u360 range of motion issue (resolved: u360 readers might want to read this)

[ragnar]

I have a big problem with one of my two u360s.  Been like this since day one but it took to now to figure out what is wrong.  The second stick is working perfectly.

Initial issue:
The diagonals are not working when set up as 8 way.  In particular, it is hard to get up/right to read.

Investigation info:
I am not using restrictor plates and do not intend to.  This is really a problem with the raw data that the u360 is reading.  I am reading the raw data via the control panel game controllers tool in Windows XP.  It's easiest to explain from the centered position.  As I move up, the raw data goes from 0 (or about 0) to -126.  But as I go farther up, the value starts to drop, to about -100.  If I push a little harder than I should it actually drops to about -80.  This occurs in all directions.

So, anyone seen this before?  Can it be fixed?  Is the stick just messed up?

[ragnar]

OK, both sticks exhibit this behavior.  Arggggh.

P2 is just less obvious because the spring is slightly stiffer so it is harder to go past the range of motion.  I think the problem, now, is that I am not using restrictor plates but at the same time I think there is way to much restriction for use with analog mode.

Luckily, I ordered the stiffer springs and restrictor plates just in case.  Time to go do some experimenting!

[ragnar]

UPDATE:

I added the 8 way restrictor plates.  Everything works fine now except for analog based games.  Analog games now do not get the full range of motion.  If the X position is -128 to +128, it now does something like -80 to +80.  is there any way to tell the joysticks to scale up all numbers appropriately when in analog mode?  Some sort of weighting factor when in analog mode?

[ragnar]

Andy at Ultimarc gets a 11/10 for customer service!

Anyways, one can configure more than 4/8 way and circular settings for u360 restrictors.  If you look at the Ultramap ini file, you will notice that for each stick it stores restrictor information as "4/8 way", "circular", or "none".  Well 4/8 way and circualr are a human readable form of Custom:9 which ultramap does not allow you to set but this is a setting for advanced users that want to play with the ultramap ini file.

You can insert Custom:number directly in the ini file where the number is a scaling factor.  It takes some playing, but the setting can be tweaked if the analog mode is a bit off on your u360 when using restrictors.  It might even help when you don't have a restrictor installed!

For more, read section 7 of this:
http://www.ultimarc.com/UltraMap_ChangeLog.htm

Anyways, I needed to set P1 to Custom:5 and P2 to Custom:9