Better nubs on p2

[coreyjohnson711]

One of my biggest gripes with the p1 were the nubs, along with case/hinge and wi-fi. For the p2 can we please get some nubs that would be more usable for fps games / more precise as a pointing device in the desktop.

 

[Binky]

One of my biggest gripes with the p2 were the nubs, along with case/hinge and wi-fi. For the p2 can we please get some nubs that would be more usable for fps games / more precise as a pointing device in the desktop.

I think you mean p1 there.


I think most people would agree that the case & wifi could be improved, but many seem to really like the nubs. How much practice do you have using them?

 

[Prometheus]

I do love the nubs for mousing, and that is my primary use-case for them, so by and large I get on fine with them.


That said, I haven't found them to be so good for the games that I wanted to use them for, myself, so I wouldn't be averse to improved ones, if that was at all possible. I *really* love the way the Nintendo 3DS' Circle Pad works - something in that vein would be perfect, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Grench]

I think the issue that you're finding with the 'controlability' of the existing nubs isn't so much a hardware but a software issue.


From what I can tell, right now the nubs are viewed in a literal linear perspective. So, move the nub half way between the center and the full-right extreme and it reads at 50%.


xout = xin


move 2/16 over and it reads 2.


What we need is an application that can alter this sensitivity to be non-linear.


So - what I would propose:


xout=xin^2 (or something else non-linear but not quite as extreme? Quadratic form used for example only.)


The main idea is so that the area around 0,0 on the nub is much more precise (fine aiming) and the rate of movement ramps up faster the farther out from center that you go (fast movement).


Effectively, it would put the first 10% of movement signal over the first 25% of the nub's physical movement - and make the end of the movement read out as 10x what the real physical result would be.


Right now it isn't horrid - but it could be better.


Hope this makes sense to someone.

 

[DaMummy]

I *really* love the way the Nintendo 3DS' Circle Pad works - something in that vein would be perfect, as far as I'm concerned.

this^. they fit in clamshell device, have very good travel, and arent as slippery

 

[coreyjohnson711]

Fixed my typo, and my issue was that it just wasn't precise enough for me... To give an example, say I was playing LoZ Oot and was trying to run in a circle with link, I could never do it. I would always end up drifting in one direction more than the other, it would make the precision moves in other games very tough.

 

[Binky]

Could a nice GUI be written to handle this? e.g. draw a graph of xin against xout with the stylus

 

[ibisum]

Speaking of GUI's the answer is yes.


I've had some fun with the nubs lately, since I added joystick support to LOAD81 (just waiting for the pull request to go through and I'll release a new LOAD81.pnd) .. what I've noticed is that the nubs really, really do need to be calibrated by being moved in all directions, as much as possible, on first boot of the Pandora. Many people seem to not know this, though, and end up with un-calibrated nubs when they set up to play a game.


The demo I wrote to highlight the joysticks feature in LOAD81.pnd really shows how important this is. You can clone my fork here and build it for yourself on Pandora if you don't want to wait for me to release an update to my PND: https://github.com/seclorum (To build, see the README in contrib/Pandora/). Fire up the 'joystick.lua' demo after a first-boot of the Pandora, and notice how much the nub drift changes, the more you use the nubs for the first time (to really highlight it, comment out the fill() in joystick.lua and then paint the screen with the ellipses). Careful though, the map() results in a skewed aspect ration, but you can still see the effects of uncalibrated nubs fairly easily.


I'm planning (once my joystick patch goes into the mainline LOAD81 sources) to extend this demo so that it becomes useful as a joystick calibration routine - something like "move the joysticks around until the screen is full of color" - which can be used as a mainstream tool to highlight this issue and fix it by getting the user involved in calibration on first boot. If you want to watch this, join the LOAD81.pnd thread here, I'll post updates as I have been doing already: http://boards.openpa...__fromsearch__1

 

[albo]

Maybe the center of each nub could actually be a small spheric button you can press, it could work as *click* while in desktop mode and as pressing the analog sticks on the PS1 (and maybe even PS2?) emulators


Another idea: on the first P2 startup the system would ask the user to calibrate the nubs

 

[whynodd]

The nubs, their firmware-bit or the driver really have a deadzone (it changes sometimes between calibrations) and definitely this whole calibration thingy is a bit odd. And you never know if their calibration is ok to reach the circular outer edge of all possible values. Its annoying in Descent when its more sensitive in a specific direction because of these issues. Ingame sensitivity setting doesn't help, its a tradeoff between aiming speed and accuracy and can not remove the hardware deadzone. But for desktop mousing or to play some games that mostly use the direction(!) of input, the nubs are great.


Ideas for P2 analogue input:


- That deadzone (from 0 to some value > 1) is something that I have not seen with those trackpoints from thinkpads. Maybe such a force measuring technique similar to trackpoints plus springs could do a very good job.


- An optical element that measures the displacement of a nub disk + user replacable springs or rubber elements


Very important: Centering force has to rise linear with displacement of nub (smooth around center, stronger at edge). I don't want a nub like the one from the PSP1, horrible. The feel of P1-nubs is good in that matter.

 

[MrLemonyFresh]

The Pandora team should take a part a psp vita and analyse how they made such a nice analogue stick and brainstorm a cheap alternative

 

[Nintendo]

^ Agreed.


No more analogue nubs please, as sticks are far better in terms of travelling.

 

[DaMummy]

except when you have to make it a clamshell device

 

[Nintendo]

Unscrewable/Screwable (detachable) analogue sticks.

 

[Prometheus]

^ Which can then easily get lost.


Making a slot in the case for them is impractical as it makes the case more complex and wastes space within it...


I'd have to admit, if it had sticks, I'd have to not buy it. I find them the most painful things imaginable to use, unfortunately (a position shared with those horrible controllers with "handles" on the sides, which totally kill my wrists and make the joypad very difficult to hold), and any machine using them would be a waste of my money, since no doubt the things would be assigned to important functions.