Circle Dead Zone Shape has limited diagonal speeds

[Ty]

It's a little complicated to explain, but I'll try my best.

Short version: When using Joystick Move (on either analog stick or the touchpad) and Dead Zone Shape is set to Circle, my maximum diagonal speeds are very slow. But I need the Circle's behavior.

Long version: When the Joystick is pressed beyond the Outer Deadzone, the Circle deadzone gives me what I want - the stick is pressed in the furthest direction in a smooth circle. The other two deadzones (Cross & Square) don't do it for me because my Outer Deadzone is set extremely low. Instead of a smooth circle, they instead jump into pure diagonal directions very quickly.

The big problem of course is that the circle's diagonals are very slow, they don't reach the true maximum speed. This is because the max input is square shaped, and the circle doesn't fill the square.

I'm not sure what the best solution to this would be (change how Circle works, so that it reaches the fastest diagonals? Change Square to be more like Circle? Or add a new deadzone mode entirely?) but I'd appreciate it so much if Valve would work on this!

[Alexander Prime]

I've investigated this before, and the crux of it seems to be that the firmware has a hard-coded deadzone that filters the axes before the data goes to Steam. I found it when I realized that the cardinal directions have a ~5 degree "wiggle" area with no difference in input, which matches a "cross" dead zone layout. This probably means that each axis is being filtered separately, which sounds like an early-version "feature" that was probably just forgotten about.

You can see the effect in the controller test screen, or by setting the deadzone shape to "circle" and zeroing the inner and outer dead areas. It clearly has a square response area, as you said, as well as the dead cross, even when the response is 1:1. I haven't found a way to configure around it, so it's on Valve to push an update.

[cammelspit]

Huh, I have never noticed this. I am not trying to say it's you or anything but have you checked your thumb position to make sure it it's not you, assuming touch pad here. The analog I can certainly say for sure I, at least dont have this issue. I use my SC a lot in dolphin and it has a joystick output graph thing and it is 100% consistent when set to circle. Maybe circle is not being applied correctly? I have even set the range in dolphin to 70 for left stick and used the in game menu joystick calibration tool in F-Zero GX and it is VERY much so closer than a 360 controller to perfectly round.

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by Alexander Prime:

I've investigated this before, and the crux of it seems to be that the firmware has a hard-coded deadzone that filters the axes before the data goes to Steam. I found it when I realized that the cardinal directions have a ~5 degree "wiggle" area with no difference in input, which matches a "cross" dead zone layout. This probably means that each axis is being filtered separately, which sounds like an early-version "feature" that was probably just forgotten about.

You can see the effect in the controller test screen, or by setting the deadzone shape to "circle" and zeroing the inner and outer dead areas. It clearly has a square response area, as you said, as well as the dead cross, even when the response is 1:1. I haven't found a way to configure around it, so it's on Valve to push an update.

Huh, I think I may have noticed this in GTA3... not sure but I figured hardware deadzone. I hadnt noticed a square area tho, may I will test this out more.

[Ty]

It could be Cammel! I just went back to test it again, and it still seems to be a problem for me - both touchpad and analog stick. I'm testing it in Rocket League. The difference in my diagonal motion seems pretty big.

[Briggs]

I, too, have noticed this.

[innuendo1231]

Indeed. According to the dead zone mode description seen in big picture mode, square mode is supposed to do what we are looking for (reach diagonal maximum faster).
But if I set square mode, it gets completely messed up! Am I the only one who noticed this?
If I set square deadzone mode, the axis' work fully erroniously. Like I try to go forward/left diagonally and it goes BACKWARDS... and other things like that. The only thing that worked was forward/right diagonal, and it seems it would indeed reach the diagonals faster.

[innuendo1231]

I am happy to report that the new update fixed the issue. Square mode now works great and it makes a huge improvement for 3rd person games. Proper diagonals. Feels much like a real analog stick.

[cammelspit]

Awesome! Kinda strange they didnt say anything about it in the changelog though. They keep sneaking in little fixes here and there without telling us. Each update is like Christmas!

[Synetic]

So instead of using Circle we have to use Square Shape to make it simillar to console controls? What about the sensitivity, should I stick to Linear or something else?

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by Synetic:

So instead of using Circle we have to use Square Shape to make it simillar to console controls? What about the sensitivity, should I stick to Linear or something else?

Not really. If you want it to be like a 360 analog just randomly deface your joystick and make it lopsided and that should do. :D

Seriously though, it really depends on what you are trying to make it feel like. Since PC games are not all designed with one and only one controller in mind they often don't have settings for their sticks that react the same as a console version. This is the reason why you may have to experiment a bit. Square should give you better diagonals if that is something you feel is missing when using the SC with a game.

As far as the response curve, using a relaxed curve will give you more area to work with that is slower. In other words, you will need to move the “stick” closer to its extreme before a full output is sent to the game. Extra Wide is the most extreme of these curves and will only output full movement at the very full range of the stick or pad. If yeally does just depend on if you think you are getting to full output too soon. I use relaxed almost exclusively but it is more of a personal choice.

BTW, you still resurrected a VERY old thread, if you had this question, would have been a good idea to make a new thread as we kinda frown on necromancers here. Going forward. :P

[Briggs]

Originally posted by Ghostbird:

Currently there seems to be a bug with the deadzones. Whatever you use as deadzone shape, it still applies a cross-shaped additional dead-zone.

Also the GUI is bugged so the dropdown for "Adaptive Centering" is not visible normally, but when you click an option that shows the visualisation in the centre, the GUI height is increased, and the "Adaptive Centering" drop-down becomes visible. It is still unusable though, since when you click it, the visualisation disappears, the GUI rescales, and the drop-down is gone.

P.S. Sorry about the necromancy. I used the search function.

Might want to post this on git hub. That's where ValvE handles issues.