Have tried this in the game specific forum but no answers.
Just bought Megarace, and eventhough some dislike it, our family has fond memories on the Packard Bell with this game.
Anyway, as some may know, Megarace 1 (MR1) came out as a DOS game in 1994. Megarace 2 (MR2) came out a few year(s) later, and was a very different game, albeit with better support. MR1 requires an initial set up, performed through a file (INSTDOS), in which it allows you to choose memory, checks out your CDROM and choices on using mouse and joystick. After you've chosen these things, I assume it saves them in some config file, THEN prior to playing the first round, you have to choose keyboard, mouse or joystick again when you're choosing which car you want. After that, in the old DOS days, all you had to do was play therafter.
However, in GOG download, the INSTDOS never runs, and you can't choose joystick. Thus, only keyboard or mouse will work and are both a little squirrelly. I've run the INSTDOS, and it saves a .bat file (to the wrong directory) and even after moving this to the GOG folder, no joystick. In fact, during the install, the message is " there is no joystick connected". The setup goes on to say that " i don't recognize the way your system keeps time"....and I don't know if that's important.
It gets better. In MR2, the joystick is recognized, and sort of works, but car control is horrible. Keep in mind that both MR1 and MR2 are running under the same DosBox, and only MR2 allows the joystick.
I've tried the following: USB joystick, analog joystick, USB gamepad,2 different sound cards with gameports, tweaking the joystick funtions in DOsBox, multiple joysitck/sound card drivers, several forced hardware scenarios and still.....NOTHING.
DOes anybody know about these older games and how to bring the joystick online? It's really hard to play without it, and certain that someone knows how to do this.....I just have no idea.
System is: core 2 duo 5200 at 2.5GHZ, 4 GB of 800MHZ ram, Asus (ati chipset) 5750 with 1 GB DDR5, running XP PRO
Thanks in advance!

Well, three hours without a response, I will at least give you something to try . . . =)
I don't have the game but I will suggest you try setting the affinity to one core. This may fix the "time" issue. To do it manually, start the game, Alt-Tab back to the desktop, press CTRL - ALT - DEL and open the Task Manager. Follow the steps on the attached image (look for your game exe, Sacred.exe is used in the example). This is one of the first things I try with older games on a dual core CPU. If it helps, there is a small, free program that set the affinity automagically every time you start the game. The above method must be done ever time you run the game.
Might be all you need to do . . . might not help at all . . . =)

Thanks very much! I'm enjoying the DosBox idea, as I haven't worked with DOS in a decade, and kinda wish I'd kept that old machine.....!
I'll try the single core idea and let you know.

Well, a good idea but no joy (pardon the pun). I didn't see the actual program like you mentioned (sacred.exe or in this case raceprg.exe) but did see dosbox running so I closed one of the cores. Also limited vaious other proceses (iexplore) to one core just in case, but nothing.
The DosBox screen you get with the alt-tab show it sees the Sidewinder joystick, but no joystick in the game. Ran the INSTDOS set up program with only one core engaged, and I still got the "can't tell time" on this system and the game setup didn't see the joystick.
ARRGGHHH
I'm open to any ideas!

Give Xpadder a try. It lets you redirect controller inputs to keyboard/mouse inputs. As long as Windows itself can see all the buttons/axes/etc. you're all set. It's a bit fiddly to set up the buttons the first time but after that it's really easy.
Note that if you use this you will want to disable DOSBox's controller support entirely so the game doesn't see conflicting commands.

I believe Arkose has the best suggestion for fixing your problem.
Here is a link to a page describing RunFirst and with a link to the program. If setting the affinity manually did not help, then using RunFirst probably won't help either. Didn't want to leave you in the dark about the program after mentioning it.
Good luck with your problem . . . =)

Thank you both...this is more info than I've gotten in 2 weeks of GOG support and a host of other inquiries.
As to the disable of DOSBox's controllers, I assume that will be in the .conf file specific for the game? Will I need to just disable the joystick or mouse or all the inputs including keyboard?
Just an aside....I found the old Packard Bell 486DX2 (I think) with a whopping 8mb of RAM. Booted and found the mainboard battery dead, so I soldered in a new 2032 after removing an odd looking 3v lithium cell with solder tabs.
Rebooted and all is well. Took a minute or two to recall the DOS commands and then fired up the original CDROM copy of Megarace. After a few glitches, I was blasting away!
SOmething funny, though. I couldn't use my Samsung 21" TFT, but had to dig out and old CRT to see the video. I assumed the VGA would recognize a default monitor, but perhaps I need drivers? Yikes, can't imagine if "modern" dirvers would be used in this antique....

I have had games that would not recognize one joystick but would recognize another. Might try borrowing different brand or model from a friend. The game might sense an older joystick for instance.
Arkose or another community member will have to answer your disable controllers question . . . he should be along soon . . . =)

I just got an interesting answer from a DOSbox forum. They said to change the joystick timing to "false" (I assume in the .conf file) and it worked for them. I thought I had tried this, but will try again tonight.
I'll let you know so the next guy won't have to do all this again!

Yeah, if you've turned it on in DOSBox you will need to turn it off there again. If the game itself has the option of turning off joystick detection that would be easier and would achieve the same result.
As far as drivers go you won't be able to use anything remotely modern. As far as DOS goes you could try the drivers on sites such as this one, but bear in mind that DOS drivers are very much a hit-and-miss affair.
Failing that your best bet would be to track down a copy of Windows 9x (ideally 98SE). They have lots of generic drivers included and may be able to work with your monitor right out of the box. Some manufacturers still have their 9x monitor drivers available online. Many DOS games will run just fine on 9x, and since 9x still includes real DOS you can always reboot into that if necessary.
If you want to be really adventurous you could even use GOG games on old hardware by installing on a modern system first and then burning the game directory to a CD. This won't work for games that required a CD to play unless you can make an acceptable disc somehow. For some CD games you may be able to do this by burning the GOG CD image (a file with a .gog extension stored in the install directory) with ImgBurn or the like.

I really appreciate all your collective efforts!
I adjusted the resolution and colors of the video output in Win 3.1, after choosing the VGA option in the bios, and got the new Samsung to display the old 486 output. No quite sized to the screen, but works fine. I repaired this Samsung 215TW (bought it for $25 at the Dallas under the bridge all night computer flea market!) after troubleshooting it for a while an utimately replaced a CCFT lamp and the high voltage transformer so wasn't sure if it was a hardware issue...
As to the Windows 98, I kept all of those various disks and their bootable floppies, so I have 95, 98 and 98SE right here. Will give that a try....great idea! Still kicking myself for pitching the floppies for Win 3.1....
I haven't gotten back to DOSbox yet as I was working on the old 486, so I'll try the Xpadder this weekend on the GOG game.
As to running the game from HDD only, since I have 2 original CDROMs, could I run Megarace1 from the HDD rather than the cd? There are issues with transfer rate, and I was just wondering. The HDD is only 512MB (I think), and I've not checked the sizes, but I assume this would be possible.....yes?

Well, I tried the DOSbox timed=false on the joystick setup. Still no usb joystick seen by megarace1. Arrrrgh.
Bought a Soundblaster PCI card that auto detects with XP,and the gameport also auto detects. I then turned off, plugged in the Gravis Blackhawk (analog) contoller. Rebooted, tried to add the joystick. On all possibel settings, I see the drivers being install by XP, it then says "your hardware is ready to use" then look at the control panel for gamecontrollers and it says "not connected" the Properties tab is greyed out also. Have had this with three different gameport/sound cards. The reason I was trying the gameport was I know that USB wasn't around with the old 486's and I thought if it saw it connected to the motherboard I might have a chance......nope.
Only thought left is do I need an analog stick that XP already has on its list?

Have you looked in the device manager to see if there are any conflicts with the joystick? Also, make sure there is only one joystick, if more than one, disable all but one, try the stick, disable the other,enable previous disabled, try stick. Sometimes XP will show more than one and it will try to access the wrong one. Not much help but worth a look . . . =)
Edit: I have also uninstalled a joystick or USB hub in the device manager and rebooted allowing XP to reinstall when it finds the device. Occasionally works but . . . not a sure thing.

Did the device manager from several different angles...no joy. Only 1 device in system and can NEVER get the analog gameport device to say anything but not connected. Went to the IRQ and I/O and cahnged the range....no joy. Even edited the registry to remove all sticks and reloaded...no joy.
I know the stick works as it ran on the old 486dx2.
Man, this is getting old!

If Windows can't see the joystick properly nothing else can either. DOSBox and the like don't care about the connection or whatnot the controller is using as long as it is being reported correctly by Windows.