Joypad Deadzones

[Carl Spiby]

Cheers Stuart.

 

[Epsilon]

Yeah, a keyboard is definitely a step back for me too. If you want realism, build a pin cab.

Agreed, and I even went further than that and used my X-Arcade tankstick, which has realistic feeling pinball buttons on the side. Ultimately, the lack of a decent way to nudge sent me back to the controller, probably to stay. There's always going to be some layer of unrealistic feeling involved in video pinball. Even the most expensive pin-cab setup is still going to be using a flat surface to render a playfield. I think short of spending thousands of dollars, the controller is a perfectly viable way to play the game in the most functional manner possible.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Agreed, and I even went further than that and used my X-Arcade tankstick, which has realistic feeling pinball buttons on the side. Ultimately, the lack of a decent way to nudge sent me back to the controller, probably to stay. There's always going to be some layer of unrealistic feeling involved in video pinball. Even the most expensive pin-cab setup is still going to be using a flat surface to render a playfield. I think short of spending thousands of dollars, the controller is a perfectly viable way to play the game in the most functional manner possible.

I have the Tankstick too. There is actually a very good nudge solution: there are 4 total pinball buttons on the Tankstick, two on each side. So what you need to do is set the other two buttons as your left and right nudge. Since those buttons are normally set to left and right mouse clicks, some games (such as Pro Pinball) won't allow you to map those for nudging, so you need to use an Auto Hotkey script to trick the game into thinking they're keyboard buttons instead.

With that setup, the Tankstick is amazing for pinball since you don't even have to move your fingers away from the flipper buttons to nudge.

 

[Epsilon]

I have the Tankstick too. There is actually a very good nudge solution: there are 4 total pinball buttons on the Tankstick, two on each side. So what you need to do is set the other two buttons as your left and right nudge. Since those buttons are normally set to left and right mouse clicks, some games (such as Pro Pinball) won't allow you to map those for nudging, so you need to use an Auto Hotkey script to trick the game into thinking they're keyboard buttons instead.

With that setup, the Tankstick is amazing for pinball since you don't even have to move your fingers away from the flipper buttons to nudge.

Hmm...that's an interesting idea. I tried to map those buttons in TPA (and I think Pinball FX2 as well) and figured it just wouldn't let me. I've never really messed with trying to remap mouse clicks as keys; I figured XPadder or Joy2Key might be able to do it, but I think why I hesitated is that keeping those as clicks makes navigation within the software much more convenient than it would be otherwise. But I suppose if they are "double-mapped" in some way, it might be the best of both worlds.

Thanks for the ideas; I might do some tinkering with that later on tonight.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Hmm...that's an interesting idea. I tried to map those buttons in TPA (and I think Pinball FX2 as well) and figured it just wouldn't let me. I've never really messed with trying to remap mouse clicks as keys; I figured XPadder or Joy2Key might be able to do it, but I think why I hesitated is that keeping those as clicks makes navigation within the software much more convenient than it would be otherwise. But I suppose if they are "double-mapped" in some way, it might be the best of both worlds.

Thanks for the ideas; I might do some tinkering with that later on tonight.

Yeah give it a try, I think you'll like it. You don't need the mouse buttons within the game itself since you can navigate everything with the controller, so you can set Auto Hotkey to only switch the buttons when certain games are running. Either that or simply start the script before you play pinball.

 

[Edan-Grossman]

I'm currently having problems with my left trigger in my wired x360 controller as it seems to get stuck and I have to click it several times rapidly to unstick it. I have remapped the flippers to the shoulder buttons as a simple work around. I'm pretty sure that my controlled has dirt/grime in the trigger mechanism which can definitely cause signal bounce, but before I open up my controller to clean it out, I really would like to solve the problem by increasing the deadzone's for both triggers. The gamepad calibration tool in the control panel didn't help, do any of you guys know of any software that can increase the deadzone for the "z-axis" for the controller?

 

[JPelter]

I'm currently having problems with my left trigger in my wired x360 controller as it seems to get stuck and I have to click it several times rapidly to unstick it. I have remapped the flippers to the shoulder buttons as a simple work around. I'm pretty sure that my controlled has dirt/grime in the trigger mechanism which can definitely cause signal bounce, but before I open up my controller to clean it out, I really would like to solve the problem by increasing the deadzone's for both triggers. The gamepad calibration tool in the control panel didn't help, do any of you guys know of any software that can increase the deadzone for the "z-axis" for the controller?

I know you can adjust the deadzone for the DS3 controller with betterDS3. I'd be sort of surprised if there was nothing similar for adjusting controller stuff for the 360 pad on the PC. I can't say for sure though, sorry. Maybe try 360CE? Stuart Webster already said that he adjusted the deadzones though which I'm guessing should make it into the next PC patch.

 

[Edan-Grossman]

Problem solved! Here are the steps I took to fix my stuck flipper problem on my wired X360 gamepad.

1. Use a Philips Screwdriver to open the gamepad
2. Disconnect the rumble motors and buttons from the circuit board
3. Remove the triggers from the trigger mechanisms
4. Remove the trigger mechanism from the board without damaging the potentiometer
5. Realise that you damaged the potentiometer while performing the previous step
6. Reassemble the controller with the hope that you didn't make it much worse than before
7. Test the controller and relise that it is now completely unusable
8. Throw it in the garbage
9. Go to Gamestop and buy a preowned gamepad for $40
10. Test the gamepad you just bought
11. It works and the problem is SOLVED
12. Post the step-by-step solution on Pinballarcadefans to save everyone else the time and frustration of attempting a DIY repair
13. Enjoy Pinball arcade on PC

I hope this helps.

 

[Naildriver74]

Problem solved! Here are the steps I took to fix my stuck flipper problem on my wired X360 gamepad.

1. Use a Philips Screwdriver to open the gamepad
2. Disconnect the rumble motors and buttons from the circuit boiard
3. Remove the triggers from the trigger mechanisms
4. Remove the trigger mechanism from the board without damaging the potentiometer
5. Realise that you damaged the potentiometer while performing the previous step
6. Reassemble the controller with the hope that you didn't make it much worse than before
7. Test the controller and relise that it is now completely unusable
8. Throw it in the garbage
9. Go to Gamestop and buy a preowned gamepad for $40
10. Test the gamepad you just bought
11. It works and the problem is SOLVED
12. Post the step-by-step solution on Pinballarcadefans to save everyone else the time and frustration of attempting a DIY repair
13. Enjoy Pinball arcade on PC

I hope this helps.

It didn't help me but thanks for the laugh!