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Tomsky
07-03-2012, 03:42 PM
I've been struggling with this ever since the release of Flight and it increasingly spoils my experience with it:

There seems to be no way to set up my joystick (MS Sidewinder Precision 2) in a way that provides a realistic flying feeling. All the planes feel super twitchy and start jumping around at the most minute inputs. Rudder/tailwheel on ground is the absolutely worst: after landing and almost having come to a standstill (no IAS indicated anymore) the slightest input on the rudder is still sufficient to get the aircraft into a violent swerving and eventually crashing it.

Mouse control however works much smoother and the entire behavior of the plane is changed completely. Just as an example: so far I haven't been able to fly the RV-6 IFR landings using the stick, only succeeded in mouse mode. The whole setup on approach seems to be screwed up badly as the very basics of flying such as "pitch controls speed" and "power setting controls sink rate" don't work properly when using the stick. Add the jerky response to control inputs when making corrections and things go awry pretty quickly. Using the mouse everything mostly runs as it should and expected. Although not being a licensed private pilot I do have a little bit of stick time in small aircraft and for the moment being I can only attribute a realistic flying experience to Flight's mouse/keyboard control mode on my rig.

Messing around with the joystick axis values in the standard.XML didn't help. Went for numbers smaller than 1 for axis scale, increased and decreased the default 0.1 for axis null zone and removed the non linear parameter. All of that had only very little close to no noticeable effect even when going for pretty radical number changes.

Pitch trim also seems to be affected as the reaction to the shortest button presses is way to coarse and quickly gets the plane into a bad porpoising when trying to level it using trim only.

As there's no way that I'm going to adopt "mouse mode" as my default controls I'd really appreciate some input on how to solve this issue (e.g. numbers for the standard.XML values). I wouldn't even mind buying a new controller if that would change the strange aircraft behavior using the stick but I actually can't think of any reasons why a particular kind of controller should make any difference at all.

bastila13091
07-03-2012, 03:55 PM
After glancing through most of the wall of nearly critting text (>_>), it sounds like there is something wrong with your stick. I dont have any issue with my stick on any twitching unless I push the sensitivity up, which I do when taxing due to the fact that its a force-sensing controller. IF I leave it like that, it can be kinda twitchy, but its usually not terribly violent. I am not sure if others using the same stick have similar issues, but my stick (one by saitek), I have no similar issues with at all.

RoboRay
07-03-2012, 04:24 PM
My old Precision Pro was also oversensitive in Flight, but got better when they added non-linear response curve support. I eventually switched to a Logitech G940 set and it works much better.

I think MS just doesn't want us using their hardware.

Tomsky
07-03-2012, 04:39 PM
My old Precision Pro was also oversensitive in Flight, but got better when they added non-linear response curve support. I eventually switched to a Logitech G940 set and it works much better.

I think MS just doesn't want us using their hardware.

Yeah, it's funny, they apparently don't want to support their legacy hardware. Unfortunately my Precision Pro 2 didn't really benefit from the non-linear curves very much.

But as controllers really seem to make a difference I'm going to pick one up for testing. Got a major electronics retailer around the corner with a no frills return policy, that's where I'm going to head next. However not exactly for a Logitech G940 or a Saitek X-65F.

bastila13091
07-03-2012, 04:45 PM
Yeah, it's funny, they apparently don't want to support their legacy hardware. Unfortunately my Precision Pro 2 didn't really benefit from the non-linear curves very much.

But as controllers really seem to make a difference I'm going to pick one up for testing. Got a major electronics retailer around the corner with a no frills return policy, that's where I'm going to head next. However not exactly for a Logitech G940 or a Saitek X-65F.

I think alot of people like the cyborgs which is under the same parent company as the X-65F. I started with the X-52 for about 6 years in many different games.

aussiejeff
07-03-2012, 06:55 PM
Had the same problem with my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro. It's getting a bit worn around the centering, so I needed bigger deadzones to cancel the jitters out!

With some help from various forums/post, I finally found this solution works great to calm down a nervous stick. First off, EXIT FLIGHT COMPLETELY! Then,

[1]If you haven't got an XML editor, simply download Microsoft's free XML Notepad Editor.

[2]Open your XML editor & navigate to C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Flight\Players\D2E102FEA2 F0304D\Career\Controls.

[3] Load your existing standard.xml file, then save a copy as standard.xml.bak (just in case!)

[4] Re-load your original standard.xml file

[5] Navigate to the 10th entry down in the SimControls.Map list and expand the main folder.

[6] Expand the first 3 Axis folders. They should be for your particular stick and show,

FlightControls.AileronSetAxis
FlightControls.ElevatorSetAxis
FlightControls.RudderSetAxis

[7] Expand the AxScale & Null settings under each of those EventNames.

[8] Click on each of the #text fields in turn & change the existing values to the following...

Aileron
AxScale 0.600000
AxNull 0.200000

Elevator
AxScale 0.600000
AxNull 0.150000

Rudder
AxScale 0.500000
AxNull 0.350000

[9] Save the modified standard.xml file

[10]Load Flight.

[11] ENJOY your now not-so-twitchy aircraft!

If you find these settings reduce the control movement too much for your liking, simply follow the steps and increase the AxScale setting by increments until the controls feel about right.

Conversely, if you have tight centering on your stick, you might prefer smaller AxNull settings. All I know is these settings work GREAT for me.

FYI here is a screenshot of the above setup - http://sdrv.ms/N7zjD4

Cheers, hope this helps.

aj

Tomsky
07-04-2012, 08:30 AM
Jeff, thanks for the extensive description. I really appreciate it. Unfortunately it didn't really help much more than my previous attempts tinkering around with the standard.XML file.

I'm starting to get the suspicion that my controller is intermittendly sending completely out of whack signals. Just had the RV-6 set up in its landing challenge No. 6 using the mouse. Came down the GS at 90 kts in approach nice and smoothly. Switched to joystick control and the plane at first continued its flightpath before all but suddenly taking a violent nosedive on its own as I hadn't even touched the stick yet.

Think I'm going to give it a try with a different controller.