[Feature request] Override hardcoded game input deadzone

[dsg22]

A lot of games have a hardcoded, sometimes huge, input deadzone for controllers. It would be great if Special K could work around this by adding a user-configured amount to the XInput stick values returned to the game.

Steam has a good implementation for this, it allows configuring two things:

• The game deadzone to null out as above
• A "deadzone buffer" which effectively becomes the new deadzone. Values > game_deadzone but < (game_deadzone + deadzone_buffer) return 0.

[Kaldaien]

Special K already has this for XInput and DualSense/DualShock4 native games, for the other direction anyway.
I updated that to work correctly with SDL/Unity engine games in 25.9.4.1.

SK deadzones those APIs at 5% by default. It is generally adequate without causing major problems on DualSense/DualShock (they only have 8-bit analog input).

The feature you are asking for, I would need some example games to better understand and develop a test for. It is simple to detect when they are not applying one and getting stick drift problems, but the opposite would need some kind of repeatable test procedure and I do not know any games afflicted by oversized deadzones.

[dsg22]

One example is the game I'm playing now, Phoenix Point. The input is much smoother after I set Anti-Deadzone to 6000 and Anti-Deadzone Buffer to 500 (both in the ingame steam overlay under Controller Settings -> Edit Layout -> Joysticks -> the cog icon next to either stick -> Show Advanced Deadzone Options).

Another example is Fallout: New Vegas. The deadzone isn't as big there, but still setting Anti-Deadzone to 3000 makes a huge difference for aiming accuracy.

I guess they use these large deadzones because there are controllers out there that need them. But since I treat my Xbox One controllers well, their real deadzone is tiny.