Pygame2 and Steering wheel controllers

[Pierre Arlaud]

I have been wanting to test using my logitech g29 steering wheel as a game controller, to judge the possibilty of game development with it. It goes without saying that I'm a complete beginner on the matter.

Overall I'll admit pygame seems to be one of the most generic solution. While some people said they were having problems with SDL1, Pygame2 does recognize the controller for me.

The first axis corresponds to the wheel, and the next three axis are for all three pedals. So far so good. However, while I don't especially expect pygame to fully support the force feedback feature, nor the automatic centering, there is an issue I have been having: the wheel is showing resistance when turning, as if it wasn't initialized.

Now here goes the interesting part: the rumble function does not work as it does not, well, make the wheel rumble (even if the call returns True a few second after the use of the controller). BUT what the call does do is put an end to the wheel resistance problem mentioned above (the resistance also comes back when quitting the game, so it does seem calling `rumble` starts the controller). I understand most racing simulation games use continuous rumbling to simulate the car engine running.

Are we expected to call the steering wheel rumbling in order to start using it as a controller? This leaves me wondering about how other wheel controllers would run with Pygame.

Is there besides any other recommandations (like using another python library for this exact wheel controller purpose) that I should know about?

Thanks in advance and have a lovely sunday,

Pierre