[Suggestion] Update game controller support for Windows

[Zhronne]

The controller setup of FFXI is pretty limited, very old and doesn't allow you to handle common gamepads, like the Xbox360 Game Controller, in the two analogic shoulder buttons which get recognized as "Z Axis" and not digital buttons.

Things could be easily solved in many ways if SE could think about updating that tool in the future, since they're re-doing the UI as well.
I can see at least two main paths of action:

1) Update the current Gamepad utility allowing it to handle analogic buttons as digital buttons
2) Update the support to Xinput as well

[Rosina]

you mean for the pc? if so I hope they do this fix if it is an issue. I used my 360 controler for ffxiv, out side taking time to get used to it, its pretty ok (and they getting a complete controler UI revamp) maybe they should have a configurations similar to ffxiv into ffxi.

[Dsherman]

The Xbox 360 controller is an Xinput compliant controller... or at least it behaves that way on my system. Unfortunately, FFXI is looking for the older Directinput compliant controller.

I have a Logitech F710 Gamepad now. It has a switch on it to change it between the more current Xinput mode and the older Directinput mode. In Directinput mode, it works just fine with FFXI as is. If I try to use the Xinput mode with FFXI, it behaves very much like the Xbox 360 controller.

If SE can just add the ability to use Xinput compliant controllers (without taking away the ability to use Directinput mode) in FFXI, that should solve the problem.

FFXIV already has either mode available. It would be nice if FFXI could do the same.

[Eric]

You can install custom drivers for Xbox controllers that allow you to map the buttons as you please. I have my triggers working correctly on my wireless controller. That being said, I should have not had to go through the trouble of finding the drivers, installing them, etc just for ONE game, when the Xbox controller is automatically recognized by a lot of other games.

[Zhronne]

you mean for the pc? if so I hope they do this fix if it is an issue. I used my 360 controler for ffxiv, out side taking time to get used to it, its pretty ok
Like others said, it works fine in FFXIV because that game uses Xinput instead of Dinput.
Dunno if SE can implement Xinput in FFXI though, I'm afraid it would be pretty complicated since it involves DirectX 9 if I'm not wrong?

[Zhronne]

@Dsherman
Actually Xbox360 controller (both the wired and wireless ones) are both Dinput and Xinput complaint.
Problem here is on both sides.
X360 Windows basic drivers do not allow you to set triggers as digital.
FFXI does not allow you to set those buttons for anything other than an axis.
It could be solved any of those sides imho.


@Eric
There aren't many solutions if you're on Windows 7 x64.
You have XBCD 0.2.7 which work fantastic but only for the wired version.
Then you have Masahiko Morii's custom drivers, which are incredible and work for both the Wireless and Wired controller. They are the ones I use on my old PC and I love them.
Problem is that they do not work on my new PC for some reason. I tested for 3 days straight but I couldn't find the reason... They do "work", but the right stick ("rotation" axis) doesn't, it gets stuck on a direction. I was really disappointed :(

Another way to solve the issue is form the guys behind "X360ce", a tool that allows dinput peripherals to work as if they were xinput ones through emulation. They make your PC think your pad is an X360 pad, basically.
They said they would like to work on a "reverse" emulator, that is make your PC think that your xinput device is a dinput one.
With that you would be able to use the X360 pad with FFXI no problem.
Thing is... will they ever do it? It's hard to contact them. Their official page is a Google Project page, there is no forum only an "issues" page.

Or... last chance and what I'm asking for here, SE could do something about their 10years old Gamepad configurator and magically we would all be happy.

[Zhronne]

bump for some more love

[Daniel_Hatcher]

@Dsherman
Actually Xbox360 controller (both the wired and wireless ones) are both Dinput and Xinput complaint.
Problem here is on both sides.
X360 Windows basic drivers do not allow you to set triggers as digital.
FFXI does not allow you to set those buttons for anything other than an axis.
It could be solved any of those sides imho.


@Eric
There aren't many solutions if you're on Windows 7 x64.
You have XBCD 0.2.7 which work fantastic but only for the wired version.
Then you have Masahiko Morii's custom drivers, which are incredible and work for both the Wireless and Wired controller. They are the ones I use on my old PC and I love them.
Problem is that they do not work on my new PC for some reason. I tested for 3 days straight but I couldn't find the reason... They do "work", but the right stick ("rotation" axis) doesn't, it gets stuck on a direction. I was really disappointed :(

Another way to solve the issue is form the guys behind "X360ce", a tool that allows dinput peripherals to work as if they were xinput ones through emulation. They make your PC think your pad is an X360 pad, basically.
They said they would like to work on a "reverse" emulator, that is make your PC think that your xinput device is a dinput one.
With that you would be able to use the X360 pad with FFXI no problem.
Thing is... will they ever do it? It's hard to contact them. Their official page is a Google Project page, there is no forum only an "issues" page.

Or... last chance and what I'm asking for here, SE could do something about their 10years old Gamepad configurator and magically we would all be happy.

Try going to Game Controllers > Properties (on your controller) > Settings > Reset to default

Worked for me.

[Krashport]

The controller setup of FFXI is pretty limited, very old and doesn't allow you to handle common gamepads, like the Xbox360 Game Controller, in the two analogic shoulder buttons which get recognized as "Z Axis" and not digital buttons.

Things could be easily solved in many ways if SE could think about updating that tool in the future, since they're re-doing the UI as well.
I can see at least two main paths of action:

1) Update the current Gamepad utility allowing it to handle analogic buttons as digital buttons
2) Update the support to Xinput as well



http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/21706-dev1097-Newly-Added-Control-Config.

[FrankReynolds]

@Eric
There aren't many solutions if you're on Windows 7 x64.
You have XBCD 0.2.7 which work fantastic but only for the wired version.
Then you have Masahiko Morii's custom drivers, which are incredible and work for both the Wireless and Wired controller.

Those are the drivers that I use too, but I have never been able to get the wireless ones to work on Windows 7 and it seems that he is no longer hosting them, or he has blocked public access.

I really wish SE would just add support for the 360 controller on PC. Logitech controllers are complete crap. I've replaced so many buttons on those things that it's not even funny.

[Zhronne]

Those are the drivers that I use too, but I have never been able to get the wireless ones to work on Windows 7 and it seems that he is no longer hosting them, or he has blocked public access.
He stopped hosting them and he "disappeared" from the web.
Another japanese website is hosting them though.
I can give you the url if you want.


For some reason they worked fantastically on my old PC on both wired and wireless controllers (they are 2 different sets of drivers) but on my newly bought PC they do not work.
To be more accurate they DO work, triggers are considered as digital, but I cannot seem to make the right analogue stick be recognized by the game. Works fine from the drivers configurator, but FFXI's configurator doesn't "feel" the right stick.

I really have no clue why. After a few attempts and a few formats I gave up and atm I'm just using the default windows drivers, which means no triggers for me.
I wish I knew why they do not work on the new system... the old one has the same exact SO, only difference is of course a different motherboard, different chipset, different USB controller etc.

I have no clue what's creating this difference betweeen my two systems. Wish I knew :(

[FrankReynolds]

He stopped hosting them and he "disappeared" from the web.
Another japanese website is hosting them though.
I can give you the url if you want.


For some reason they worked fantastically on my old PC on both wired and wireless controllers (they are 2 different sets of drivers) but on my newly bought PC they do not work.
To be more accurate they DO work, triggers are considered as digital, but I cannot seem to make the right analogue stick be recognized by the game. Works fine from the drivers configurator, but FFXI's configurator doesn't "feel" the right stick.

I really have no clue why. After a few attempts and a few formats I gave up and atm I'm just using the default windows drivers, which means no triggers for me.
I wish I knew why they do not work on the new system... the old one has the same exact SO, only difference is of course a different motherboard, different chipset, different USB controller etc.

I have no clue what's creating this difference betweeen my two systems. Wish I knew :(

I really hope they consider adding support for those controllers and others as well. I would love to have that link if possible. I don't think it's against the TOS (unless it's hosted on a bot site or something?) to post links for controller drivers. Maybe a forum mod could let us know?

[Zhronne]

This is the link. It's exactely the same page of the original Masahiko Morii's website (which went down like 1 year ago or some time ago), completley re-hosted by the guys of Lavendy.
http://lavendy.net/special/driver/

Page is in japanese but don't get scared, look at the link. The first two basically

http://lavendy.net/special/driver/x360wc/index.html
WC ==> Wireless Controller

http://lavendy.net/special/driver/x360c/index.html
C => Controller, this is for the wired version

They're identical, a few options are different on the last page but it's exactely the same drivers. On my old PC I used these and they are so much more awesome than XBCD imho.
Too bad that something doesn't work on my new PC... I dunno why. Triggers work but the right stick doesn't ;_;

Oh and it's not against the TOS, drivers are signed by Microsoft, it's good stuff (Masahiko Morii used to be a recognized official Microsoft developer in Japan)

[FrankReynolds]

This is the link. It's exactely the same page of the original Masahiko Morii's website (which went down like 1 year ago or some time ago), completley re-hosted by the guys of Lavendy.
http://lavendy.net/special/driver/

Page is in japanese but don't get scared, look at the link. The first two basically

http://lavendy.net/special/driver/x360wc/index.html
WC ==> Wireless Controller

http://lavendy.net/special/driver/x360c/index.html
C => Controller, this is for the wired version

They're identical, a few options are different on the last page but it's exactely the same drivers. On my old PC I used these and they are so much more awesome than XBCD imho.
Too bad that something doesn't work on my new PC... I dunno why. Triggers work but the right stick doesn't ;_;

Oh and it's not against the TOS, drivers are signed by Microsoft, it's good stuff (Masahiko Morii used to be a recognized official Microsoft developer in Japan)

Nice! Thanks a lot man. I'll try these out when I get home and see if I can get them to work.

[Zhronne]

Bump! Hoping the dev guys will be able to give some info about this.

[FrankReynolds]

Bump! Hoping the dev guys will be able to give some info about this.

Me too.

I did download the drivers BTW. Thanks for posting those. I'm still not able to get them to work with a wireless controller though. Looks like it's wired for the foreseeable future.

[Zhronne]

You sure you downloaded the wireless ones? There are two drivers, one for wireless and one for wired.
For the wireless controller you also need another thing to do.
In Windows 7 in your "Device list" menu you should have TWO peripherals: the gamepad and the receiver.
You need to select THE RECEIVER and not the controller. Then you right click/properties, then you select to upgrade/change drivers, then to do it manually, then you select the path where you unzipped the drivers from Mr. Morii, and then you go on and click yes blah blah.

After that they should work.
You only need to do this for the RECEIVER and not for the controller, otherwise it won't work.

[FrankReynolds]

You sure you downloaded the wireless ones? There are two drivers, one for wireless and one for wired.
For the wireless controller you also need another thing to do.
In Windows 7 in your "Device list" menu you should have TWO peripherals: the gamepad and the receiver.
You need to select THE RECEIVER and not the controller. Then you right click/properties, then you select to upgrade/change drivers, then to do it manually, then you select the path where you unzipped the drivers from Mr. Morii, and then you go on and click yes blah blah.

After that they should work.
You only need to do this for the RECEIVER and not for the controller, otherwise it won't work.

Yeah, I used the wireless drivers on my old XP machine and one of my windows 7 laptops, but I can't seem to get them to work on either of my new windows 7 machines. I'm wondering if maybe it's a minor difference between windows 7 home and windows 7 enterprise although I doubt it is. I'll try and look into it more in the next few days. Hopefully the devs will make this happen without 3rd party drivers soon :)

[Hashmalum]

While we are on the subject of the game controller for the PC version, please allow FFXI to continue to receive controller input in windowed mode even when the FFXI application does not have the input focus. Trying to play FFXI in the windowed mode too often goes like this:

Okay, I need to check the wiki and see what to do next. I'll put my character on autorun.

*opens wiki page* Oh, I see I've autorun into an obstacle. *change window focus* *wait 2 seconds for FFXI to start responding to controller input again* *makes course correction*

Okay, back to the wiki. The details seem to be on a linked page, we'll just click through to that (taking the input focus)... Oh, I've autorun into something else again. *change window focus* *wait 2 seconds for FFXI to start responding to controller input again* *makes course correction*

Back to the wiki. Ok, read this, scroll down (stealing the input focus away again), read this, scroll down... Oops, monsters coming up. *change window focus* *wait 2 seconds for FFXI to start responding to controller input again* *makes course correction*

Ok. Back to the wiki. Oh, I see there's a quest that comes after this one. Let's just see what it is (stealing the input focus away AGAIN)... Oh, someone asked if I had a certain key item. Let me just open my key items menu and see if I do... *change window focus* *wait 2 seconds for FFXI to start responding to controller input again* *opens Key Items menu*

As you can see, trying to actually use the official windowed mode is an exercise in frustration. Get rid of the lag upon switching window focus, and never stop responding to the controller short of minimizing the window.

[Zhronne]

Bump! (10 char)

[wildsprite]

Those are the drivers that I use too, but I have never been able to get the wireless ones to work on Windows 7 and it seems that he is no longer hosting them, or he has blocked public access.

I really wish SE would just add support for the 360 controller on PC. Logitech controllers are complete crap. I've replaced so many buttons on those things that it's not even funny.

I have the Masahiko Morii custom drivers for both wired and wireless, I can verify the 64 bit wireless and wired versions are seen as signed(which you will need unless you want to go through the pain of disabling driver signing), I cannot verify the 32 bit wired versions if you want I can try to find a place to share them....


This is the link. It's exactely the same page of the original Masahiko Morii's website (which went down like 1 year ago or some time ago), completley re-hosted by the guys of Lavendy.
http://lavendy.net/special/driver/

Page is in japanese but don't get scared, look at the link. The first two basically

http://lavendy.net/special/driver/x360wc/index.html
WC ==> Wireless Controller

http://lavendy.net/special/driver/x360c/index.html
C => Controller, this is for the wired version

They're identical, a few options are different on the last page but it's exactely the same drivers. On my old PC I used these and they are so much more awesome than XBCD imho.
Too bad that something doesn't work on my new PC... I dunno why. Triggers work but the right stick doesn't ;_;

Oh and it's not against the TOS, drivers are signed by Microsoft, it's good stuff (Masahiko Morii used to be a recognized official Microsoft developer in Japan)

the versions on that site are older and not seen as signed by windows 7 64 bit, I tested them.....unless they updated it in the last month or so

[Zhronne]

That's correct. They were signed years ago, but appearently that signature expires over time or something like that.
I can still install them without problems, but I have UAC turned off on my systems.

They are awesome drivers btw. Wish I knew why they do not work 100% on my new system, sigh

[wildsprite]

I do agree, they are awesome drivers

I put the copy of the 64 bit drivers I got before his site went down up on drop box, both of these are seen as signed by my windows 7 64 bit PC
https://www.dropbox.com/s/18xjev3h1ooa8li/x360wc.win7.x64.en.zip <--wireless
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uom8fl3c3cz09za/x360c.win7.x64.en.zip <--wired(to access the control panel for this version of the driver you have to run x360csai.exe for some reason that was the only way I could find)

that site does have working 32 bit wireless drivers but these are the ones I was using on my old 32 bit system with windows 7 also seen as signed
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0zb0txh2o4jfaw2/x360wc.win7.x86.en.zip

the 32 bit version of the wired drivers are very close to XBCD, which does work on 32 bit windows 7, or at least it did for me

I did pretty much download most of what was on the old site before it went down, I even have a version of these same drivers for original xbox controllers(only cause I happen to have a controller S that was collecting dust)


I should not have to express this but always run a virus/malware scan on anything you get from the internet, even if you trust the source

note: some games will NOT properly see an xbox360 controller with these drivers, they will see it, but you will be unable to do anything with it because the games still see the controller ID as an xinput controller, so you will need to switch to the microsoft drivers for those games

[Zhronne]

note: some games will NOT properly see an xbox360 controller with these
Not just "some" games. All games which are ONLY compatibile with Xinput and accept no dinput peripherals will NOT work with these drivers.
An example? TERA. Think FFXIV too? But I'm not sure.
You can easily solve this issue in another way though, with a little shining tool that I've already mentioned in some of my posts called "X360CE", CE stands for Controller Emulator.
You can google it and find the official Google Developer Project page.

This software was made to allow the use of old Dinput-only gamepads (so not the X360 pad) on more recent games that accept only Xinput.
Consider it an "emulator" that makes the game believe the peripheral you are using is an X360 pad working in Xinput mode.
Of course this works on the X360 pad as well, which wouldn't normally need this trick with the default Microsoft drivers, but it does need it if you're using Morii's drivers.

It's very simple to use. You load the software, associate the buttons on your pad to the function you want and it will create an xinput.dll file (basically an xinput "profile")
Put this file inside a specific location of your game and overwrite the one already there.
Next time you load the game your pad will be seen perfectly even with Mr. Morii's drivers :)
Need to do this for each game that needs it of course.

It's the way I solved the issue on FFXIV and TERA on my old PC.
Hope I managed to explain myself, getting late and english it's not even my mother language.
It might seem complicated from my crappy description, but I assure you it's really simple.

[Zumi]

Basically Xinput should be added to the game however. They would need to upgrade the game to dx9. Only downside is they would have to make it so some people would have to buy a new video card or computer due to not having a dx9 compatible gpu.

[Zhronne]

Exactely. They can't just add Xinput support alone, or at least I don't think they can.
They should just change the support from DX8 to DX9. Is this possible? In theory it is, of course.
But practically?

I have no clue how much it's a matter of bureaucracy, paying license and updating a couple of easy fields, or if it would require a major rehaul of the game code. Eitherway, I'm afraid to say it's unlikely to happen.
They could though expand the in-game pad configurator to add further options allowing us to circumvein the issue even mantaining support to DX8, while still using Dinput.
Like treating Zaxis+ and Zaxis- like two digital buttons instead than analog.
I'm pretty confident this can be easily coded on their side inside the Gamepad configurator without some major re-coding work.

[wildsprite]

the thing is, they already added dx9 support with their lovely windowed mode, but they didn't fully update the wrapper to it

[Zhronne]

You sure? If that's true then they should stop slacking and complete their DX9 support with Xinput, would solve all our issues >_>

[wildsprite]

yeah, they said they had to do it for windowed mode for some stupid reason, and I totally agree with you, the game should be fully DX9c compliant with xinput support

[Zhronne]

Small bump so that this thread doesn't fade into nothigness

[Tsukino_Kaji]

The controller setup of FFXI is pretty limited, very old and doesn't allow you to handle common gamepads, like the Xbox360 Game Controller, in the two analogic shoulder buttons which get recognized as "Z Axis" and not digital buttons.

Things could be easily solved in many ways if SE could think about updating that tool in the future, since they're re-doing the UI as well.
I can see at least two main paths of action:

1) Update the current Gamepad utility allowing it to handle analogic buttons as digital buttons
2) Update the support to Xinput as wellStep 1.) Unplug your controler.
Step 2.) Put away teh controler.
Step 3.) Put your hands on the keyboard and enjoy your now faster and more accurate gameplay.
Adendum.) Don't touch teh mouse.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Step 1.) Unplug your controler.
Step 2.) Put away teh controler.
Step 3.) Put your hands on the keyboard and enjoy your now faster and more accurate gameplay.
Adendum.) Don't touch teh mouse.

It's not that great for this game, very few PC games play better with a controller, but this is one.

[Krashport]

Bumpity bump bump bump!

[Zhronne]

Bumpity bump bump bump!
/highfive :D

[Zhronne]

Bumpity bim bump!

[wildsprite]

Step 1.) Unplug your controler.
Step 2.) Put away teh controler.
Step 3.) Put your hands on the keyboard and enjoy your now faster and more accurate gameplay.
Adendum.) Don't touch teh mouse.

actually you're wrong, FFXI isn't a FPS and the game was designed for a controller, you can see that clearly when you play it with a decent one(most people who claim the keyboard is faster and more accurate have only used crappy controllers)


It's not that great for this game, very few PC games play better with a controller, but this is one.

I agree with you, and from experience, every person I introduced to a game controller who started playing with the keyboard refuses to go back to the keyboard for it

[Yokai]

Step 1.) Unplug your controler.
Step 2.) Put away teh controler.
Step 3.) Put your hands on the keyboard and enjoy your now faster and more accurate gameplay.
Adendum.) Don't touch teh mouse.

If you don't enjoy using a controller (probably in conjunction with a keyboard) to play FFXI, or at the least don't enjoy it as much as playing with a keyboard and mouse or keyboard alone, then don't use a controller to play FFXI, but stop telling people who DO enjoy using a controller with a keyboard and want to have improved controller functionality because it could be better than it currently is to STOP using a controller. It's not helpful. It's like saying "if you think the speed limit is too low, get out of your car and walk."




Additionally, based on your sig I strongly suspect that you are biased against controllers due to your bias against PS2 players - if you're not biased against console players in general. Please remember that USB controllers have been in use since at least the mid-90s for PC games and maintaining or updating PC controller support is wholly unrelated to maintaining any form of support for the PS2 or XBox 360. So relax.

[Vold]

I ditched that annoying PS3 controller and motionjoy drivers that constantly D/C from my system causing mid gameplay problems and replaced it with a PS2 controller and a PS2>PC adapter I bought on Amazon. I'm not looking back. It's flawless but I do need a new PS2 controller because this one is worn out. I strongly recommend one of these adapters for anyone who have moved to the PC and longed for those Sony PS2 controllers. PS3 controller options are just not happening when the drivers have to highjack your system to work and I think that held true for all drivers and not just motionjoy. Bluetooth would have been nice but eh I'm fine with a cord.

I'm not even going into the whole "I think my KB is superb to your controller" debate again. All I'll say is I hope people continue to think that when they're watching me kill "their" NM because I out claimed them yet again. It's always good to stick to your beliefs, no matter what.

[FrankReynolds]

I ditched that annoying PS3 controller and motionjoy drivers that constantly D/C from my system causing mid gameplay problems and replaced it with a PS2 controller and a PS2>PC adapter I bought on Amazon. I'm not looking back. It's flawless but I do need a new PS2 controller because this one is worn out. I strongly recommend one of these adapters for anyone who have moved to the PC and longed for those Sony PS2 controllers. PS3 controller options are just not happening when the drivers have to highjack your system to work and I think that held true for all drivers and not just motionjoy. Bluetooth would have been nice but eh I'm fine with a cord.


The JP drivers work great for the Xbox360 wired controllers. I've had issues with the wireless ones, but I'm starting to think that it may be caused by my receiver and not the drivers, as I discovered that my receiver is a third party receiver and not an official Microsoft receiver.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

If you don't enjoy using a controller (probably in conjunction with a keyboard) to play FFXI, or at the least don't enjoy it as much as playing with a keyboard and mouse or keyboard alone, then don't use a controller to play FFXI, but stop telling people who DO enjoy using a controller with a keyboard and want to have improved controller functionality because it could be better than it currently is to STOP using a controller. It's not helpful. It's like saying "if you think the speed limit is too low, get out of your car and walk."




Additionally, based on your sig I strongly suspect that you are biased against controllers due to your bias against PS2 players - if you're not biased against console players in general. Please remember that USB controllers have been in use since at least the mid-90s for PC games and maintaining or updating PC controller support is wholly unrelated to maintaining any form of support for the PS2 or XBox 360. So relax.Wrong on all acounts and full of assumptions. I played with a controller for a long time. What I am speaking from is experience. Using a controller dose nothing but slow down your game play. If playing and reacting slower doesn't bother you, by all means, use it.

[Yokai]

Wrong on all accounts and full of assumptions. I played with a controller for a long time. What I am speaking from is experience. Using a controller dose nothing but slow down your game play. If playing and reacting slower doesn't bother you, by all means, use it.
I made no assumptions, actually.

Your response to people asking for an improvement of controller support is to tell people to stop using controllers. That is a wholly unhelpful statement, as I previously pointed out. I am not wrong in this, and I have made no assumptions. You offered nothing in your post to help improve the experience of using a controller.

Furthermore, while I did state what I suspect your reasoning for your unhelpful statement was, I made no assumptions. If my suspicions are incorrect, so be it. I accept that.

Furthermore, controller plus keyboard being better or worse than controller alone is an entirely subjective experience, not an objective one. Your experience may differ from that of others. If you have a better experience without a controller, don't use one. That doesn't mean everyone is better off without a controller.

[FrankReynolds]

Wrong on all acounts and full of assumptions. I played with a controller for a long time. What I am speaking from is experience. Using a controller dose nothing but slow down your game play. If playing and reacting slower doesn't bother you, by all means, use it.

erm... I would like proof that your keyboard made you react faster. This reminds me of when I bought my 8 year old niece a new track uniform and she thought it made her go faster.

I find it very hard to believe that your keyboard somehow doubles as a performance enhancing drug. So far as I can tell, most keyboards have a longer key travel than a game pad does thus forcing you to push harder and farther to achieve a button press. About the only thing that I can imagine working better with a keyboard might be macro selection. Even that can very by job / macro arrangement. Pretty much everything else is at your fingertips with a game pad.

[Zhronne]

Alt/Ctrl macro menus are instant from a gamepad, they take a second to appear from the keyboard.

They are instant as long as you use real gamepad configuration of course. If you associate a gamepad button with Alt or Ctrl on your keyboard of course the menu appear speed will be exactely the same.
And this one of the many reasons why we are asking them to update their controller handler, because doing it through software like xpadder (who associates keyboard keys to gamepad buttons) is not the same.

[wildsprite]

Wrong on all acounts and full of assumptions. I played with a controller for a long time. What I am speaking from is experience. Using a controller dose nothing but slow down your game play. If playing and reacting slower doesn't bother you, by all means, use it.

you must have had a really crappy controller then because everyone I know who uses a real PS2/3 or XB360 controller says it helps them react faster except for typing in text responses

[Ladyofdragons]

Bump.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/21706-dev1097-Newly-Added-Control-Config.?p=361380#post361380

[Zhronne]

Everybody who's interested in this, please "Like" the first post. It's the best instrument we have to let community reps and devs know how much we care about this.

[FrankReynolds]

Alt/Ctrl macro menus are instant from a gamepad, they take a second to appear from the keyboard.

They are instant as long as you use real gamepad configuration of course. If you associate a gamepad button with Alt or Ctrl on your keyboard of course the menu appear speed will be exactely the same.
And this one of the many reasons why we are asking them to update their controller handler, because doing it through software like xpadder (who associates keyboard keys to gamepad buttons) is not the same.

I was stretching to find some benefit. If you had set your macros to where things were far enough apart, it might...just maybe... be just a sliver of a second faster to hit ALT + macro than to hit the bumper and arrow over to the macro on your controller. But that would be extremely rare and not really worth swapping to keyboard only for.

maybe if you were this guy it would make sense:

http://static.themetapicture.com/media/funny-nerd-room-computer.jpg

[Zhronne]

bumpity bump!

[Zhronne]

kupo-bump!

[FrankReynolds]

They seriously need to do something about this. I refuse to buy another POS Logitech controller when I have a bunch of perfectly good 360 controllers laying around.

[Zhronne]

another small kupo-bump hoping for some loving

[Zhronne]

More bumps for some attention from the Devs.
Thanks!

[wildsprite]

another bump for attention from the Devs

[Midorikaze]

Bumpty-bump. Rawr~!

[Traxus]

The annoying thing about using third party drivers like XBCD is, a lot of modern games have direct/automatic support for the default xbox 360 pad drivers. Meaning, you plug it in, and it's automatically configured and works right away. When you're using the third party drivers as a round about way of playing FFXI, you miss out on this, and you end up having to make further workarounds to play your other games properly, or frequently swap drivers.

So yeah, it would be nice if the triggers worked properly in FFXI in the first place, without having to deal with any of that nonsense.

[wildsprite]

The annoying thing about using third party drivers like XBCD is, a lot of modern games have direct/automatic support for the default xbox 360 pad drivers. Meaning, you plug it in, and it's automatically configured and works right away. When you're using the third party drivers as a round about way of playing FFXI, you miss out on this, and you end up having to make further workarounds to play your other games properly, or frequently swap drivers.

So yeah, it would be nice if the triggers worked properly in FFXI in the first place, without having to deal with any of that nonsense.

true but we don't expect them to auto configure it, just to give us native xinput support as an option, I'm okay with configuring the buttons myself, its not like I haven't done it several times already

[odericko]

Windows 8 has an automatic signed driver feature that won't let you install 3rd party drivers for the 360 gamepad unless you disable UAC. And if I disable UAC I can't use Windows 8 metro interface, and that's not a loss I'm willing to take. I hope SE adds trigger support for the 360 gamepad at least. :(

[wildsprite]

Windows 8 has an automatic signed driver feature that won't let you install 3rd party drivers for the 360 gamepad unless you disable UAC. And if I disable UAC I can't use Windows 8 metro interface, and that's not a loss I'm willing to take. I hope SE adds trigger support for the 360 gamepad at least. :(
seriously? if you disable UAC it disables metro? that's ridiculous, at first when MS went ahead and released windows 8 I thought they lost their marbles, but this tells me they really did

[Traxus]

true but we don't expect them to auto configure it, just to give us native xinput support as an option, I'm okay with configuring the buttons myself, its not like I haven't done it several times already

I'm not saying FFXI should autoconfigure the buttons. I'm just agreeing FFXI should support the triggers while using the official drivers, since using third party drivers such as the XBCD ones create additional problems in other games, that would normally work fine with the MS drivers.

[Voltorb]

Windows 8 has an automatic signed driver feature that won't let you install 3rd party drivers for the 360 gamepad unless you disable UAC. And if I disable UAC I can't use Windows 8 metro interface, and that's not a loss I'm willing to take. I hope SE adds trigger support for the 360 gamepad at least. :(

Currently I am using Windows 8 x64 with Masahiko Morii's drivers. I was trying to read through your posts in this thread but it appears you haven't been able to get it working properly. Please update me if I am mistaken.

I do not use the Metro Interface (but I can access it through the start menu, using Classic Start, and I have access to Metro. I do not recall the exact steps I did but let me outline it if I were to perform this setup again:
- Install Classic Start
- Disable UAC
- Install Masahiko Morii Drivers
- Then google: Disable Driver Signature Enforcement in Windows 8 (should be 1st link with instructions) [This may be the only step you need actually, though I am not 100% sure.]

I wrote a .bat script instead to bring me to the option instead of going through all those steps to boot into Advanced Startup. Just write it in notepad and save it as .bat and double click on the file: shutdown -o -r -t 0

Not sure if this is what you're looking for. I would not play this game unless I have Masahiko's drivers...searched all over to find his drivers again after I came back from a 4 year break. This game is far more responsive with a controller, it's like night and day. Accessing menus, macros, selecting targets is far more responsive on a gamepad than a keyboard.

[Zhronne]

Moogle bump! :D

[RAIST]

surprised this thread hasn't been flagged by the moderators yet for the bumping....it's generally frowned upon.

As for Xinput integration....the problem is likely bound to them using the DX8 structure. Xinput is DX9. I think it is also still using the DX8 calls for sound too...that's another component that has gone through some serious revision as well (a shift away from direct hardware access and such).

Uless SE gives it a hefty overhaul to get away from some of these legacy interfaces, we will run into weird issues like this.

[Zhronne]

At this point it's probably pretty useless for us to bump this (or the other) thread.
Still I came up with a cool solution which is not a real "solution" for our problem, but it's still a decent compromise.

http://www.speedlink.com/?p=2&cat=4131&pid=25492&paus=1

This gamepad for PC has a specific setting that allows it to work both in Xinput and in Dinput modes.
This grants it full compatibility with ALL games. Xinput for recent ones, and Dinput for very old ones like FFXI.
With a pad like this, if you set it on "Dinput" mode you'll be able to use all buttons even in FFXI.
Then set it on "Xinput" and use all buttons on FFXIV too or any other recent game.

I'm seriously considering to buy it since SE, it's pretty clear now, will never do anything to "fix" this issue of ours. (not like it would have been easy to fix it, to be honest, but still...)

[RAIST]

eh.... if you still have a PS2 controller, can nab one of the USB converters. Can find them on the web for under $10. I have one that will actually accept the old XB and even GC controllers, and also provides extra USB ports. I've even used it to hook up my PS2 controller to the PS3 (it looses some functionality, but it is still usable for some things).

[Edit:] Oh, and I used this same PS2 > PC setup just fine with the FFXIV Beta as well.