Joystick problems with VICE TDE and real Vic-20

[necronom]

I'm trying to play a game and if true drive emulation is turned on in VICE it will only let me move right. All other directions don't work (though the game makes a noise, so detects something). On my Vic-20 I'm loading it through an SD2IEC and it also only lets me go right. It also displays a message "Please turn off player" when it's going to work in VICE (and then moves in all directions). Switching TDE on/off stops/starts full movement.

The game is Starship Escape. It looks quite good, and I'd like to give it a go. Maybe try to finish it and put up a video.

Is this a hardware problem caused by the SD2IEC (and I won't be able to play it), or can it be fixed in software? Does anyone have a working version that will work with the SD2IEC (assuming that's the problem)?

I seem to be asking for working versions of lots of games. Sorry for that, but the forum has recovered two recently that were not fully playable on the real thing, so it's been a success for the preservation of those games (though I still want a working version of Alien Demon from another thread), so hopefully my annoying requests are helping things in the long run.

I wasn't sure if I should put this in General, Game, Programming, or Collecting and History, so please move if in the wrong one.

[Mike]

This is a common issue with joystick routines and has nothing to do with SD2IEC drives in particular, just with disk vs. tape use.

More details to be found here: Fixing joystick reading in games.

[necronom]

Thanks for the info. Just a badly written game. I'll just have to have a go in VICE.