Nice one Niels.
I would also like to add that there is a limitation in Windows that allows
only a certain number of Joystick Control entries in theregistry, before the
subsequent entries are ignored. Can't remember off hand how many
exactly..... but it is usually wise to delete some of the old
"[L4] --------" entries for hardware that you do not have and probably will
never own. This will free up a lot more room for "custom created entries".
It is also worthy to note that lower resistance pots produce a quicker count
during polling (this is in reference to standard gameports" so it should
help curb some of the 5041 Bug issues (online instability through modems).
Through research... it seems that 50K pots usually like a registry value of
18-19 for those who read this and want a quick number to try.
Cheers,
Schumi
"Niels007" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:3GqH5.40628$[email hidden]...
> Unofficial manual how to finetune the PDPI L4, or even fix problems from a
> bigger nature.
>
> I have a PDPI and it works great! And many PDPI owners agree with me, butit
> may work even better! My ISP is down at the moment so I took some time
> writing this manual. I've been looking for this info for ages, and finally
> managed to find out how to get the PDPI working. Heck, I'll even throw ina
calibration:
funny
> 'old fashioned' analog controller you have. When I explain certain things,I
through.
ohms,
> there is more chance of 'small' things interfering with the weak signalthat
as
> a full left turn complies with the pot being turned fully left also. Ifthis
> example was fitted with a 250k pot, you are effectively using 173k. The
> difference is normally bigger with pedals. In my 'homemade' case, thepedal
> rotates 30 degrees, and via a transmission I get 120 degrees on the pot.If
PDPI
> is standard optimized for 100k pots. this meant that i effectively could
> only use the 1st 100k of the wheel, which was the range from full left to
> center.. i couldn't turn right! this 'manual' will also solve 100k+ pot
> owners, PDPI can go as high as 400kohm for sure.
>
> PDPI is designed for standard analog devices. One of such a device canhave
> as much as 4 axis and 4 buttons. A normal joystick has 2 axis, 1 for
> left-right and 1 for up-down. You will find 4 axis on a 'pro' wheel /pedals
Look
> at the values in the 'raw' collum. PDPI has a limit of 255 range, so for
> example turn full left could be 1 and turn full right can be 255 in the
> 'raw' collum. On a 255 degrees turning wheel this means that (withaccurate
> pots) you have an accuracy of 1 degree. (i.e. you have to turn the wheel 1
> degree to make the 'raw' collum add 1 to the value)
>
> BUT ladies and gents, especially for steering it is important to get asmuch
> of the 255 range as possible, for accuracy. When you get total left -right
> range of, say, 100 and you have a 300 degree turning wheel, youeffectively
> have 100 deadzones of 3 degrees! thats poo of course, so you want these
> 'steps' to be as small as posible. (up to a point of course)
>
> - The values seen in GPL or DXtweak are linked to the position of thepots.
> Try to understand this: You can NEVER get a value 1 if your pot isn'tFULLY
> turned left when the wheel is fully turned left. This is explained in
> chapter 1, read that if you don't understand why. What you have to do:
>
> Make sure the pot is in its extreme left turned position when the wheel is
> turned left. For some wheels the pot is 'fixed' and you can't easily doit.
> With TSW and for example my homemade wheel, i can rotate the pot.(untighten
> the nut and rotate it, then tighten it again) Fiddle with this until afull
'raw'
at
> all, but if you are scared, get somebody else to do it for you. You CAN
> screw up your pc but then you have a serious IQ problem, and you wouldnever
> get this far in the manual anyway ;-)
>
> a) open the registry editor by clicking in windows on START.. RUN and type
> REGEDIT and then press the OK button. Registry editor will load. PDPI
> settings are hidden deep within the registry.. click on the followingthings
be
(read
> chapter 2 for explanation) You will find these control sets are part of a
> BIG list in the 'game controllers' panel found in Control Panel. Forgeneral
> understanding the following is important.
>
> The 4 controlsets marked [L4] have nothing to do with thrustmaster wheels.
> They are nothing more than supplied finetuned controlsets that make thePDPI
> read these wheels specific resistance pots. So: These controlsets contain4
> variables that change the way the PDPI
> assigns values from the pot readings (as seen in DXTweak or GPL) Inlaymans
want
> to keep using that control set I should change the values in the 'Default'
> controlset, as seen underneath the 4 [L4] ones. You should to this too if
> you only have 1 wheel or joystick you use. If you use 2 or more devices
> either change the registry every time you switch controllers, or look atthe
for
> sure that the other 3 ARE for the other 3 axis. Because I do not recallhow
> i wired my pedals, I'm not sure which number is for which of the remaining3
> axis. You will find that out yourself :-)
>
> Look back at what your situation was at the end of chapter 3: option a, bor
> c. The general rule is:
>
> If DXTweak shows too little numbers (sub 240) the registry value has to be
> made SMALLER
>
> If DXTweak shows too big numbers, i.e. you reach the max 255(approximately)
> before the wheel is fully turned right yet, the registry value has to be
> made BIGGER
>
> Double click on the 'finetuneinfo' bit in front of all the numbers. Nowyou
> can edit the numbers. Be carefull here. Stand in front of the 1st '26'(yes
> you are right, the cursor is there already) and press the delete button.
> Pressing delete 1 time will delete the whole 26 value! now type in for
> example the number '20' at that same place, no need for mouse moving or
> clicking, do this directly after deleting the value.
>
> Changing it to 20 would make a DXtweak 'raw' of 200 increase to approx250.
> Bear in mind that these are Hexadecimal numbers, so its 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 89
> A B C D E F so if 20 gets you 245 and 19 gets you 255 before the end ofthe
> wheel range, maybe 1C will do the trick. Just try different numbers until
> you get the perfect readout in DXtweak
>
> You have to reboot the PC before changes will take affect! Try this foreach
Unofficial manual how to finetune the PDPI L4, or even fix problems from a
bigger nature.
I have a PDPI and it works great! And many PDPI owners agree with me, but it
may work even better! My ISP is down at the moment so I took some time
writing this manual. I've been looking for this info for ages, and finally
managed to find out how to get the PDPI working. Heck, I'll even throw in a
contents thingy so u can easily find the bits that u need to know..
1) reasons to finetune
2) before we start: info about PDPI, POTS and resistances in general
3) before we finetune..
4) the actual fine tuning
note that chapter 2 is recommended but not required to be read ;-)
1) Reasons to finetune
Three reasons:
a) wheel / joystick does not work properly. It doesnt center in calibration:
it turns left fairly well but as I turn right it goes all weird
b) calibration and centering are ok, but I want more accurate control.
(especially for steeringwheels)
c) I've got a PDPI and want to finetune the thing despite the fact that I
may not notice the difference..
2) Before we start:
This manual can be used for tweaking joysticks and wheels, or whatever funny
'old fashioned' analog controller you have. When I explain certain things, I
will use a wheel / pedal system as an example. (you guessed it, i'm a GPL
nut)
And now, some info about the 'pot mistery'. The way pots work is actually
quite simple. Think of a typical volume knob on your stereo. turned fully
left, you'll hear nothing, i.e. the signal is blocked. Turn it fully right
and you'll hear a lot of noise, i.e. all the signal goes through.
For a wheel, this works the opposite way: turned left all the electrical
current goes through, and fully turned right, FAR less signal goes through.
Potentiometers are graded by their resistance, in Ohms. A 100.000ohm pot
(100k) means: the flow resistance when fully turned right is 100k ohm.
Turned fully left, the resistance is always zero ohm.
It is best, from a theoretical point of view to use pots with not too much
resistance. I use 50k pots with great result. Why? well, when you
effectively block a lot of the signal, as you would do with, say, 400k ohms,
there is more chance of 'small' things interfering with the weak signal that
is left over. This is called electrical interference (iirc) and causes
jitters, maybe even a tiny bit with a PDPI. The reason why joysticks and
wheels are mostly shipped with 50+k pots are the following:
a) lower resistance pots give you less 'range' when calibrating. Range is
the amount of 'steps' the PC reads between a full left and a full right
turn. Imagine driving a race SIM with only 10 steps of control, this would
not be accurate and you would die a horrible (virtual) death..
b) sometimes, only a small part of the rotation range of the pot is used.
Most pots have about 260 degrees of range. Many wheels only have 180
degrees, so effectively you are only using 69% of the pot range, as long as
a full left turn complies with the pot being turned fully left also. If this
example was fitted with a 250k pot, you are effectively using 173k. The
difference is normally bigger with pedals. In my 'homemade' case, the pedal
rotates 30 degrees, and via a transmission I get 120 degrees on the pot. If
i use a 260 degree turning pot here, I would use 33.3% of the pot, 83.3k
with the 250k pot. Beware that the pot rotation differs a bit.. i've seen
180 degree pots and 340 degree ones.. there are even 720 and bigger range
pots, with a sort of build in transmission, should you ever want to make a
'lorry wheel' ;-) Pot rotation has to be taken into account as you can see
from my examples.
In my case the PDPI didn't work at all! I had a 200k steering pot, and PDPI
is standard optimized for 100k pots. this meant that i effectively could
only use the 1st 100k of the wheel, which was the range from full left to
center.. i couldn't turn right! this 'manual' will also solve 100k+ pot
owners, PDPI can go as high as 400kohm for sure.
PDPI is designed for standard analog devices. One of such a device can have
as much as 4 axis and 4 buttons. A normal joystick has 2 axis, 1 for
left-right and 1 for up-down. You will find 4 axis on a 'pro' wheel / pedals
where 3 pedals and 1 wheel take up all 4 axis.
3) before we finetune
Firstly, use 'direct-x' joystick driver, GPL for example lets you choose
between directx and generic, ONLY with directx u get all the nice filters
that eliminate the jitterbastards. To test the wheel, we need either GPL
(the sim) or If you do not have GPL (shudder) you can just as well use the
brilliant utility DirectXtweak (DXtweak) easy to be found on the web. I'll
use DXTweak to guide you though this 'pre finetuning phase' (note that GPL
and DXTweak work the same for this test)
Start DXTweak, and move the wheel you should see some changing numbers. Look
at the values in the 'raw' collum. PDPI has a limit of 255 range, so for
example turn full left could be 1 and turn full right can be 255 in the
'raw' collum. On a 255 degrees turning wheel this means that (with accurate
pots) you have an accuracy of 1 degree. (i.e. you have to turn the wheel 1
degree to make the 'raw' collum add 1 to the value)
BUT ladies and gents, especially for steering it is important to get as much
of the 255 range as possible, for accuracy. When you get total left - right
range of, say, 100 and you have a 300 degree turning wheel, you effectively
have 100 deadzones of 3 degrees! thats poo of course, so you want these
'steps' to be as small as posible. (up to a point of course)
- The values seen in GPL or DXtweak are linked to the position of the pots.
Try to understand this: You can NEVER get a value 1 if your pot isn't FULLY
turned left when the wheel is fully turned left. This is explained in
chapter 1, read that if you don't understand why. What you have to do:
Make sure the pot is in its extreme left turned position when the wheel is
turned left. For some wheels the pot is 'fixed' and you can't easily do it.
With TSW and for example my homemade wheel, i can rotate the pot. (untighten
the nut and rotate it, then tighten it again) Fiddle with this until a full
left turn gets you between 2..5 readout in DXtweak. (note: standardized
wiring means that resistance increases (and therefor the GPL / DXtweak
value) when u turn right, i do not take into account people who wrongly
wired their wheels ;-)) Also, do NOT try this if the pot seems firmly
secured to that $50 piece of plastic.. get a decent wheel first ;-)
That was the 'hardware' step. Now that you have done this, what is the 'raw'
value when you turn fully right?
a) if it is 250..255 => look closely when that number is reached, check if
it reaches this 'extreme' number BEFORE you fully turned the wheel to the
right. If this is the case, we need to finetune
b) it is between 240 and 255 => thats good, no need to finetune.
c) it is lower than 240 => we need to finetune this baby
4) finetuning!
This is the point where it may get scary for many of you, we have to open
the windows registry, and fiddle with numbers.. Well, it is NOT difficult at
all, but if you are scared, get somebody else to do it for you. You CAN
screw up your pc but then you have a serious IQ problem, and you would never
get this far in the manual anyway ;-)
a) open the registry editor by clicking in windows on START.. RUN and type
REGEDIT and then press the OK button. Registry editor will load. PDPI
settings are hidden deep within the registry.. click on the following things
to get there: (click the +)
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
- System
- CurrentControlSet
- Control
- MediaProperties
- PrivateProperties
- Joystick
- OEM
- PDPI L4 Digital Gameport
- Fine Tuning
This is where it is located on my Win98 machine, and most likely it will be
there on 99% of all pcs, providing you have installed the PDPI software!
Under finetuning there are 5 listed controlsets:
[L4] Nascar Pro combined brake/gas
[L4] Nascar Pro separate brake/gas
[L4] Thrustmaster formula T1/T2 with adapter
[L4] Thrustmaster formula T1/T2 without adapter
Default
These 5 controlsets each have 4 variables, one for each joystick axis. (read
chapter 2 for explanation) You will find these control sets are part of a
BIG list in the 'game controllers' panel found in Control Panel. For general
understanding the following is important.
The 4 controlsets marked [L4] have nothing to do with thrustmaster wheels.
They are nothing more than supplied finetuned controlsets that make the PDPI
read these wheels specific resistance pots. So: These controlsets contain 4
variables that change the way the PDPI
assigns values from the pot readings (as seen in DXTweak or GPL) In laymans
terms:
Fiddling with the numbers in the registry will change the readouts of
DXTweak, and therefore the sims you will use the wheel with.
I only use a wheel for my PC, which i have manually added in the game
controllers panel located in ControlPanel I named it 'Nielswheel'. If I want
to keep using that control set I should change the values in the 'Default'
controlset, as seen underneath the 4 [L4] ones. You should to this too if
you only have 1 wheel or joystick you use. If you use 2 or more devices
either change the registry every time you switch controllers, or look at the
'hint' bit at the bottom of this textfile
Click on the 'Default' and you will see in the right part of the screen:
FineTuneInfo 26 00 00 00 26 00 00 00 26 00 00 00 26 00 00 00
The 4 26 values are changable. I know for sure that the 1st value is for
axis 1 (x1, the left-right movement of joysticks and wheels) I also know for
sure that the other 3 ARE for the other 3 axis. Because I do not recall how
i wired my pedals, I'm not sure which number is for which of the remaining 3
axis. You will find that out yourself :-)
Look back at what your situation was at the end of chapter 3: option a, b or
c. The general rule is:
If DXTweak shows too little numbers (sub 240) the registry value has to be
made SMALLER
If DXTweak shows too big numbers, i.e. you reach the max 255 (approximately)
before the wheel is fully turned right yet, the registry value has to be
made BIGGER
Double click on the 'finetuneinfo' bit in front of all the numbers. Now you
can edit the numbers. Be carefull here. Stand in front of the 1st '26' (yes
you are right, the cursor is there already) and press the delete button.
Pressing delete 1 time will delete the whole 26 value! now type in for
example the number '20' at that same place, no need for mouse moving or
clicking, do this directly after deleting the value.
Changing it to 20 would make a DXtweak 'raw' of 200 increase to approx 250.
Bear in mind that these are Hexadecimal numbers, so its 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A B C D E F so if 20 gets you 245 and 19 gets you 255 before the end of the
wheel range, maybe 1C will do the trick. Just try different numbers until
you get the perfect readout in DXtweak
You have to reboot the PC before changes will take affect! Try this for each
axis until you get ideally 1...255 range for all, or more realistically
3..250.
Thats it! now you can make PDPI work with higher resistance pots by making
the registry numbers bigger, and you can get the biggest range possible!
From 10 to 400k pots for sure!
Hint: you can customize the 4 [L4] controlsets to make them suit other
devices you may have. Remember which of the [L4] ones is for which of your
devices, and you can easily select them in 'game controllers' in
controlpanel. You MAY be able to rename the [L4] ones to
'mycrappyoldjoystick' or whatever, but i didnt have the guts to try ;-)
Niels Heusinkveld
