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Temporarily disable joystick without unplugging it

Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 16:55
by bostjan42
I know this is a weird thing to ask on this forum but here goes:

As you know there are quite a few badly optimized games out there (from AAA developers mind you) which have very poor joystick support. Usually this manifests in the camera spinning widely in-game. It's present in practically every Unreal Engine based game, where I found a general solution to tweak some settings in the ini files and it works well (cumbersome but only needed once per game to setup). Now I have tried Star Wars: Battlefront 2, to maybe try some starfighter action with my VKB Gladiator NXT. No joy (pardon the pun), and the spinning camera returns. Funnily Battlefield 1 (also DICEs engine) works fine. Yes, you said it: crappy development and poor PC porting.

So to my question: is there a way to run command to disable the stick temporarily, without having to disconnect it? What's your workaround? I rather not play that crap game if I need to disconnect the stick for it :)

Re: Temporarily disable joystick without unplugging it

Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2021 5:10
by fallout9
I haven't heard of this issue; are you sure your joystick is calibrated, ministick included?

Re: Temporarily disable joystick without unplugging it

Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2021 8:31
by Tuesday John
I've encountered few games that have issues when there are multiple "game controller" or such are plugged in at the same time.

My solution has been to plug all my things that could be seen as "game controller" on a powered USB hub with a switch for each port. This way, I can disable joysticks without physically disconnecting them by just switching off those ports.

EDIT - This is what I use (7-port model) - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079G ... UTF8&psc=1

Re: Temporarily disable joystick without unplugging it

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2021 4:49
by patrick1978
I've run into a few games that try to use both my gladiator and xbox controller at the same time which was sometimes causing issues.

It took me a little while to figure it out but I found that as long as I centered the throttle dial on the gladiator it wouldn't interfere with the xbox controller.

Re: Temporarily disable joystick without unplugging it

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2021 20:21
by bostjan42
fallout9 wrote:I haven't heard of this issue; are you sure your joystick is calibrated, ministick included?


It's calibrated correctly, I have the standard version so no ministick. I've had similar issues in the past with most of my sticks (recently the green T.16000). It's always the same issue: spinning camera, without giving any input of course. I was hoping there is a windows command or a joystick profile which would blank all the commands/axes or something similar. I don't want to uninstall drivers or unplug the stick.

Nobody has this issue? Or maybe you don't care as the stick comes first :P

Re: Temporarily disable joystick without unplugging it

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2021 20:29
by fallout9
Pretty sure there'd be more people reporting it if it was something wrong with the joysticks.
You could also try to play with those controller settings in Steam, those are sometimes interfering with the joysticks. There's a Controller setting under Big Picture.

Re: Temporarily disable joystick without unplugging it

Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 22:16
by bostjan42
Nothing wrong with the sticks, they work perfectly fine.
It's not just Steam, it's everywhere. Origin, Epic, Steam, you name it. Doesn't matter, the SW:BF2 was a free Epic giveaway and a mediocre game anyway. No way I'm unplugging my VKB stick for that :)