Unable to do small movements with Joystcik

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Unable to do small movements with Joystcik

DeFer
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Post by DeFer » Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:12 pm

Hello all,
I played x-wing and tie fighter with a mouse, then xwing vs tie with a gamepad, and now that I have a proper joystick, a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, I would like to finally play x-wing alliance. It is great to see people still upgrading this old gem.

My problem is that I find the handling with the joystick a bit annoying, it acts like if the game introduce a default dead zone that I can not remove.
The joystick works well with other flying simulators, very sensitive and without any deadzone, but when I use it in XWA, I can not make small movements around the central region: I mean, if I start moving the joystick slightly, at first the gunshight does not move, and then sudently it moves several pixels (a minimum of 1cm or so), so it is really hard to aim to a far ship (when they are one single dot in the screen).

I have verify this is not a problem of my joystick, since the same happens when I use "ppjoy" to pilot with the mouse. Even with the mouse, I am unable to move the gunsight in steps of one pixel around the center, like I always did in the old xwings.

I wonder if it is part of the game and I must learn to live with it, or if there is something I can do to remove this annoying ingame deadzone.
I would thank if someone can confirm if he does or does not suffer this same problem.
Thanks.

VPR
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Post by VPR » Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:51 pm

I think this may be a fault with the games engine itself and there was a thread on the xwingalliance.net forums about this and I to have experienced this with Saitek joysticks. Most of the time it doesn't happen for me but occasionally it does appear and effects aiming, if it's happening for you all the time you may just have to play around with the settings.

The other place to try is the Totally Games forum and you may be lucky enough to get some help from some of the developers.

DeFer
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Post by DeFer » Wed Mar 25, 2009 1:25 am

Thank you for the fast answer.
I have also noticed this weird effect that do not let you point to the center of a nebula in the background. It is something similar, but not exactly what I try to describe.

In my case, the effect is similar than increasing the dead zone settings in the control panel of the joystick, but worse:
-If you increase the dead zone settings in a flying simulator, you know, then you need to move the joystick a bit until the crosshair really start moving, but it start moving with precision.
-In my case, there is the same dead zone, but once the crosshair finally start moving, it makes a jump, like if I were pressing a key instead of an analog control.
So, when I try to point the crosshair over a dot in the sky I need to move the joystick and stop it exactly over the dot, because once stopped, I can't make slight corrections, If I fail, I need to move the cursor away from the objetive and try it again with rough movements... in fact very similar to my old days with my digital gamepad.

Since I know my joystick works well with other games, I suspect it could be an incompatibility of the game with the driver (latest logitech version) or the OS (windows XP SP2). But it is weird I have not found any post about similar troubles. In fact, I have found several people playing this game with the same joystick and saying it works great.
I have tried changing the sensibility and deadzone in the logitech control panel, with no luck. And I can't find any setting in the game related to the joystick, apart of the enabling of the rudder and the FFB setting (that I have also tested).


My latest question would be, how hard is to point to a start in the sky with your joysticks?. Can you approach the crsosshair to the start smoothly, or you need to move the cursor left and right, up and down several times until you end up exactly over the start... like me.

Rebel_Terrorist
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Post by Rebel_Terrorist » Wed Mar 25, 2009 9:53 am

DeFer wrote:Thank you for the fast answer.
I have also noticed this weird effect that do not let you point to the center of a nebula in the background. It is something similar, but not exactly what I try to describe.
Thats because in the quick skirmish nebulas, planets, stars, etc, are usually at one of the axis of the maps, and you can't aim there. Don't worry about that, it happens with everybody.

VPR
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Post by VPR » Wed Mar 25, 2009 11:19 am

DeFer wrote:My latest question would be, how hard is to point to a start in the sky with your joysticks?. Can you approach the crsosshair to the start smoothly, or you need to move the cursor left and right, up and down several times until you end up exactly over the start... like me.
My stick works fine most of the time, apart from the background nebula glitch it only happens once in a while when aiming at ships but this tends to be a rare occurrance for me. Have you tried using the joystick without Logitech's drivers and using just the default Windows one? Have you also removed any drivers you used for the gamepad as well because this could cause a conflict with your Joystick?

DeFer
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Post by DeFer » Wed Mar 25, 2009 10:53 pm

Good try, I have removed the logitech driver, the driver of the old gamepad, the ppjoy vitual port, I have used a logitech utility to clean all calibration info... and still no luck.
Anyway, thanks for the help, I guess I must learn to aim this way.

VPR
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Post by VPR » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:05 pm

Oh well, does sound a strange problem for it just to happen on one game. Try asking on the Totally Games forum anyway, one of the former X-Wing devs may be able to help further.

netoale
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Post by netoale » Wed May 27, 2015 12:18 pm

Hi everybody.

Yes ! I'm asking exactly the same question : is there a way to suppress the joystick dead zone. => it is impossible to make small movements. I know this is in the game engine, but there's probably a way to hack the .exe to remove it...

Mr_Blastman
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Post by Mr_Blastman » Thu Nov 02, 2017 2:37 am

Digging up an old thread, sorry. Is there any way yet to remove the deadzone for joysticks? I have an extremely precise one(Hotas Cougar with custom CNC machined gimbals and hall sensors) and can't for the life of me line up precise shots, especially head-on ones because the deadzone forces me to move my stick wildly to do small movements.

spas79
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Post by spas79 » Tue Mar 03, 2020 7:05 pm

Havin that same issue in 2020 with a Virpil+X56Throttle+VKB pedals...

KuMoNKo
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Post by KuMoNKo » Mon Mar 09, 2020 12:17 pm

Has anyone found a solution? I have a cheap T.Flight Hotas, and thought it was the problem, but after limiting the entry to a 10th of the total with joystick gremling, I found it is not registering any input under that 10%.

For reference, I'm using the Steam version.

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Post by KuMoNKo » Sun Mar 15, 2020 4:15 pm

OK. After some testing I managed to stop that unability to fine aim. My solution is not conventional at all, but it works.
Basically, I reinstalled vjoy and joystick gremlin, and then setup a curve where vjoy starts to register values in 0.1. The curve looks like the one in the image.
gremlincurve.png
With a curve like this I can even head-to-head sometimes (given I am a really bad pilot XD)

regards
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JeremyaFr
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Post by JeremyaFr » Sat Apr 04, 2020 9:23 pm

Hello,
To allow small movements, you can try this patch:

Code: Select all

At offset 0338A0, replace 51 with C3.

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Post by KuMoNKo » Wed Apr 08, 2020 1:20 pm

Thank you JeremyaFr,
I tried it and it works just fine!. I found myself using Joystick Gremling anyway for button configuration purposes, but the x and y axis curve is now much easier to set.
May I ask, what does the 51 to C3 change mean? It has no sense for me in hex, dec or bin. Some type of mask on the axis input value?

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JeremyaFr
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Post by JeremyaFr » Wed Apr 08, 2020 2:07 pm

Hello,

The code in the exe looks like that:

Code: Select all

void L004344A0(  )
{
    if( abs( s_V0x08C1CC2 ) <= 0x0040 )
        s_V0x08C1CC2 = 0;

    if( abs( s_V0x08C1CC0 ) <= 0x0018 )
        s_V0x08C1CC0 = 0;

    if( abs( s_V0x08C1CC4 ) <= 0x0040 )
        s_V0x08C1CC4 = 0;
}
What the patch does is disabling this function.

51 corresponds to the first instruction in the function which is a "push ecx" instruction.
C3 corresponds to the instruction "ret".

By placing a ret instruction at the beginning of the function disables it. The function returns when it is called.

KuMoNKo
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Post by KuMoNKo » Wed Apr 08, 2020 2:32 pm

Oh!, thanks. I though it was a constant, not a function.

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keiranhalcyon7
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Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:58 pm

That's the joystick dead zone function, isn't it?

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JeremyaFr
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Post by JeremyaFr » Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:42 pm

Yes

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keiranhalcyon7
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Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:49 pm

Thanks. Finally. A hard-coded dead zone may have made sense in the DOS era, but not anymore. OTOH, I don't remember if Windows 98 had native joystick options that would have handled it.

I don't suppose you could add fly-by-mouse in the style of original X-Wing?

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JeremyaFr
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Post by JeremyaFr » Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:52 pm

UPDATE

Hello,
I've added the patch to the joystick_ff hook.

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XDragon
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Post by XDragon » Tue May 05, 2020 6:09 pm

JeremyaFr wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:52 pm
UPDATE

Hello,
I've added the patch to the joystick_ff hook.
So, noob question here but how do i edit the code in the exe for this patch?
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evilmark
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Post by evilmark » Tue May 05, 2020 6:12 pm

XDragon wrote:
Tue May 05, 2020 6:09 pm
JeremyaFr wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:52 pm
UPDATE

Hello,
I've added the patch to the joystick_ff hook.
So, noob question here but how do i edit the code in the exe for this patch?
If my understanding of hooks is correct I don't believe it's necessary to do the patch if you have the updated hook.

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JeremyaFr
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Post by JeremyaFr » Tue May 05, 2020 6:47 pm

The patch is already in a hook.
So if you have installed a recent craft, then you already have it.

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XDragon
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Post by XDragon » Tue May 05, 2020 6:53 pm

Yeah, mine seems to be resolution related. With the new effects and cockpits installed (mainly the effects) i have smooth motion when i set my system display to 1024x768 and 800x600
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Post by Ace Antilles » Sat May 16, 2020 6:55 pm

KuMoNKo wrote:
Sun Mar 15, 2020 4:15 pm
OK. After some testing I managed to stop that unability to fine aim. My solution is not conventional at all, but it works.
Basically, I reinstalled vjoy and joystick gremlin, and then setup a curve where vjoy starts to register values in 0.1. The curve looks like the one in the image.
gremlincurve.png
With a curve like this I can even head-to-head sometimes (given I am a really bad pilot XD)

regards
Hi. Do you have a profile for this you can share please?
Flying XWA with my Logitech Extreme 3D pro can be annoying at times. I put this program on but I have no clue what I am doing lol
Thanks a lot.
XDragon wrote:
Tue May 05, 2020 6:53 pm
Yeah, mine seems to be resolution related. With the new effects and cockpits installed (mainly the effects) i have smooth motion when i set my system display to 1024x768 and 800x600
I'm using 1920x1080 and I don't think I have seen any difference with the joystick unless I'm missing some point to the hook.
Are you saying when you change resolution you get different issues with the joystick or just the whole game?
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