[Saint Stryfe]

Okay, so you found GTA:SA on a Steam sale and you're ready to hunker down with your xBox 360 controller and get your game on, right?

No. No you aren't. The Controls are TERRIBLE.... you can't even control how your Camera moves! What gives? How can you fix it?

Well the tools are free (don't get fooled into one of those 10$+ controller mods for this!), but they require a bit of explanation. While the wonderful creators of these mods are obviously fantastic programers, for a new person the setup might be a bit confusing.

Well, fear not. Here's the dirt simple explanation of how to get your newly downloaded GTA:SA to work with gInput to make the best use of your GTA:SA game and your xBox 360 Controller. Note this would also work for PS3 and other controllers... but I don't have them. If someone wants to chime in with how add them, feel free.

Prestep: As always, no warranty given with anything here, and always scan anything you get from the net for any viruses or other bugs. Disclaimers out of the way, let's roll.

Step 1: Downgrade

The version of GTA:SA you get from Steam is new. The tools to make your controller work need an older version. Don't worry, you'll enjoy your game just as much.

How do it it? Simple.

There's a simple and clean GTA:SA Downgrader program.

This video has full instructions and a link to the downgrader program on how to use it.

Just run the program in the comments link, point it at your GTA:SA installation directory. From here on in you'll use the GTA_SA application to launch your game.

Step 2: ASI Loader

The thing we use to make the controller work are called ASI files. To make them work, we need an ASI Loader. Seems logical, no?

So we're going to get Silent's ASI Loader at the link provided. Drop the files from there into your GTA:SA Install directory. You will be copying over one of your game's files. That's fine, go with it.

Step 3: gInput

Now the magic. gInput is what is going to not only let you use your xBox 360 Controller, but also replace the ingame graphics, so rather than seeing "JOY1" as a button label, you'll see the correct button on your 360 pad. Neato!

Download gInput here and expand it. Drop the gInput.asi and the gInput.ini files into the main GTA:SA directory, then open up the xBox360 folder, drop XInput9_1_0.dll into the main GTA:SA directory, and ps2btns.txd from the models folder in your expanded file into the models folder in your GTA:SA install.

Now just double click your new GTA_SA App (you can drag it to your ALL PROGRAMS area if you're a pre-8 user, or use Obitile to create a quick link in Windows 8). You'll see a few advertising bits (one of them for Nvidia) and then the game will start up. If your controller is on and ready you should be able to get right into it, and it'll all be configured.

I hope this helps. Be sure to tip the mod writers and send them some thanks for their hard work!

This post has been edited by Saint Stryfe: Mar 29 2014, 04:11 PM

[uokka]

It's .ASI, not .ISA!

[Deji]

And 'downgrading' your .exe is not recommended. Instead, download one that's already downgraded (or was never upgraded in the first place).

Unless the downgrader simply just enforces the existence of an .exe on your computer before simply replacing it with a 1.0 one (the most supported .exe by mods), it's merely heavily patching the .exe to make it work more like a 1.0 (EU) one, which is not the same as having a mod-compatible .exe.

The downgraders only benefit is that it's "legal" (theoretically). Plus, it doesn't support steam .exe's:

=====================================
This patcher will patch the following versions of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
=====================================
USA 1.01
USA 2.00
European 1.01
European 2.00
German 1.01
German 1.00
=====================================

Anyway, welcome to the forum and thanks for the contribution.

[Saint Stryfe]

It's .ASI, not .ISA!

Noted and fixed, thank you for the correction.

[Saint Stryfe]

And 'downgrading' your .exe is not recommended. Instead, download one that's already downgraded (or was never upgraded in the first place).

Unless the downgrader simply just enforces the existence of an .exe on your computer before simply replacing it with a 1.0 one (the most supported .exe by mods), it's merely heavily patching the .exe to make it work more like a 1.0 (EU) one, which is not the same as having a mod-compatible .exe.

The downgraders only benefit is that it's "legal" (theoretically). Plus, it doesn't support steam .exe's:


Anyway, welcome to the forum and thanks for the contribution.

I understand your position, but I'm hoping this guide will let people who had the game first (and it's not hard to get drawn into a Steam Sale!) find the solution easily and with less frustration then I had to go through. Of course, any additional suggestions for new users would be greatly appreciated. Getting into a new idea like modding through trying to fix a GLARING problem like one of the most popular controllers not working can be very confusing (as can be noted by me getting ASI wrong...)

And the downgrader program I used in my link simply made another copy of the GTA software that worked. I honestly can't even tell you what version it was. Before it, when I installed the ASI loader it crashed on open.

[Deji]

I understand your position, but I'm hoping this guide will let people who had the game first (and it's not hard to get drawn into a Steam Sale!) find the solution easily and with less frustration then I had to go through. Of course, any additional suggestions for new users would be greatly appreciated. Getting into a new idea like modding through trying to fix a GLARING problem like one of the most popular controllers not working can be very confusing (as can be noted by me getting ASI wrong...)

And the downgrader program I used in my link simply made another copy of the GTA software that worked. I honestly can't even tell you what version it was. Before it, when I installed the ASI loader it crashed on open.

Well, you have a steam version and the downgrader apparently doesn't support it. Additionally it creates a 1.0EU .exe version - since you have the steam version, you have no disc. Therefore, this .exe it creates must be a NO-CD crack, since the 1.0EU exe's were all created at a time before digital download was popular and require CD's unless they're cracked.

Therefore, why use the downgrader at all, when you can just download the same NO-CD crack from the internet? 'GameCopyWorld', though riddled with ads, provides a well organised set of NO-CD exe's for GTA San Andreas, the most popular for modding is the HOODLUM 1.0 US .exe. The EU one is also available there.

[Huckleberry Pie]

Besides, patching the EXE isn't enough, as you have to replace the script files with the ones from 1.0. There's an archive containing the necessary gta_sa.exe and SCM files at The GTA Place in case you're using v2 or v3/Steam.

[EScotty2112]

I'm having trouble when I try to run the game. I assure you, I'm attempting to run it from the .exe that was added with the downgrade files. Anyway, when I try to run it, it desplays an error message saying that it cannot start because vorbisfile.dll is missing from my computer. The file mentioned is in the general directory, so I'm very confused. any help would be appreciated.

[Deji]

I'm having trouble when I try to run the game. I assure you, I'm attempting to run it from the .exe that was added with the downgrade files. Anyway, when I try to run it, it desplays an error message saying that it cannot start because vorbisfile.dll is missing from my computer. The file mentioned is in the general directory, so I'm very confused. any help would be appreciated.

DONT use a downgraded .exe. Also you need Silents ASI Loader.