Using Modern Joysticks with XWA

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Using Modern Joysticks with XWA

Armanith_core
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Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2016 4:26 pm

Post by Armanith_core » Sat May 21, 2022 2:21 pm

Not sure if this is the best place to post, so if you mods want to move it feel free :)

Due to playing things like Squadrons, Elite Dangerous, and Rebel Galaxy Outlaw recently, when I came back for a replay of the Xwing games I found it nigh on impossible to fly as I used to because my yaw had become roll... So I set out looking for a fix.

I couldn't find a tutorial anywhere for XWA but I did find a fix! So I'm going to detail the steps I took in this post.
The general consensus is that you can't flip the rudder and roll functions of the joystick in the game's engine due to its age.

So the solution is emulation!

I followed this chaps video on Youtube to set up Joystick Gremlin, HidHide and VJoy. Together these three programs allow you to use a modern stick in XWA.

Bassically VJoy creates a virtual stick for your PC, Hidhide hides your actual device from the game so it doesn't default to it and it sticks to using the vjoy stick and Joystick Gremlin (now called controller gremlin I believe as it allows mapping of sticks and gamepads) allows you to map keystrokes and stick commands to the virtual stick.

I followed this guy's tutorial on YouTube to find the programs and get started. some have updated since the video was made and some have new names so it may take a little digital sleuthing on GitHub to find the most recent versions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6CFPW4go0M&t=507s

Took a bit of Jiggery-pokery to get working (basically remapping ALL of xwing's joystick buttons to my new virtual stick, luckily there aren't that many the game can use) and then voila! Plays like a dream now, my setup could still use some refining but it now plays awesomely well with the logitech X52 Pro.

I hope this helps anyone having similar issues!

Good hunting!

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