Using joystick under Mac OS X

[alkopop79]

Just got a spanking new Logitech Extreme 3D Pro and works perfectly. Before using the joystick HAS TO BE SET UP in the Settings-> Input section. Though I'v read others complaining about the lack of support for OS X, this joystick (and I assume any other USB device) works just fine, without driver. Happy new year, friends!

[Cydonian Monk]

Same results here with the 3D Pro - minimal setup and it just worked. When it comes to gamepads, though, OS-X does not have native support for things like the XBox360 controller, but finding help is just a Google (or a Bing) away.

[timis101]

Can you guys explain how you set it up i got mine and it recognizes the buttons in setting but not the actual movement of the stick

[Brotoro]

I got a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro after seeing this thread, and it does indeed work well without any special drivers, once you get the settings correct.

Now I just need to figure out the best functions to assign to all these buttons.

[Cydonian Monk]

I've basically settled on the following:

On Joystick: RCS Translation left/right/up/down on the hat, RCS On/Off on the top left button (5), SAS On/Off on the top right button (6), SAS Forward/Back on the bottom left/right buttons (3/4), Fine mode on the thumb button (2), SAS Hold on the trigger (which is more of a holdover to the old SAS logic than anything, and may not be useful anymore).

Off Joystick: That's what the keyboard is for, though I've used the 7-12 keys for a multitude of things such as Map View toggle, lights, landing gear.... But since I play on a laptop those keys are always right in front of me and I rarely (never) used them on the joystick.

[Brotoro]

Yeah, I put RCS translation (left, right, up, down) on the hat, but I use button 4 for RCS backward and button 6 for RCS forward since it seemed more forward/backward.

I kept accidentally hitting that thumb button (#2), so I put Lights on that (since it's innocuous if accidentally pressed). I have Brakes on the trigger since I never activate any weapons.

The buttons on the side are (top row):

8 - landing gear

10 - SAS toggle

12 - RCS toggle

(bottom row):

7 - Map view

9 - SAS hold (I still find it useful when driving rovers)

11 - Throttle cutoff

I would have liked the rover forward/backward to be on the throttle control, but then I'd have to keep remembering to turn off all other rocket/jet engines on my rover (which is inconvinient on my BirdDog airplane/rovers)… So I currently have rover forward/backward on the main pitch motion of the stick, but also on 5 and 3 buttons on top. Neither is very satisfactory.

Being able to yaw and roll simultaneously by tilting and twisting the stick is cool (although I saw somebody in a thread saying stick twist control was the work of the devil, or whatever), but I do have to set up a moderately wide dead zone on the twist control so I don't accidentally do it. That may be because my stick is situated too far off to the side at a bad angle on my desk.

I hardly ever used the arrow keys to control my view direction, but I find them very useful when using the joystick since trying to use both stick and mouse simultaneously is difficult.