Managed to get my external USB pedals working (includes a guide)

[Case]

Edit: I've now come up with a way to hopefully add an unsupported controller device to the game properly (it works for my pedals). See my post below for info and link to my guide:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/621830/discussions/1/3223871682625485781/#c3223871682628230478

Ignore the text below - I'm leaving it here just for the sake of posterity.

-----------------------------------

OK, through some pretty awkward and tedious process, I've managed to get my pedals (G25 with a Bodnar adapter) working with my T300 in WRC7. And I can even use my shifter (again G25 with a Bodnar adapter) as a handbrake.

Here's how to replicate what I've done:

1. Launch the game and *don't touch anything on your wheel at all*. Use your keyboard. Be aware that when the game tells you to "Press Enter or Start", what it actually expects you to press is Space, not Enter. Don't ask me, I don't get it either.

2. Go to Options, Controls, Steering Wheel and Axis Detection. Be sure to get ready for the next steps here before you do the actual detection - you only have one attempt at this per game launch. If you don't do it correctly, you have to exit the game and try again - the axis detection can't be repeated for some reason.

3. Start the axis detection and again, *don't touch your wheel at all!* This is very important, because if you touch any button on the wheel or turn it even slightly, the game immediately picks it up as your active controller, which you don't want at this point! Instead, quickly step on your clutch pedal (yes, clutch). You do not need to press it all the way, you just need the game to "notice" your pedals. The game should pick up your pedals as your active device and display its name at the top. Note that you need to be fairly quick here, otherwise it just falls back to your wheel as your active device and you'll need to start over. You might actually depress the clutch slightly before you start the axis detection to make sure the pedals get picked up faster.

4. Calibrate your clutch as the steering. When the game tells you to turn your wheel left or right, just press it fully or take your foot off - it doesn't really matter which one you choose for left and which one for right, you obviously won't be steering with your clutch anyway.

5. When the game asks you to calibrate the accelerator and brake pedals, just do what it tells you to do - press the pedal all the way. (Note - it actually doesn't matter with my pedals how much I depress the pedal at this point, it calibrates them to the same values anyway, but it might be important for people attempting to do this with different pedals, hence the reason I advice to press them fully anyway.)

6. When the game asks you to calibrate clutch, you can either skip it or just use clutch again - it doesn't really matter (well at least with my pedals).

7. Now the game knows about your pedals. If you step on them now, you should see movement on the appropriate axis in the axis detection window. If you have the same pedals as I do or if your pedals work similar to mine, you might only get to see movement on the axis above the 50 percent point of the pedal throw - I don't know how to work around that at this point, sorry...

6. Leave the axis detection menu and go to Steering Wheel, Button Bindings. Bind all the axis and buttons the way you want them. The game should respond here to all of the inputs now - pedals, wheel and shifter. When you bind the accelerator and brake pedal, the game will say it mapped your pedals as keys (in my case key 4 and key 5). Don't worry about it - they are still analog, not digital, despite the game calling them keys and not axis. Also, obviously now set your steering to your actual wheel, not to the clutch pedal - the clutch pedal was only used as a stand-in for steering to be able to complete the pedal detection. As mentioned, I can even bind my sequential shifter as handbrake at this point without any extra steps. Just be aware that you can't bind a button with the same number on different devices to different functions here. So for example since my accelerator pedal gets bound as "Key 4", I can no longer use button 4 on my wheel or on my shifter for anything else - the game doesn't seem to be able to understand the button belongs to a controller with a completely different ID, it just treats all of the buttons as if they were all on a single controller. Again - don't ask me...

7. At this point, you're basically done. If you want to be able to navigate the game using the D-pad and buttons on your wheel, you can now go to Options, Controls, Change controller and just press Start on your wheel when the game tells you to.

However - there's obviously some issues...

First - you have to do the axis detection stuff (points 1 to 5) every single time you launch the game to make the game aware of your pedals. But at least you don't have to redo the button/axis binding every time - the game saves them, it's just that it doesn't seem to see the pedals unless you redo the axis detection...

And then there's the other thing I've already alluded to in point 7 - at least with my pedals, doing all of the above means the game only registers my pedals from the halfway point, meaning there's basically a 50 percent low deadzone. They still work as analog, it's just that I only have the latter half of the travel available. But with different pedals, this might not be true. And, to be honest, even with only half of the usable travel, I kinda find it better than having to resort to the stock T300 pedals...

So, yeah. Hope someone might find this useful or even improve upon it.

[Hyperion Biga]

Have you tried to bind them as buttons?

One YouTube review (by Inside Sim Racing) said they got it working, by binding pedals as Accelerate, Brake etc. buttons. And while they are displayed as buttons in menus, they work as Axis in the actual game. For whatever reason

In the video they seem to be usings high end perihperals, with separate handbrake, pedals and wheel and it's all working. They didn't mention they need to do this every time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF8mdMNfXPc&t=
You can see them talking about the issue, and how they solved it in 13:31

[Case]

The game doesn't see my pedals at all unless I do what I described above. That makes the game see my pedals and allows me to bind them (as buttons, yes - see above).

I've tried it the normal way (=the way they describe in the video) many times before.

[Rick Enbacker]

I indeed managed to bind my USB handbrake with a similar manip and I have to have it detected every time I launch the game.

[Baldrick]

No amount of stamping on my HE pedals were detected under Steering Wheel detection. However, if I did change controller and pressed the clutch it became the active controller and kept scrolling through the menus! Which of course was the last thing I wanted :(

[Case]

Well, I poked around a bit more and I can say that I now have the game recognize my pedals in the button binding menu right away without any of that awkward stuff I've described above, AND I now also have full travel on the pedals available. It was a lot of trial and error, but it's working now.

The only question now remains whether or not will this trigger any anti-cheat protection due to me editing the game files (the two .lua files with input device definitions, nothing else), but so far no issues :)

If any dev is reading this, it would be great if you could perhaps confirm whether or not may this result in some kind of cheat protection being triggered and whether it's OK to share more details on this, given that it involves editing those files. Or point me somewhere where I could get these questions answered :) Thank you.

[Rick Enbacker]

I'd like to bind my USB handbrake too.
Please would you tell me which files you have edited ? I can only find UserInputDeviceConfig.lua in Documents/MyGames. Thank you.

[Rick Enbacker]

OK ! Found them myself. Problem is I don't know what to change...

[Case]

It would be best to wait if we get some answer about if it's OK to actually edit those files. That's why I wasn't very specific for now about what I did and how. For all we know, I might've just flagged myself as cheater by editing those files and might suffer some consequences later.

[Rick Enbacker]

OK thx, I'll wait.I'm using my clutch as handbrake for now.
But I'm afraid it's gonna be a long wait...
I don't think you flagged yourself as a cheater but it's safer not to mess with those files.

[dragosbold]

Found it! I hope for good news, because it is embarrassing...
2 games - lost because of this problem( Sebastien Loeb and WRC 6).
Now- the thirth. It s not fair.
A sim without different inputs is not a sim( How coul I use T300 pedals for a sim!? ...)

[Case]

Well, it took me a lot longer than anticipated to write it all down, and I've decided to post it on my (hardly ever used) blog to keep it all in one place with a possibility to easily edit it in case something changes or comes up, but here it is - a guide on how to (hopefully) add an unsupported controller device to WRC7:

http://english.edgeoftheworld.cz/2017/09/19/adding-an-unsupported-controller-to-wrc7/

Be aware that the process involves editing the game file(s) and as such might trigger some kind of anti-piracy or anti-cheating protection (though it doesn't seem to in my case, or not yet anyway - been using the mod for 2 days now).

[Case]

Just a heads up - I still need to add my pedals to that file with patch 1.01 to be able to bind them in the game.

Also, since we now see the name of the device the button is bound to, it's interesting to note that the game obviously thinks my shifter is in fact connected to my pedals, as it says "Logitech G25 Pedals" when I bind a function to my shifter. That happens regardless of whether I modify the file or not.

[OgurAchevR]

Reading the original post here made me wonder if it wasn't some kind of joke - LOL. Having to go through all of those steps is - of course, quite rediculous but, in any case, I hope the Dev's get this sorted out soon.

[Crash McWreakit VR]

HI Case, I have posted this in your blog comments, but I'll drop a copy here also. maybe you have some more insight. You seem to be the only person so far who has attempted to resolve the peripherals issue.

hi, I think I have an idea of what you are saying here. I have worked out the GUID of my UnoJoy USB device controller for my handbrake.

Now what I wasn't sure of is if I could add that GUID number (219362584 to the Thrustmaster list of GUID. So, looking down the list of controllers I saw a stand alone Fanatec Handbrake with its own unique GUID. So out of curiosity I changed it to the UnoJoy GUID. It is listed as an AXIS4. Now on checking in my controllers the handbrake(UnoJoy) comes up as Z axis and Z Rotation with 2 bars moving.

Interestingly in Dirt Rally it is detected as Y Axis, but in Dirt 4 it is detected as X Axis. So I have been through the whole trial and error process of changing either Stick or MaxDefaultStick and as Axis lx/lY. Axis or Z Rz Ry etc etc.

I figured as it doesn't come up in the other games as an inverse I could leave those out of the equation. Unfortunately after more than 2 hours of altering the file to as many variations of the above I can I still haven't detected the handbrake. Possibly changing the fanatic handbrake GUID was the wrong way to go about it. Only other unknown now really is the AXIS# do I start again with #1, and go through 2,3,4 etc? It's been an interesting evening if nothing else. I don't often mess about with files. Thanks for your blog tho . If you have any suggestion as of Axis# or anything else it would be very much appreciated. Regards Trevor

[Case]

Cheers. As far as I know, no-one was able to make a handbrake work using the method I've described. Sorry.
Plus the peripheral support changed a bit with the two updates the game has received since, and I've not tested what it means for the game. The only thing I know is that as of the latest patch, I seem to be able to bind my pedals out of the box, without any file editing.