?

III. How can I expose these RAW or parsed data to screen? Do I need to give these data as mouse event? Or Do I need to write DirectInput/XInput based application?

IV. Also I need to get some GPIO button data from this Joystick and the driver is provided by Intel. If I get answers for above questions, i hope the same is applicable for GPIO also. Please advise.

Thanks,

Winraj.

Answer 1

On Windows, for known classes of devices, such as joystick, generally there are APIs or Windows messages exposed to applications for accessing the devices. The drivers for these device are required to support specific I/O requests to allow this to work. There are a variety of ways to get the joystick data as documented here and here

 -Brian

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Azius Developer Training www.azius.com Windows device driver, internals, security, & forensics training and consulting. Blog at www.azius.com/blog

Answer 2

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the link.

>>The drivers for these device are required to support specific I/O requests to allow this to work.

Do I need to write a driver to use the above APIs in your link? I have a driver from Intel and it was written based on SPB. Does these API communicate with this driver directly in standard method?

Also, the link is saying that directinput can be used compared to joystick API which has limitation of using 4 buttons. In my case, i would need to get data from more that 4 buttons.

Can you please help me to understand this layer?

Thanks,

Winraj.

Answer 3

If the manufacturer is providing a driver, then you don't need to write one.

As far as the joystick APIs go, I'm a driver/kernel guy. Someone else will have to answer that

 -Brian

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Azius Developer Training www.azius.com Windows device driver, internals, security, & forensics training and consulting. Blog at www.azius.com/blog