fixed Strange deadzone with throttle axis

[ataribaby]

I don't know if I made something wrong but throttle axis have strange deadzone at the beginning. I need move throttle past first 1/3 roughly till actual throttle starts moving. I have Warthog throttle and checked Axis Fine tune settings and all normal there.

Anyone else notcied this?

[KL0083]

Same,also on Warthog,too late to exit idle and too early enter AB before hit the detent.

[Hawkeye91]

It’s because part of the axis in game is used for the idle cutoff portion of the throttle range. So that first bit of your throttle is used to move from cut off to idle when starting.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Hawkeye91

[RedeyeStorm]

1 hour ago, Hawkeye91 said:

It’s because part of the axis in game is used for the idle cutoff portion of the throttle range. So that first bit of your throttle is used to move from cut off to idle when starting.

 

No it is not so. If that where true then pulling the throttle all the way back would shut down the engine and that doesn’t happen. I operate the Warthog as well.

When you use the standard linear profile the throttle starts to work from the start but halfway through the physical movement of the Warthog throttle you hit the simulated afterburner stop. I set up manual curves that makes me hit full militairy at the Warthog afterburner detent but then you get the 1/3 empty travel on the Warthog throttle at the start. Something is off.

[Jo Le Trembleur]

42 minutes ago, RedeyeStorm said:

When you use the standard linear profile the throttle starts to work from the start but halfway through the physical movement of the Warthog throttle you hit the simulated afterburner stop. I set up manual curves that makes me hit full militairy at the Warthog afterburner detent but then you get the 1/3 empty travel on the Warthog throttle at the start. Something is off.

You're right, same here, also with Warthog. A little bit disturbing in the lower RPM range.

[ataribaby]

Thanks for confirm, so it is not just me or my Warthog. Part of beginning for throttle axis is strangely "stolen".

[Rongor]

I can confirm there is a gap with the Virpil throttle MT-50CM3 too. Lever in cockpit commences moving visually only beyond 22% of my hardware lever. Since with Virpil you have to use a deadzone to implement a cutoff zone according to your attached hardware detent, the true threshold should be around 13 % (as my deadzone needs the first 10% of the lever range.)

So an additional software zone is there, but it's not much (13%)...

Edited July 24, 2022 by Rongor

[Hawkeye91]

8 hours ago, RedeyeStorm said:

No it is not so. If that where true then pulling the throttle all the way back would shut down the engine and that doesn’t happen. I operate the Warthog as well.

When you use the standard linear profile the throttle starts to work from the start but halfway through the physical movement of the Warthog throttle you hit the simulated afterburner stop. I set up manual curves that makes me hit full militairy at the Warthog afterburner detent but then you get the 1/3 empty travel on the Warthog throttle at the start. Something is off.

No because it’s hitting the cutoff stop. Literally if you have the throttle in cutoff you can move it in the cutoff region with no deadzone.

Try this:
Move your physical throttle back just until the ingame throttle hits the idle/cutoff stop. Click the cutoff lock lever. If you pull your physical throttle back to its idle stop, it will move the ingame throttle passed idle/cutoff to cutoff. This is that deadzone everyone is talking about.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Hawkeye91

[RedeyeStorm]

1 hour ago, Hawkeye91 said:

No because it’s hitting the cutoff stop. Literally if you have the throttle in cutoff you can move it in the cutoff region with no deadzone.

Try this:
Move your physical throttle back just until the ingame throttle hits the idle/cutoff stop. Click the cutoff lock lever. If you pull your physical throttle back to its idle stop, it will move the ingame throttle passed idle/cutoff to cutoff. This is that deadzone everyone is talking about.

 

No it’s really not. The Warthog also has a detent at the beginning of its travel. I have it actually programmed as idle cutoff. When I lift the throttle over this detent I get the full range of movement but only once. Moving the throttle after that is giving the problem IF you use manual curves based on the Warthogs afterburner detent. I have made my share of operator errors but this isn’t one off them.

As far as your ‘try this’ is concerned. I can only say that the virtual throttle is at it’s detent but the physical throttle still has to go a third of it’s journey to the detent position. So not the same.

[schmiefel]

+1

I have the VPC CM3 and it has the same 'deadzone' after coming out of the cut-off into idle until it reacts - that's with a curve that I use to get the AB kick in at the detent (at about 80% with my config) and not at half of its throttle range.

Another thing: the AB seems to have some kind of two stages, but I never get the second one kick in even when moving it to the max range - or does this depend on the flight envelope or height?

[TheSkipjack95]

Today's patch improves the throttle response thanks to the AB detent, but there's still a deadzone near idle/cutoff.

[sedenion]

Hi,

The first part of the axis has a relatively large dead zone (see picture bellow) which will amputate a part of the physical device precision.

[EDIT: edited to let only Dead Zone problem, since the AB detent problem was solved with latest update]

Edited July 30, 2022 by sedenion
edited to let only Dead Zone problem, since the AB detent problem was solved with latest update

[MAXsenna]

That is true. But you can set your afterburner manually now. I have set it to 72, that's where I hit the detent, and when I push through and over the notch, the AB lights. If you watch the animation, you'll notice that the AB doesn't light straight away, when lifting the quadrant handle.

But I agree about the initial "deadzone" of the throttle travel. Wish we could have cutoff/idle, on/else off implemented like it is in other modules, so we can get rid of the deadzone, and rather have the "travelzone" back for better fidelity. 

Cheers!

EDIT: I use no curves. Seems unnecessary for me. 

Edited July 30, 2022 by MAXsenna

[silverdevil]

nullthis is what i am using for the F1. seems to work. i used a video from redkite for F16 and i did same process for F1.

[Ala13_ManOWar]

As per your words, do you understand it's a hardware problem (Warthog here either), not a module problem if they just modelled whatever the response it is in the real thing, right? On top of that, how could they possibly held in account every single hardware behaviour in the World?

 

Second thing, I keep listening people saying that there's a "dead zone", I believe (Warthog either, remember) I don't recall any dead zone but a low response area which is useless even for taxiing, yes, and that area is widened due to detent tweaking, yes, but to my recall even being so low responding the engine rpm are moving in that area of the throttle, so it's not "nothing is happening" as a real dead zone should be. Anyhow and whatever it is, if you don't like that just cut that part of the curve and you'll be fine as you did, personally I wouldn't cur that since those low response areas on the ground might be not so numb at higher altitudes or just some different scenario, but that's only everyone's choice.

 

Third, no, the curve cut doesn't amputate your "precision". On the contrary, you're more precise if you have more room to choose from, not the other way around. If you had less room to choose from it would be more sensitive and more difficult to choose an exact throttle input, but the way it is you have less sensitiveness, so it's easier to choose an exact input more precisely, not the opposite.

 

Four. Apparently when you made your correction curve you didn't even consider in trying to make the "curve" as straight as possible. Try to use a peak for AB detent place, and the rest of the curve, before and after the peak, the straightest you can to see how that kind of response works for you.

[sedenion]

40 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

That is true. But you can set your afterburner manually now. I have set it to 72.

Sorry, how do you did that ?

 

[Sarge55]

They implemented an adjustment slider in Options with the last update.  It is in the Misc tab IIRC.  Don't forget to tick the On/Off box as well as adjust the slider.

I have a Warthog and I set 72 for the detent.  It's easy to see the handle move into AB in game so easy to make fine adjustments to get it right.

[sedenion]

41 minutes ago, Ala13_ManOWar said:

As per your words, do you understand it's a hardware problem (Warthog here either), not a module problem

The deadzone is a module problem. I mentioned all module need axis tune, but here the tune is, to me, problematic, especially the fact that almost half of the valid throttle travel, giving useless precision on afterburner reducing precision in non-AB, where you need it, for landing for example.
 

46 minutes ago, Ala13_ManOWar said:

Second thing, I keep listening people saying that there's a "dead zone", I believe (Warthog either, remember) I don't recall any dead zone but a low response area which is useless even for taxiing, yes, and that area is widened due to detent tweaking, yes, but to my recall even being so low responding the engine rpm are moving in that area of the throttle, so it's not "nothing is happening" as a real dead zone should be. Anyhow and whatever it is, if you don't like that just cut that part of the curve and you'll be fine as you did, personally I wouldn't cur that since those low response areas on the ground might be not so numb at higher altitudes or just some different scenario, but that's only everyone's choice.

I don't know what you are talking about. The deadzone I speak about is clear and obvious: The first part of the axis course do not move the in-game throttle, so, the first part of the axis is simply ignored by the software. There is a software implemented deadzone. I don't know why, but this has nothing to do with taxiing or engine response consideration.

52 minutes ago, Ala13_ManOWar said:

Third, no, the curve cut doesn't amputate your "precision". On the contrary, you're more precise if you have more room to choose from, not the other way around.

The deadzone amputate precision, the curve make the input/output response non-linear (definition of a curve) which is counter-intuitive and makes the throttle adjustment less fluid. A little bended curve is not a problem, but here, with 25% curvature and 15% amputated throttle move, this become clearly non-natural.

58 minutes ago, Ala13_ManOWar said:

Four. Apparently when you made your correction curve you didn't even consider in trying to make the "curve" as straight as possible. Try to use a peak for AB detent place, and the rest of the curve, before and after the peak, the straightest you can to see how that kind of response works for you.

If no modifications were made by developers, this is what I will do. Anyway, I let here the problem of the deadzone (which is not hardware specific) et let developpers hear my opinion about the dry vs AB ratio in axis range.

8 minutes ago, Sarge55 said:

They implemented an adjustment slider in Options with the last update.  It is in the Misc tab IIRC.  Don't forget to tick the On/Off box as well as adjust the slider.

I have a Warthog and I set 72 for the detent.  It's easy to see the handle move into AB in game so easy to make fine adjustments to get it right.

Ok, sorry, I was not aware a new version was available... I check this out.

[sedenion]

41 minutes ago, Sarge55 said:

They implemented an adjustment slider in Options with the last update.  It is in the Misc tab IIRC.  Don't forget to tick the On/Off box as well as adjust the slider.

I have a Warthog and I set 72 for the detent.  It's easy to see the handle move into AB in game so easy to make fine adjustments to get it right.

Ok Indeed found the option. For information I have to set it to 78 on my side. Anyway, the dead zone problem still here.

[Ala13_ManOWar]

18 hours ago, sedenion said:

Ok Indeed found the option. For information I have to set it to 78 on my side. Anyway, the dead zone problem still here.

Have you tried calibrating the throttle again? But don't use windows calibration, there is a Thrustmaster tool for the purpose working quite well,

https://deltasimelectronics.com/pages/install-instructions

There it is the calibration tool DL, it's a public tool though not publicly available by TM, they only send you the tool once you have contacted support for any reason, spare part replacement and the like. Try it, your detent place will "move" again, but the throttle axis will have a tighter response.

 

P.S.: as said, if they modelled just the actual throttle/engine response how it is in the real thing it's not any "problem", it is just like that. You don't liking how the aircraft throttle response is is a problem, imagine not liking it when you fly the real thing and telling Dassault they have a bug

Edited July 31, 2022 by Ala13_ManOWar

[MAXsenna]

@Ala13_ManOWar

Mine is perfectly calibrated, did it when I received my DS upgrade, so that is not the problem. 

IF we could have the idle/cutoff implemented for the Warthog, it might go away. Right know, when I bring the throttle out of cutoff, it moves 1cm, (quite a few degrees in other words), before it starts moving the throttle in the game.

Now, I do understand why it works like this. And that is because the are simulating the whole travel of the throttle, and the cutoff is part of it, but they got the travel wrong IMHO. It's very easy to see when you move the your physical throttle and watch the throttle in the game. Press "I" for good measure to get it in cutoff, and you really notice what's going on.  

Cheers! 

[Ala13_ManOWar]

Yeah, maybe that either. But whenever anything happens the first thing to rule out is own hardware and settings   .

[Aernov]

Many other modules use keybinds to get the throttle out of cutoff position/range, or require small throttle controller movement forward and back to move in-cockpit lever out of cutoff. This allows us to use the entire controller travel. Isn't real in-cockpit throttle kinda works like that too? You move it out of cutoff, and it won't let you to just go back in cutoff unless some locking mechanism is disengaged (like that red flap below the throttle in F1), thus practically eliminating lever travel through cutoff zone from in-flight operational travel.

[MAXsenna]

4 minutes ago, Ala13_ManOWar said:

Yeah, maybe that either. But whenever anything happens the first thing to rule out is own hardware and settings   .

True! But I understand what @sedenion is talking about. Hopefully this will be an option like the AB detent.
Because now I thoroughly tested. If I bring back the throttle, and then press "I". It goes into cutoff. Now, if I move throttle forward, there is NO dead zone as I bring it to idle. But now it gets a "dead zone", because the "cutoff" is not part of the travel anymore, or one would have issues by cutting it off all the time.
So, this is by design, and I hope they change it for those of us who have physical throttles with physical idle/cutoff detents.

Cheers!

9 minutes ago, Aernov said:

Many other modules use keybinds to get the throttle out of cutoff position/range, or require small throttle controller movement forward and back to move in-cockpit lever out of cutoff. This allows us to use the entire controller travel. Isn't real in-cockpit throttle kinda works like that too? You move it out of cutoff, and it won't let you to just go back in cutoff unless some locking mechanism is disengaged (like that red flap below the throttle in F1), thus practically eliminating lever travel through cutoff zone from in-flight operational travel.

Yes, this is exactly how they have done it!
Hopefully, they will change it later with  different options.

Cheers!

[Aernov]

I think our desktop throttle controller has full in-cockpit throttle lever range, including cutoff zone. Currently on cold start throttle is placed at idle for some reason (shouldn't it cause overtemp or fire on startup?), if you put it in cutoff by pressing the cutoff flap underneath the lever, it goes back and starts moving without percieved deadzone until it goes over the cutoff lock. Then it won't normally go behind that lock position while our controller is not locked out of cutoff range and goes fully back, thus giving this perceived deadzone.

-idle position

-cutoff position

 

EDIT: MAXsenna already described this

Edited July 31, 2022 by Aernov