U360 Stick with restrictor AND full analogue!!!

[actionless]

Hey folks,

Sorry if this has been posted before but I have been googling for ages and never been able to find this setting change and its such a great change I have to share.

I have been using 2 U360 sticks for about a year now, I have the octagonal restrictor and stiff spring fitted to both. Using Ultramap I have them set up as "always analogue" and that they have the 4/8 way restrictor. I let mame do the mapping as it does it well enough for me. I believe the restrictor is a must for these sticks as the throw is too long for most 4/8 way games. This has been working great, my only gripe is that you lose full range in analogue games due to the restrictor. i.e. Star Wars - you cannot reach the corners at all.

This has slowly started to irritate me as Star Wars is my favourite game but the only game I cannot play properly. I have been googling like a mad man, searching these forums for a solution coming up blank. All reviews on here say with restrictor you do not get full analogue. 

Well I thought ---fudgesicle--- this, there must be a way!! I started mucking about with user defined restrictor settings in the ini file there was already one called "Custom:9" I changed the number a few times and retested. Hallelujah!! When I changed it to "6" I got full analogue range with restrictors. Only the extreme corners are unreachable! Now I can play Star Wars fine! 

Ive tested a few more games and found it improved everything! So many games now play better, Street Fighter, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, KOF. The default restrictor setting from Ultramap are definitely not good enough.

Now I feel these sticks are amazing!! 

[DietCoke]

Thanks - that is useful info.  Same boat for me with Star Wars, what a great game!

[Xiaou2]

Its not really full analog.  Its just skipping values.. like counting  3,6,9,12.   While this does work... you still lose precision control,  because there isnt the proper travel and full range resolution.

 

[actionless]

Ok, yeah that does make sense.

Its far better than before tho now making unplayable analogue games playable. 4/8 games now actually feel more precise. I expect this is due to the stick now reaching the edge of the map rather than going only as far as the middle, Street Fighter is far better now.

Never going to be perfect but Id rather this than a franken 

[Nephasth]

Pretty sure your "enhanced gameplay" with non-analog games is thanks to placebo...

[actionless]

Pretty sure your "enhanced gameplay" with non-analog games is thanks to placebo...

Lol! Maybe, but I dont think so. Sorry for the bad picture but here you see the range you can reach in ultimap with the default settings and the modified settings. If I am now reaching the extremes in analog in mame I must also be reaching the extremes in 4/8 way. Alot more chances of hitting the direction you were aiming for. Well... thats how I see it! 

[Nephasth]

Once the stick registers a direction, that's it. You can't get anymore "on" than on... 4 way and 8 way games aren't analog.

[actionless]

Yeah, I suppose so, makes sense. If its placebo, then its a fun placebo! 

[Nephasth]

Nothing wrong with placebo man.

[BadMouth]

Why not just adjust the joystick saturation in MAME.ini?

Example: if set to .8, MAME will see the joystick as 100% in a direction when it's really only 80%.

If you're using analog controls and haven't adjusted the saturation and dead zone in mame.ini, you're gonna have a bad time.
The deadzone is set to .3 by default, meaning you have a 30% dead zone.
For steering wheels, I set it to .05


Edit: oh, I see OP isn't actually playing games that had analog controls. 

[AndyWarne]

Its not really full analog.  Its just skipping values.. like counting  3,6,9,12.   While this does work... you still lose precision control,  because there isnt the proper travel and full range resolution.

This is still full analog. The value he changed is a scale factor which is linearly applied to the raw value. What results is still fully analog.

[actionless]

Why not just adjust the joystick saturation in MAME.ini?

Example: if set to .8, MAME will see the joystick as 100% in a direction when it's really only 80%.

If you're using analog controls and haven't adjusted the saturation and dead zone in mame.ini, you're gonna have a bad time.
The deadzone is set to .3 by default, meaning you have a 30% dead zone.
For steering wheels, I set it to .05


Edit: oh, I see OP isn't actually playing games that had analog controls. 

Actually, I am playing analog games, this whole change was to be able to play Star Wars  which now works amazingly. I just felt 4/8 way felt better too, although that might just be in my head lol.

I did try messing with the saturation but it did not work anything near as good as this did. I did reduce the dead zone quite a bit to improve analog play.

[AndyWarne]

Why not just adjust the joystick saturation in MAME.ini?

Example: if set to .8, MAME will see the joystick as 100% in a direction when it's really only 80%.

If you're using analog controls and haven't adjusted the saturation and dead zone in mame.ini, you're gonna have a bad time.
The deadzone is set to .3 by default, meaning you have a 30% dead zone.
For steering wheels, I set it to .05


Edit: oh, I see OP isn't actually playing games that had analog controls. 

Actually, I am playing analog games, this whole change was to be able to play Star Wars  which now works amazingly. I just felt 4/8 way felt better too, although that might just be in my head lol.

I did try messing with the saturation but it did not work anything near as good as this did. I did reduce the dead zone quite a bit to improve analog play.

4/8 way will be different (and therefore perfectly possible that its more to your preference) because changing the scale factor will "shrink" the 9x9 grid which the zones of the analog movement are mapped to digital directions.

[Xiaou2]

Its not really full analog.  Its just skipping values.. like counting  3,6,9,12.   While this does work... you still lose precision control,  because there isnt the proper travel and full range resolution.

This is still full analog. The value he changed is a scale factor which is linearly applied to the raw value. What results is still fully analog.

 Doesnt matter if you have 20x the resolution.  If you have poor mechanical ability to control, all that resolution is worthless.