Entertainment is one of the functions of modern computers, which has long become a priority for many users. Those who do not want to buy an Xbox or PS for these purposes try to make their devices as powerful as possible - top-end video cards, fast processors and a huge amount of RAM on board - this is not a complete “spec list” of gaming computers. But even the most powerful configuration will not give you the full experience of your favorite game if you do not have a good control module.
This is why all kinds of joysticks and controllers are in such great demand - with their help you can fully enjoy your favorite game without resorting to buying expensive consoles. But, unfortunately, many users do not know how to connect the device to a computer, even after purchasing such a device.

Today we will try to correct this misunderstanding by telling you in detail how to set up a joystick on a PC or laptop.

You will need:

Connection

We take the device out of the box and unwind the wire. Connecting this device is simple - insert the joystick plug into the USB port on the computer.

The automatic process of searching and installing drivers will begin. If the joypad came with a software disc, be sure to install it. It may contain the necessary drivers or software for the device to function correctly.

Installation

After making sure that the software is installed and the system recognizes the joystick, you can proceed to setting it up. To do this, open the “Start” menu and select the “Control Panel” section.

We are interested in the joypad - click on its icon twice. A menu will appear in front of us in which we will need to assign operating buttons and axes of the device.

Settings

Click opposite the name of a specific key on the game controller and manually on the keyboard perform the action that the joypad should perform in the game.

When finished, save the changes. It is possible to create multiple sets of key values.

For example, you purchased a joystick for FIFA 2012 and Mortal Combat. In order not to reassign buttons manually each time, you can simply change the ready set by confirming the changes.

Computer joysticks, although not as popular as in past years, are still quite widely used for a variety of games and applications. Joysticks are great for some games, such as some first-person shooter games and flight simulators, where it is not very convenient to use a keyboard and mouse for normal gameplay. However, the mechanical parts of the joystick tend to wear out over time and its center position may shift. This is expressed in the fact that during the game, if, for example, you play a flight simulator, the plane constantly moves in one direction, even if you do not touch the joystick. In addition to all this, users have reported problems adapting old joysticks to Microsoft Windows 7. Calibrating the joystick will help establish a new center position and improve the game.

So, to configure the joystick in the Windows 7 operating system, you will need to do the following:

STEP 1.

Make sure the joystick is properly connected to your computer and turned on (if wireless).

STEP 2.

Open the Windows Control Panel. To do this, click "Start" (1 ), then go to the section "Control Panel" (2 ).

Note. The path to the controls may vary depending on how your version of Windows is configured. However, "Control Panel" can usually be found in the section "My computer".

STEP 3.

Click on the tab "Devices and Printers" (1 ).

STEP 4.

Left-click once on the joystick icon ( 1 ). Below in the window ( 2 ) its model and category should be displayed "Gaming Devices".

If your joystick does not appear, make sure it is connected correctly and the USB connector is working on your computer. If there are free USB connectors, try connecting to another one.

STEP 5.

Right-click the joystick image once and select tab "Game Controller Settings".

STEP 6.

In the window that appears "Gaming Devices", press the button "Properties", and then in the window that appears, tab "Options".

STEP 7.

Follow the on-screen device calibration wizard instructions.

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A gamepad (joystick in common parlance) is an extremely convenient tool for games. Most modern PC projects in the gaming industry are designed to work specifically with the Xbox 360 or Xbox One controller. There are small exceptions when the game is also able to distinguish a Sony gamepad, but this is very rare.

However, what if you don’t have expensive accessories like a Microsoft or Sony gamepad? Let's say that you purchased a completely ordinary gamepad from a not very popular company, for example, DeTech, which modern games simply refuse to detect. How to set up a joystick on a PC for games of this type?

To play games on a PC, you don’t need to have a gamepad from a popular company: you can configure any gamepad to work properly. It is in this article that we will look at various ways to configure conventional joysticks.

How to set up a joystick on a PC for games?

So, you have at your disposal an inexpensive but good gamepad that is not registered in any way by any modern toy. Why is this happening? The thing is that most inexpensive gamepads are made using the DirectInput input standard, which will allow you to reassign buttons on the device.

Most games are designed to work with devices using the XInput standard, which ensures full compatibility with the Xbox 360 gamepad. Simply put, a gamepad with XInput input will be detected in almost every game (yes, there are exceptions) as an Xbox 360 gamepad. DirectInput gamepad. accordingly, it won’t. Yes, in some games it will be able to be identified as a control device, but setting up the joystick control in this case will be incredibly problematic, and sometimes even impossible.

Don’t throw your DirectInput joystick in the trash and run out and buy a branded device, right? Right! Using a program called x360ce, you can make all games think that you have an Xbox 360 gamepad connected.

First, you need to go to the official website of the developer of this emulator (that’s exactly what it is) and download it to your computer. First of all, you need to decide what bit size your game is. All modern games are 64-bit applications, while most older games are 32-bit. After downloading the desired version of the x360ce emulator, place its executable file (x360ce_x64.exe or x360ce.exe) in the folder with the game executable file.

Ok, we did it. Okay, now you need to configure the emulator itself to work in the game with your gamepad. Connect the gamepad to your computer and run the x360ce emulator executive file, located in the folder with your game. The following x360ce emulator window should open in front of you:

The emulator will tell you that the xiput1_3.dll file is required for it to work correctly and will prompt you to create it. Click on the “Create” button to have the emulator create this file in your game folder. Next, you should see something like the following picture:

Check the box next to “Search for settings automatically,” as well as the box next to the “Search the Internet” option. Then click on the “Next” button, after which the following window should appear in front of you if everything went as it should:

Now you should see a window with settings for the layout of the gamepad buttons. Take the connected gamepad in your hands and try to press a few buttons on it, if everything went well, you will see button press signals. If not, then in the “Controller” tab you will see a red square and no click signals.

If this situation occurs to you, then of course you can start trying to set different profiles for the controller in the layout settings, but we recommend that you simply collect the layout and then configure it yourself. To do this, click on the “Clear” button, after which you will get a clean screen like this:

Now all you have to do is assign each button to your gamepad individually. To do this, click on the button's drop-down menu, select "Record" (with a red circle), and then press the button on the gamepad to assign it to the selected location. You should get something like this (depending on the gamepad):

Assign the keys to your controller to match those on your Xbox 360 controller. Once you're done, click on the "Save" button and close the x360ce emulator window. Then launch the game you need and make sure that the emulator settings have been made correctly.

That's all. Using the x360ce emulator, you can make many video games think that a regular gamepad connected to your computer is an Xbox 360 gamepad. Finally, I would like to point out one more small aspect of this whole problem: some gamepads are able to switch between DirectInput and XInput modes, for example, some Device models from Logitech are capable of this.

If you have such a gamepad at your disposal, then you do not need to use the x360ce emulator or other software - just switch it to XInput mode and all games will think that an Xbox 360 gamepad is connected to your PC.

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