Following closely on the heels of a beta 1 release, programmer Alessandro Levi Montalcini has just released beta 2 for Mac OS X of his popular utility USB Overdrive, whose Mac OS 9 version has long been an essential tool among gamers who use unsupported USB controllers.

USB Overdrive for Mac OS 9 supports almost every USB controller on the market, often better than the drivers that come with the devices. With a Mac OS X version now in beta, OS X gamers can rejoice that their buttons, dials, and switches will soon work again.

Though this early beta does not offer support for joysticks or gamepads, it does bring advanced features to USB mice:

• Added separate Speed and Acceleration settings for greater control over the mouse speed. I'm still working on this, so please send in your comments on how you would like it improved. Does the current speed control satisfy your needs? Do you have ideas for a better acceleration curve?

• The format of the preferences file was changed to include acceleration settings, so you'll have to re-enter all your settings. Sorry about that.

• Restored the functionality of the Enabled check box. When the Enable option is unchecked for a given application or for the Global Settings, the Overdrive behaves exactly like the standard Mac OS X mouse driver, including both the mouse speed and the buttons/wheel behavior.

• Added Middle Click, Fourth Click and Fifth Click to the list of actions that can be performed. This is useful for applications that handle the extra buttons on their own. For such applications, you can either uncheck the Enabled option, or assign Middle Click to the middle button to have the middle button behave as expected.

• Restored the ability to press modifier keys alone (without typing a keystroke or clicking a button) by checking one of the modifier keys when Do Nothing is selected. This is useful in applications like Timbuktu, where a modifier key alone is used to invoke a command.

• Fixed a problem where the USBOverdriveHelper was not added to the Login Items, so that the USB Overdrive X application had to be launched manually after every login to enable to Overdrive. This caused many people to report that the Overdrive had no effect whatsoever on their system.

• Fixed a problem with the Microsoft Wireless Explorer that caused the mouse buttons to be randomly released every 30 seconds or so.

USB Overdrive

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