joystick support?

[UpSyndrome]

Considering buying this I see some wheels listed as supported can anyone tell me if they are playing with a joystick? I have a good ol logitech extreme 3d nothing special but I'll never buy a racer that only uses keyboard or xbox crap been burnrd to often. Shame on developers for that BTW. Thanks.

[Pow]

No joystick support. I'm trying joytokey which is a free program to map keyboard commands to joystick inputs. I've got it to work, but not very well, and it's a royal pain in the...neck, figuring out all the buttons etc. Not happy about a driving game for PC having no joystick support, that's pretty lame.

[Naota]

It supports a 360 controller, just like 99% of the games on Steam.

A controller is the next best thing to a wheel for a driving game. I just bought a 360 controller from Walmart for 33 dollars. I should have done it years ago - it works perfectly on every thing from platformers to driving games to games like The Bards Tale.

Why would you want to use a joystick?

[Pow]

I like joysticks and have been using them for years on all kinds of PC driving games. In fact this is the only driving game I can think of that doesn't support joysticks. I think it's a pretty weak effort calling this a PC game when it doesn't support the vast majority of PC controllers. It's a console game that runs on PC. I can make it work, I'm just not impressed. I agree with the original poster.

[EbonHawk]

Originally posted by Pow:

I like joysticks and have been using them for years on all kinds of PC driving games. In fact this is the only driving game I can think of that doesn't support joysticks. I think it's a pretty weak effort calling this a PC game when it doesn't support the vast majority of PC controllers. It's a console game that runs on PC. I can make it work, I'm just not impressed. I agree with the original poster.

I'll have to agree with you there. Ever since the original NFS all the way up to the Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit on Steam, they've all had joystick support. And they rocked, and I rocked 'em when playing them. With a joystick. This stinks.

All right, I've got a controller somewhere around here. Let me see if I can find it and let you guys know how it goes.... :-(

[Pow]

I got it working great with Joy2Key, free program maps joystick to keyboard commands. Not too difficult and a lot more fun than driving with a keyboard.

[Pow]

JoyToKey, actually. Freeware, works great. It was a little input laggy at first but if you go to preferences/advanced/turbo processing mode and boost the input (I'm using 4x) it works really well. You can also map button combos like Shift--L to a single joystick button. I was really disappointed when I first got the game, but now I'm having a lot of fun with it. Great game if you like cool cars and driving like a lunatic.

[EbonHawk]

Originally posted by Pow:

I got it working great with Joy2Key, free program maps joystick to keyboard commands. Not too difficult and a lot more fun than driving with a keyboard.

I'll give that a try next, definitely, because the gamepad is okay at best. Miles of improvement over the keyboard though. I didn't think I was going to be able to play the game after trying the mission with about 20 cop cars swarming you right at the beginning and never letting up. Once I switched to gamepad and practiced a bit, I could almost do it.

Can't wait to try JoytoKey, because the gamepad just doesn't feel right, and my fingers aren't used to holding a button down that long (the accelerator) and my hands were killing me after a couple of hours. Will let you know how it works. Thanks for the input --no pun intended! ;-)

[EbonHawk]

Where does JoyToKey install to? I've run the installer 3 times now and after opting out of all the bs garbage add-ons (AOL, some browsersafeguard suite, etc) I can't tell where it actually installs anything. It just says Done! and exits out, but nothing seems to be added to my system. Is this a scam maybe? Have I just infested my system with a ton of malware and spyware?!

[EbonHawk]

Ok, I gave up on JoyToKey since I couldn't get it working. Went back to the gamepad. I just can't get good enough to beat the Mass Chase mission with the gazillion cops with supercars who can overtake you when you're doing like 160mph and they zoom up on you like you're sitting still and fly past you at more than 100mph!!! And there are a dozen or more around you at all times, it seems. The Aston Martin DB they give you just can't cut it.

Is there any way to upgrade the AMDB? Will it eventually become easier? Do the upgrades you get in the garage apply to all cars? Because if not, then I don't think I will ever become good enough to beat that one. The other cars just way outclass mine and I don't see any way to shake them.

[Pow]

I installed JoyToKey in a folder on my desktop. I didn't get any malware with it at all, I scanned it before I ran it. It should download to Users/downloads and then install it where you want. I used .rar and "extract to".The Aston mission is hard but I did it after a few tries. First you have to figure out the shortest route. To dodge the cops I drove straight into oncoming traffic as much as possible and lots of them will crash into oncoming cars.

[EbonHawk]

Originally posted by Pow:

I installed JoyToKey in a folder on my desktop. I didn't get any malware with it at all, I scanned it before I ran it. It should download to Users/downloads and then install it where you want. I used .rar and "extract to".The Aston mission is hard but I did it after a few tries. First you have to figure out the shortest route. To dodge the cops I drove straight into oncoming traffic as much as possible and lots of them will crash into oncoming cars.

That's the problem, it doesn't extract as far as I can tell. Did you get it from the official site? http://joytokey.net/en/download

It just runs, and I opt out of everything, and it just exits. Says it's Done! but doesn't run, it's not in my Start menu, etc. I'll try downloading it again, because I really want joystick support for this game. It just gets better and better...just got the mission where you have to do stunts for a TV camera crew. Just... insane fun. :-)

[EbonHawk]

Alrighty then. I had gotten confused by all the Download buttons (I think there were about 8 on the original page.) Long story short: I never downloaded J2K the first time.

Okay, now my question is: How do you set this thing up properly? All I can find to map to left and right joystick directions are left and right cursor keys. How is this going to help? I thought the main reason for using a joystick was to give you a range of movement, not just an On/Off type setting you get with key presses. Unless I'm missing something.

[Pow]

If you hold the joystick to one side or another it will multiply the input as if you are repeatedly pressing a key or holding down the key. You can adjust the rate of repeat using preferences/advanced/turbo processing mode in JoyToKey to boost how fast the input repeats, making the joystick more responsive. It takes a bit of trial and error. I'm using 4x boost and that seems to be working well for me. Also bear in mind that the car physics are a little weird in this game compared to what you might experience in a proper racing simulation. It takes some getting used to.

[EbonHawk]

Ok, thanks. I'll give it a try tomorrow probably.

Do I have to put in repeat & interval settings? Do you mind sharing your settings if you get a chance? At least I might be able to use them as a guideline. Thanks for all your help.

[Pow]

I just put left and right for steering, trigger for gas, thumb button for brake, button 9 for E-brake, button 10 for turbospeed, button 7 for Shift-L ramming, and the rest I'm kind of making up as I go along. The Q functions for changing cars I use the keyboard, but the view hat works for steering that also. I am using a Logitech extreme 3d pro joystick, your joystick obviously might vary as far as what buttons work for you. I have boosted turbo-processing up to 16x in preferences/advanced on JoyToKey. There is a warning there about it increasing CPU load, but I haven't had any problems as far as FPS drop or any other kinds of performance issues. My guess is that you will have to play around with it a little bit to get it working best for you, but it's not difficult, JoyToKey is a pretty basic program. The steering in the game itself is quite linear, I think that's related to it being designed for XBox type controllers, but I'm not having any problems with driving it, doing big drifts, etc. I also adjusted threshold input in JoyToKey options down to 50%, but I'm not sure if that is having any effect at all. Still making adjustments as I go along.