I just ran an offline practice session in W37 at Westhill and got a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pits. When I drove into the pits at the end of the lap I got the message "Entered pits for no purpose" and was unable to clear the penalty. Same thing happened when I incurred a stop-go.

Last edited by Richardf, Thu, 31 May 2007 20:33.

Quote from Glenn67 :

I was going to make the suggestion before that you use keyboard for brake and accelerate and the joystick just for steering. Doing steering and throttle/brake on the same stick would make it dificult to be consistently precise imo

I am an idiot. I always thought that having throttle or brake on a button would give an uncontrollable digital response but I was wrong. I took this advice and mapped the throttle and brake to the joystick's trigger and thumb buttons and within 5 laps I was faster than using the analogue throttle and brake I've been using for the last 3 and half years. Braking and turn in are now so much more relaxed. Thanks Glenn67.

Quote from Glenn67 :

One thing I notice is people tend to go too far in getting rid of sensitivity in joysticks, when for being fast you want a high reponsiveness to some degree. I recommend not using dead zones and moderating the use of steer smooth etc. and allowing time to get used to the settings.

I am going to give this approach a try. I tried the settings posted by Venus and found that I needed huge amounts of steering lock to compensate for the smoothness, I just didn't feel comfortable.

A few months ago I tried a gamepad type controller for a couple of weeks and found myself doing the same sort of laptimes as with the joystick. I think this tells me that my speed is mostly not down to the controller I use, I just lack the basic coordination.

Edit: I just tried the ultra sensitive approach and it worked quite well. It allowed me to drop the steering lock setting which I think give a more controlled turn-in. I didn't improve my laptimes at all though, they were the same as usual so I need to work more on setups I think. One setting I could not reduce was throttle/brake centre reduction. Even if I have it set fully to 1 I still have some braking input when I let go of the stick because after calibration the neutral postion on the stick gives me 50% brake applied. I use forward on the joystick for braking and assume others do too.

Last edited by Richardf, Mon, 2 Apr 2007 06:45.

Thanks Venus, I'll give your settings a try and see how I get on.

I use an old MS Sidewinder Pro and have to admit I struggle with it, so I would also be interested in how others have their joysticks setup. Throttle and brake response are ok but steering is an issue. I can change the steering lock values in the car setup from one extreme to another but don't get any feel for the changes

The main problem I have is a deadzone issue. It may well be that I have a junk joystick but I can't figure out how to increase the deadzone. The result is that I always have to pull back on the stick except when braking and have to constantly correct the steering as letting go of the stick steers the car to one side or the other. No wonder I can hardly move my hand and have to quit after an hour

Unfortunately a wheel setup is not an option for several reasons, so should I get a different stick or is there a setting I can tweak?

I would be grateful for any advice.

You think that's bad, it took me about 2 minutes to figure out how to put it in first gear.

I'm not joking.

Somehow I've managed 31.8 mpg and I've not been trying to save fuel. I'm just slow.

I too use an old MS Sidewinder stick but I can only manage 1:36's at Blackwood in the GTi. I know that the main reason I am slow is that the centre position on the stick is loose and rattly, so I always have some degree of steering input even if I have my hands off the stick. This makes it impossible for me to brake in a straight line so I end up half way across the track when I want to be right on the outside ready to turn into the corner. What I need is a way to increase the deadzone on the stick... or a new stick :banana: