raphael’s devblog

There have been a lot of tutorials around now, explaining how to install Joysens. However, there is still some kind of mistery about how to actually set it up, so it solves your personal issues with the PSP’s analog nub.

Wording convention: ‘NOTE’ is the small sound on/off button at the bottom of your PSP, ‘SCREEN’ is the display on/off button at the bottom of your PSP.

Attention: When editing joysens.ini from Windows, make sure you use a text editor that is capable of reading UNIX style line endings (LF only). WordPad for example is capable, Notepad however isn’t.

1. The cursor/character moves up/down/left/right without me touching the analog

This is the common problem, that people have after they unwillingly dropped their psp, changed their faceplate, etc. However, Joysens is perfectly fit for fixing such an issue with a few simple steps.

First, you need to examine exactly, whether your cursor just moves into one single direction (even diagonally) all the time, or jumps around in random directions.

• If it moves in one single direction, the solution is to recenter the analog stick. There are two ways to get this done, one is semi-automatic, the other is manually.
  For the semi-automatic method, you have to follow these steps:
  1. Move the analog stick around a little in random directions, then let it rest (don’t touch it)
  2. Press NOTE+SQUARE
  3. Repeat from step 1 a few times
  4. Press NOTE+CIRCLE to save the settings

  For the manual method, follow these steps:

  1. Press NOTE+TRIANGLE so the info output shows on the screens top-left corner
  2. Closely watch the first lines first coordinate pair (enclosed in <> brackets)
  3. Try to read out the maximal and minimal values reached, when the analog stick is not touched
  4. Calculate the average [(max+min)/2] for both coordinate axes
  5. Open joysens.ini in SEPLUGINS folder
  6. In the [SETTINGS] section, set the center value to your averaged coordinate pair (e.g. <-12,10>)
  7. Save joysens.ini and restart your PSP

  Now, go check your analog stick if it still moves in the one single direction, or if it starts to go into random directions equally. If it does, go on with the next steps, else repeat the semi-automatic centering method or the manual method.

• If your cursor moves into random directions equally, the solution is to ‘clean out the deadzone’ by setting the adjust parameter. By default, the adjust value is set to 3.0, which is a pretty good value for the average errors that the psp analog nub produces. Since yours doesn’t want to sit still when untouched yet, you have to increase this parameter step by step, until the random movement starts to disappear. You can increase/decrease the adjust value in 0.1 steps by pressing NOTE+UP and NOTE+DOWN. To check the current value, press NOTE+TRIANGLE to show the information text in the top-left corner of the screen. When you found a good value, press NOTE+CIRCLE to save the settings. Note: The adjust value is only saved for the current context, e.g. the current game running or the VSH (the PSP OS interface). To save the setting globally, you have to set the value in the joysens.ini file in the [SETTINGS] section.

To check your analog stick, press NOTE+TRIANGLE and watch the second coordinate pair in the first line, while not touching your analog stick. If everything went right, it should stay at <0, 0> all the time.

2. The cursor/character doesn’t want to move up/down/left/right, no matter how much I push the analog nub

This is the second most issue one can get, possibly also after fixing the first issue. This is due to the analog stick not ’scaling’ correctly, i.e. it returns very small values, even when pushed to the extremes.

This problem again can be solved by an semi-automatic and a manual method.
For the semi-automatic method, follow these steps:

1. Press NOTE+SCREEN
2. Move the analog stick around in circles, as you normally would in a game without too much pressure
3. Press NOTE+SCREEN
4. Press NOTE+CIRCLE to save the settings

For the manual method, follow these steps:

1. Press NOTE+TRIANGLE to show the info output
2. Move the anlog stick around in circles slowly, watching the first coordinate pair in the first line
3. Find the minimal and maximal values in each coordinate axis
4. Open joysens.ini in SEPLUGINS directory
5. In the [SETTINGS] section, set the min and max parameters to the values you retrieved (e.g. min = <-114, -128>, max = <127, 109>)
6. Save joysens.ini and restart your PSP

Now check your analog sticks behaviour if it fits and repeat the steps above if not. You can also check the correct behaviour by pressing NOTE+TRIANGLE and checking the second coordinate pair in the first line. If everything is set correctly, it should give minimal values of <-128, -128> and maximal values of <127, 127> when pushing the analog stick to the extremes.

3. I want to control game X with the analog stick/change controls between analog/d-pad/round buttons

One of the usability features of joysens, that makes your life easier, when your favorite game just won’t let you set the controls to your likings. For this, joysens offers a simple remap method, that forwards or swaps the input from one of analog/d-pad/buttons to another.

Following modes are supported:

To set your remap mode, press NOTE+START repeatedly until your wanted remap mode is set. Now press NOTE+CIRCLE to save the settings.

Note: You can set the remap mode for each game individually. Each game you save settings in, will create a new section in the joysens.ini file, with the name of the UMD Game ID. Within that section, you can also set the enable, adjust, smooth and sensitivity values to fit the needs of that specific game (i.e. you could turn off joysens for one game completely, or make the analog stick react much more sensitive).