Cabinet Nudging System

[Rainman]

Last night I finally got the Microsoft sidewinder freestyle Pro I orderd from ebay, as I'm planing to install a nudging system into my cab. Well, the problem is the controller calibration. 

I tried to use the analog nudging option in VP 9.1.5 but for some reason the physics and movement of the ball became really wrong. Like if the ball is being constantly pushed into one side... I know I placed the gamepad properly flat and horizontal,  and in Windows calibration it shows a cross centered.

 

Then I tried to use digital nudge with xpadder. It works a bit better, but I sometimes have double nudges and very often a tilt than a slight nudge, even though I nudge the cab just slightly.

 

Does anyone have experience with Microsoft Sidewinder freestyle pro? And how did you solve this potential issues? I could also go for UHID-G but the cost with shipping would be too high so I decided to try out the Sidewinder first.

 

thanks

[ViriiGuy]

I find you need to A. not mount the controller flat.. but more at an angle, like if you were holding it.

Then B. Then you calibrate it, you need to bump your cabinet, like you would if you were playing it. So with your controller mounted at a slight angle, go to the calibration wizard and bump your cabinet in all three directions, then press one of your cabinet buttons. 

 

Inside VisualPin, under controller options, you will need to adjust your deadzone. For me I set it to about 20%.

[Rainman]

Thanks ViriiGuy, that did help... I took your advice and mounted the pad a bid downwards, plus I used the instructions user uberpiball posted:

Quoted users uberpinball

Forget windows calibration and do this:

 

1) Grab this DXTweak tool, it will allow you to get perfect calibration. http://db.tt/uW6MZJio

2) Grab this table for testing. It's zero slope http://db.tt/37iwTuoP

3) Start adjusting the mid values of the X and Y axis, choose the proper tabs on top. Keep the low and high values in line with your adjustment of mid, move mid up 5, you move low and high up 5. Make sure you don't have the x and y Axis to tight in DXTweak. By this i mean...make sure you are at least 300-500 from center each way. So if X Axis mid is 2000, the min should be 1500 and max 2500. The same for the Y axis. The closer you get to mid, the tighter and less forgiving the nudge is. if it's to tight, the chip will start to fight itself causing the jitters and ball wandering.

4) Start the test table with zero slope in VP and see how the all reacts. Your goal is to have it standing still. Go back and forth between the DXTweak tool and restarting the zero slope table. You need to restart the table after each DXTweak tweak.
 
5) If you still find a slight wander in the zero slope table, adjust the deadzone. In VP, go to Pref>Keys and check your gains and deadzones. I'm at 500% for x and y, and a 3% deadzone. The deadzone will give the ball a buffer before it acts to a nudge.
 
I give credit to koadic for helping me back when with this. I just ended up organizing it all for my use if I ever upgraded my pc.
 

 

The DXTweak tool did the trick as it helped me to finetune the x and y axis. The thing is, with this tool you can position your controller in any position you want, just need to tweak the x and y axis. Tweaking directly changes Windows calibration inputs for the controller. Of course, its a lot easier to physically position the pad in horizontal position.

Thats for analog nudging... if you guys use xpadder or someting and opt for digital nudging I suggest you use blur's custom nudging plugin.