Xpadder help

[Bobzombie]

Is there anyone who could help me with Xpadder? I am having an issue with Xpadder showing my joystick is being pushed up and to the left. My joystick has been calibrated within windows and works perfectly. Here is a screenshot of another user who has the same problem. I was not able to find a solution on the Xpadder forum. Please if someone could help me. I have tried everything. My arcade is completely disabled. Thank you.

[Spawk]

"Drift" is a common issue with pretty much all analog controllers. If you look real close in the windows config you will see the crosshair shaking just a tiny bit.

HQ has a setting called "Analog Threshold" for this if you happen to be lucky enough to be able to use it without the wheel doing weird things. JoyToKey (which I use) has a setting simply called "Threshold for input":

Setting at 2% seems fine for my controller but HQ has it set at 40% by default so you have lots of freedom to set as high as you need to stop the drift.

Emulators usually just refer to this as "Dead Zone"... I don't use xpadder but I assume there is setting in there somewhere for this as well.

 

[Bobzombie]

Thank you for your speedy response Spark. Xpadder does have a dead zone setting and the center of the joystick is on the left edge however I cannot get the joystick centered within Xpadder as no inputs will move it. My joystick is perfectly centered in windows. I just want to delete my 1st profile that has the issue but I cannot even figure that out. Seems there is no way to do so. Do you know if Gigapig uses Xpadder? He has helped me in the past.

 

Thank You!

[Spawk]

Ok so xpadder recognizes the drift. That's not really important though, what's important is that the dead zone is set high enough so that "lefts" and "ups" won't register while browsing the wheel. Setting the dead zone to 50% means you would have to press left half way to the left edge before a left button is registered.

So unless your wheel is spinning uncontrollably I wouldn't worry too much about what xpadder shows. And that's all you should really be using a keymapper for. You have to realize that by using a keymapper, what you are doing is taking all analog controls and turning them into digital. Either on or off! So that will affect any game where you can push a direction a little and walk or all the way and run. You would also loose any pressure sensitive button presses: tap for one action, long press for another.

Fortunately, most emulators allow you to map directly to any device. So if you are experiencing left or up drift inside of a game then look for the deadzone setting in the respective emulator, not xpadder.

[Bobzombie]

Spawk, could you please help me with another issue. Can you tell me if it is possible to change the joy id’s in Hyperhq? My system thinks that joy 0 is joystick 2 and joy 1 is joystick 3. I would like joy 0 to be joystick 1 and joy 1 to be joystick 2. I’m sorry to keep asking questions but I’m a total noob when it comes to all this. Thank You!

[Spawk]

Windows is notorious for assigning random ID's at boot, or as devices are plugged and unplugged. This can be very frustrating if trying to use wireless gamepads because they keep wanting to turn themselves off every so often.

Rocketlauncher does have a "Preferred Controllers" section that will allow you to specify an order. I couldn't really find any information on it's use anywhere last time I went looking though. Some trial error might be needed depending on how many different controllers you are running. 

[Bobzombie]

Ok. I’m going crazy! Lol. Spawk could you please tell my why my buttons 1-7 are Joy 2 Pointer etc. I need them to read p1 button so I can correctly use Ledblinky. I cannot for the life of me figure out why when I push my buttons, they have the following outputs? Thanks for all your help!

[Spawk]

I couldn't tell you why any settings are set the way they are, LOL. I did not set it up after all... I am not even sure what you are running for controls. LED blinky suggests an actual arcade cabinet. The use of xpadder (maybe this is just used for HS wheel) and those various "Joy 2" references suggest maybe using some gamepads as well???

In any case, that is the typical Mame controls config menu. Press enter, then the actual button you want to use for that control if you need to change anything. Note that the important part of those configs as far as arcade cabinets go is the "Kbd" key. All of the buttons on your control panel are "encoded" to keystrokes by whatever iPac you are running.

LED Blinky should see "P1 Button 1", ect no matter what key/button you set it to so... not sure what you mean there. Admittedly I have never owned an arcade cab so I have no real hands on knowledge about it. I have messed around with HyperMarquee and EDS though and it has settings for LEDblinky integration. Again, I have no idea what you are running and if that applies to you.

Hope that helps

[Bobzombie]

Ok, so I am running a Howler board which is where I have my 2 joysticks wired to. I have no other controllers connected. What is weird also is on my player 2, my button presses equal p2 button 1 etc. Do you think I need to set Xpadder to the Mame default keys? I have read that Mame does not need a keyboard encoder to play. All of my controls work properly when set. I am just having difficulty with getting Ledblinky to respond correctly.  Thanks!

[Bobzombie]

Spawk, could you please help me with one more thing that I cannot figure out. When I am in the Rocketlauncher UI and I click on the edit controller profile, Xpadder does not come up. It flashes and nothing. It also does the same thing when I press the green lightning bolt to test the Xpadder keycodes. I am not able to see which Xpadder profile is launching for each system. I’m sorry to keep bothering you, but I fell like I’m getting really close to getting everything set up. Thank you for your time!

[Spawk]

I use JoyToKey personally so I really can't help with xpadder all that much... I feel like your not understanding what I say though. Xpadder and JTK are keymappers, they take gamepad inputs and convert them into keystrokes. Your arcade machine has an iPac that already converts all your button presses into keystrokes so these programs are really of very little use to you.

Xpadder should not be launching anything for any systems. It is for navigating the wheel in Hyperspin only! And by all rights we shouldn't even need it, it's just that the "joystick" controls in HQ are a little wonky. So people tend to use a keymapper or the "startup script" or even AHK.

ALL in-game controls should be mapped directly in the emulators that you use! 

[Bobzombie]

Ok, thank you! I think I get it lol. So my Howler board would be considered a iPac correct?

[Spawk]

I just use HS on my TV with one xbox360 controller, and one PS3 controller. Like I said I never owned an arcade cab. So I have no idea what Howler board is... I did use "iPac" in a vague way though, winpac, minipac, ultramarc, I am not familiar with all the brand names. And I don't really need to know either... All arcade cabinets have some sort of keyboard encoder for the buttons. You've also already stated that they show up in windows as joysticks. So everything WILL be directly mappable right in the emulators.

[Bobzombie]

Spawk, thanks so much for the info and your time!