Pinball FX3 – Custom Controller Settings for Steam Games

Guide for Pinball FX3 – Custom Controller Settings for Steam Games

Intro

Hey there, 
 
I’m kinda borderline retarded when it comes to a “perfect” feeling for in-game controls. 
Racing and pinball games especially give me a headache with fine tuning. 
Tools like Joy2Key or XPadder work great, but they couldn’t help me with an*log sensitivity and deadzones. 
Steam actually had everything I wanted all along! 
 

System and Steam Settings

Drivers, Applications and System Interna 
 
Windows basically does everything through Plug’n’Play, so we should be fine driver-wise. 
I had to uninstall the application for my Xbox One Controller (brand PDP) and disable Joy2Key. 
I recommend to remove and or disable any pre-installed apps that come with your device and/or Windows, specifically the Xbox Game Bar (or DVR), so nothing is in harms way. 
(♥♥♥♥ Xbox Live. No, seriously…♥♥♥♥ it!) 
 
Steam Settings 
 
Select the device you want to use in Steam. 
In my case it shows up like this. 
 
 
 
 
 
I deleted everything in Big Picture Configuration, Desktop Configuration and Guide Button Chord Configuration since I don’t need any of that. 
You should ignore everything else for now, but feel free to set everything as you want it. 
 
Ingame Settings 
 
It is necessary that the Steam Ingame Overlay is activated, so you can access the controller settings for your games individually. 
It is also accessible through the Steam Settings, also make sure to have a hotkey (to open the Steam Overlay) bound. 
 

Controller Settings

I will customize my controls for Pinball FX3, as it covers almost all possibilities the Steam settings offer. 
 
Open the Controller Configuration via Overlay 
 
 
 
This window should pop up now. 
 
 
 
From here you can access all buttons and sticks on your device, import predefined game settings from the community or save/export your own settings. 
 

Left Analog Stick Settings

For Pinball FX3, lets start with the left an*log stick. 
 
Personally I’d like to use it for nudging the table, additionally to the D-Pad, with a little more control of nudging directions. 
Simply click the left stick on the displayed device (in my case the Xbox One controller) and 
this window should come up: 
 
 
 
Go to additional settings to see the magical things Valve offers to us! 
 
 
 
I’ve set the Dead Zone Shape to circle and the Response Curve to Aggressive, so nudging won’t become too “soft”. 
 
 
 
To make nudging even more “effective”, I reduced the Dead Zone Outer line a little. 
 
Since I'm a lazy bastard, I'll leave you alone with the description the devs gave us for every setting in the big textbox (above). Most settings are pretty self explanatory anyways, plus I can't explain things better than they already did and "YES!", they did one for every possible button/stick/trigger/possibility/thingamajig.  
 

Right Analog Stick Settings

There are many tables which require a delicate ball launch to hit some skill shots and 
pressing “A” to launch just won’t do. 
To make this possible, just proceed to Additional Settings of the right an*log stick. 
Since this basically requires only half of one axis and for maximum control, I’ve selected “Cross” as Dead Zone Shape 
 
 
 
and “Wide” for the Stick Response Curve. 
 
 
 
Also I maxed out the Inner and Outer Dead Zone: 
 
 
 
Please take note that this setting highly depends on framerate, straight to the point where it almost seems futile. Basically, the lower the ingame FPS, the higher the impact on launch control. At least on my setup it seems that at 100+ FPS, moving the stick at the slightest has nearly the same effect as just pushing "A" to launch and I couldn't find a way to make it more sensitive. Even the Sensitivity Vertical Scale setting wasn't an option here, since doesn't seem to work right. If you have any idea how to get around/fix this, please let me know in the comments. 
 

Analog Trigger Settings

To marginally fine tune the paddle controls, I’ve only set the Response Curve for both Triggers to aggressive. 
 
 
 
I guess this is more useful in other games, but still…it had to be done. 
 

Directional Pad Settings

To keep nudging as digitally brutal as it is, I’ve rebound the D-Pad keys with the arrow keys on the keyboard, which is default setting. 
Also, I gave every direction an additional bump upwards, since we can bind more than 1 button to another button. 
Simply select the D-Pad, then either left or right, Toggle Multi-Button Binding “On” (so it says “Off”, a little confusing probably…) and afterwards on the corresponding arrow keys. 
 
 
 

Saving Customized Settings

If you find your settings satisfactory, do not forget to save them. 
They will work for the duration of your gaming session, but will be discarded afterwards. 
(Told you!) 
Click on Export Config down below 
 
 
 
and select one of the options in the Personal tab. 
 
 
 
All done! 
 

Game Specific Settings

Since I made these settings specifically for Pinball FX3, I only want to load them with this game. 
To make this happen, simply go to the Game Properties by right clicking on it, or as shown here: 
 
 
 
Then set Steam Input Per-Game Setting to “Forced On”. 
 
 
 
This will come in handy, if you are borderline retarded like me and give almost each game its individual gamepad configuration. (Insert non-sense meme here.) 
 

Outro

I hope this guide gave you an idea of what you can do to optimize your game experience. 
IMHO and since even the XBox App for a XBox Gamepad misses 97% of the given options Steam offers, praise our Lord Gaben! 
 
Greetings to: 
definitelynotbaitzbutespeciallybradenhesbest!someaxolotlsthepbfx3communityofc(whyaretherenotenoughpinballtwitchstreamsidosoforhoursandreachnegativeviewerseverytime)alsoeverydevildaggersplayereverquake3arenaforliveandmypeen. 
 

This is all that we can say about Pinball FX3 – Custom Controller Settings for Steam Games for now. I hope this post helped you. If there is anything that we should add, please let us know via comment below. See you soon!