There is no overwriting of an original file as it does not exist in Lion and Mountain Lion. Hence, having to install the kext. The kext was omitted from 10.7 and 10.8 by Apple. When you freshly install Lion or Mountain Lion, it is not installed in the extensions folder where it should exist. Why they left it out is a mystery to me. It does not seem to conflict with any other software in OSX and I have done extensive testing on this. Very strange indeed.
The kext was installed in earlier versions of OSX and worked wonderful. It is still strange that I was able to play NASCAR 2003, VGP2, VGP3 and other games that utilize FFB on my PPC PowerMac G5 Quad fine, but on my newer Intel Macs, I had to install the kext. Again, why Apple left it out is strange. In the Apple developer network, I have spoken to a few people who have some theories about Why Apple left it out, but nothing concrete.
This has made it very difficult for people who purchased my game and others that utilize FFB to get their Logitech wheels working with full use of FFB. That is why I made the
instructions for the solution available on my site. I cannot even count how many people have emailed me about it!
As far as who is to blame, Apple should not have left it out in my opinion, but the hardware companies are fully capable of writing software for their wheels also. I have spoken to Fanatec and Thrustmaster about writing OSX specific drivers for their wheels. They have such superb wheels that would be great to utilize fully on OSX. It is a shame that I can use all of these wheels fine in Windows sims, but not on my OSX games. When I first started developing Auto Sport Driving, I contacted both Fanatec and Thrustmaster and have done this again recently. Here are the latest replies from them on custom OSX software support for their wheels...
FROM FANATEC
"Thank you very much for your message. Right now we just cannot support the mac as the user base is pretty small and we are very much based on the competitive sim racing scene right now or on the consoles. We hope that we would be able to provide mac support as soon as the demand reaches a certain level which is worth the cost and effort. Right now we just couldn’t do it. But there could be some information which is eventually really relevant for you. If you set our wheels (all which are PS3 compatible) in PS3 mode they might be able to use the Logitech kext files directly. Definitely worth a try!"
Oh and as a postscript to this reply, I have tried my Fanatec wheels on Mac with the PS3 mode and it did not work.
THRUSTMASTER
"We would like to thank you for your interest in Thrustmaster products. We currently do not have driver support for the MAC but like to thank you for the idea. Your message will be forwarded to our development department. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any other questions. Thrustmaster Technical Support is at your disposal for any other information you may need. You can reach us online at the following addresses:"
As a postscript to this reply, I love the T500 RS and would love to get that working with my game.
As an OSX racing game developer and racing game player since the early 80's (man am I old!), this is a little frustrating. But I do understand the reality that OSX just has such a small user base for racing games and the sometimes very expensive hardware that can be used for those games. Financially, it does not make a lot sense to direct resources to driver support for Mac when the numbers just are not there. Maybe sometime soon someone will step up.
@Bangbuss
I see in your post above that you posted a direct link from my site. I set up that download on one of my old servers for Mac Racers who want access to it. But it was really not meant to be posted as a direct download from any other website, just from my site. Maybe it seems like I am trying to get people to look at my Mac racing game? Well, that is kind of the trade-off.
