Use of Gamepad

[Imd]

As the weather has been so bad lately I thought I would be constructive and test the use of the gamepad in EQMOD using an xbox 360 controller.

The EQMOD instructions show an older model with the default buttons but I didn't expect this would indicate a problem. However, I discovered that some of the buttons on top of the pad used for controlling stepping speed are not recognised. Also slew nw and sw does nothing. My gamepad is genuine ms but my wifi receiver is not ms.

Are you able to use all the buttons on an xbox 360 gamepad in EQMOD?

Cheers

Ian

[chrisshillito]

As the weather has been so bad lately I thought I would be constructive and test the use of the gamepad in EQMOD using an xbox 360 controller.

The EQMOD instructions show an older model with the default buttons but I didn't expect this would indicate a problem. However, I discovered that some of the buttons on top of the pad used for controlling stepping speed are not recognised. Also slew nw and sw does nothing. My gamepad is genuine ms but my wifi receiver is not ms.

Are you able to use all the buttons on an xbox 360 gamepad in EQMOD?

Cheers

Ian

Any button that is reported as a button to windows can be used and assigned. However I suspec that your problem may just be that on your particular gamepad two to the front facing 'buttons' are actually single axis joysticks - i.e. analogue in nature in which case they will not be recoginised as buttons by EQASCOM. A standard windows gamepads around which EQASCOM defaults are based will usuall have 1 or 2 joysticks (two axis each), around 10 buttons and a POV control that consists or 8 directional buttons (sometimes this can be made to appear one of the joysticks).

Chris.

[Imd]

Thanks chris, you nailed it.

It was the triggers that I was trying to use and they are analogue. I was using this controller:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_Controller

Do you use the same controller and if so how is it working for you?

I found that the analogue sticks were unreliable but did work in a fashion so I turned it off. I also turned off the nw, sw, ne, se directions as the dpad (or myself) had problems with these directions.

Did you make any alterations or did you use the default buttons?

Please would anyone else also comment as to any changes they may have made to improve the use of this gamepad for eqmod?

[chrisshillito]

Hi Ian,

At the mount I use a logitech wireless Rumblepad II. I also have a cheapo Logic3 wired gamepad that I use when writing/testing the software. Both of these are standard windows type gampads - 2 joysticks 12 buttons (the joysticks have press in buttons) and a POV direction control.

I use my own customised gamepad setup. I have four rate presets defined and use the buttons on the front face to select each rate (which applies to both axis) directly. I have other buttons assigned to spiral search, monitor switch of, park, emergency stop. I tend not to use the POV control but it does have the default direction functions assigned.

If you only have two usable buttons on the front face you might want to consider assigning them to the increment and decrement rate preset function. Then assign the appropriate rate preset vocal prompts via the sound setup screen (there's a sounds.zip file to download with a whole load of wav files already prepared - or you can record your own). Then as you increment / decrement the active preset you will get a voice telling you've selected.

Altenatively if you really want totally variable rate control via the gamepad you can actually assigning both RA and DEC rate increment functions to on of the buttons, and both RA, DEC rate decrement functions to the other.

Chris.

[AlexB67]

You may well find this of use http://www-en.jtksoft.net/ though I think you will not have the benefit of analogue input, you can still map anything to keyboard and mouse. I did use it ages ago for something I do not recall right now ( not astro related ) but it worked nicely to do the job.