Hardware Issues and Workarounds

A list of common limitations or bugs in DirectInput hardware and how to work around them.

No user profiles

If the device control panel/app does not support user profiles, Joystick Gremlin can instead be used to create profiles, saved on/loaded from your computer.

Cannot combine or zero pedals

Joystick Gremlin can be used to combine pedals (Combine pedals option in the Actions menu). Separate but zeroed pedals can be achieved by creating a curve mapping.

Cannot configure pedal/paddle curves (enough)

Joystick Gremlin can be used to set custom arbitrary curves for pedals and other analog axes.

Detected as joystick

This may not be obvious; one common sign is that some wheel configurations are missing in game settings. Force feedback may be missing in some other games. IndirectInput is needed to fix this.

vJoy is also detected in-game by some games as a joystick.

Force Feedback causes game crash

Games can crash for many reasons, but this particular crash happens specifically when a FFB device is plugged in, or FFB effects are enabled. FFFSake with Reducer engine should fix this, unless the actual problem is something else.

Force Feedback causes (severe) FPS drop

See “Game Loop Blocked By Force Feedback Commands” in Game Issues. Some controllers just take longer to handle commands than others, and some games are not written to properly handle this.

Force Feedback effects are incorrectly/incompletely implemented

Device manufacturers have some leeway in how detailed their implementation of hardware effects is, and their simpler implementation may lead to an inferior in-game experience. Unfortunately sometimes the manufacturer will also have bugs in their implementation.

FFFSake with Reducer engine should fix this.