Need For Speed Most Wanted With Controller

[Sebastian Thorndike]

SoI got the game on PC today but it WILL NOT recognize my wireless 360 controller. Is anyone else out there successfully playing on PC with a 360 controller? I tried asking EA for help but just wound up spending a whole lotta time chatting with someone who knew nothing about anything. Their first suggestion was to reset my modem. Seriously. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

1) Check in the options menu and make sure there's not a "Yo, wanna controller bro?" option. Skyrim and Doom 3 BFG both have that and absolutely will not recognize a controller unless you enable that option.

I've done all of the above, including resetting my modem, but that's for a different issue. Anyway, I'm familiar with how to generally get it working since my pc is hooked up to my TV I use my xbox controller alot. There is a control method selection in the options but the controller doesn't show as an option. My other game work with it, such as borderlands 2 and *shocker* NFS Hot Pursuit. Also works in steam big picture mode. I have a very bad feeling that Criterion fucked up and omitted support for the wireless adapter. I've seen that before in a couple of cases. I think Dead Rising 2 had that issue. I'm just trying to see if anyone else has the same issue to verify that I'm not crazy.

I'm on Windows 8 and wireless controller support is working perfectly for me. The only other suggestion I have that hasn't been given is to try and repair the install. I'm not at my home PC right now so I can't confirm if it's there for Most Wanted, but a few games (like Battlefield 3) have the option when you right click the game in Origin. If it isn't there then you might have to try a redownload. It's stupid how Origin doesn't have it for every game like Steam does.

Driver issues, and known issues with the wireless hub for the controller were most likely the real issue there. A big reason why I use a WIRED controller instead, solves so much of these headaches if you really appreciate using a controller with a decent amount of PC titles. The Wireless hub itself is known to be a piece of junk, hence why it's discontinued and they haven't sold it in years. Something to do with it burning through more power than it should, and burning itself out within short work (and I guess they never bothered to just fix it and keep selling it... low demand? at the time definitely)

There IS actually some 'new' drivers for the 360pad on windows... they aren't super new BUT they actually are newer than any drivers windows finds itself through windows update sometimes, and definitely newer than drivers that were provided by a disc or whatever. With the newest drivers when you hit the home button it actually pulls up a dialog, where as drivers I had before (and actually worked perfectly) did nothing with that button. I assume this can possibly help in funky situations like the OP where drivers of your other devices may conflict. I'll check my history and see if I can dig up the drivers, so in case you wanna try them out you can.

A few things: I am fully aware of the driver situation that you refer to. I've been running on those drivers for months, possibly years now. They haven't been updated for quite some time. That wasn't the issue.

Second, I've been using the same wireless adapter for years(I've only ever purchased one). Yes, they require a bit more power, but the lesson there is to not use shitty motherboards, as was an issue for me when I first got the thing and it didn't work with the system I had at the time. That also, wasn't the issue.

The Issue, as I already said, was that the game saw my saitek eclipse keyboard(drivers make it appear as a USB Gaming Keyboard Pro) as an unsupported gamepad. Hence once unplugging that, everything works swimmingly. I didn't take a screen cap as I'm typing this on my laptop, but in the menus of the game, when the keyboard IS connected, I get two options for control method. "Keyboard" and "USB Gaming Keyboard Pro" the latter of which cannot be configured. I suspect that if I hook up my logitech G27 at the same time I'd get a similar issue. As I mentioned, my controller works perfectly in every other game that supports it. There are those random games that flat out do not support the wireless controller specifically, but that is not the focus of this discussion.

So, let it be known, that I know what I'm doing. I don't generally come to forums like this asking for help lightly, without attempting to do research and solve the problem on my own. The issue here is a poor job on Criterion's part with the QA of this game. The way it performs on high end machines and something as mundane as the game not working as long as a certain keyboard is plugged in I think is testament to that.

So, I've been wrestling with this all day. I want to use my Xbox One controller with NFS Most Wanted, but it's not even recognized by the game. I tried binding keys with xpadder, but it handled like a sack of bricks. Anyone else experiencing this issue, and does anyone have a fix for it?

"So, I was having an issue with the game not recognizing my microsoft wireless xbox 360 controller and discovered the issue. The issue is that the game sees my keyboard (Saitek Eclipse) as a game controller and it conflicts with my xbox controller. If I unplug my keyboard before launching the game, it works perfectly. I have never seen a game behave like this before and think it's a bug that needs to be patched. It's quite annoying for this ONE GAME to require me to unplug my keyboard before playing. Also, I feel that I should comment on the seeming lack of interest on EA's part. The website is like a 3 year old designed it. Very difficult to get any real information. I still can't find a list of system requirements for this game. No developer threads with people listening and responding, and a totally clueless live support team through origin. When I told the "tech" that I was having trouble getting my controller to work the first thing he suggested was that I reset my modem and router... I never really understood all the hate that EA gets from the community, but after my experience with this game, and the way that nobody from this company wants to help paying customers, or better yet, deliver a decent product out of the gate; I get why people feel the way they do. EA has gone for me personally, from a company who has provided me with many enjoyable memories over the years, to a company that I will now always doubt not only the quality of the product they are providing but also whether or not anyone will be there to help in the event that something doesn't work. EA and its squad of developers could take lessons from just about every other studio out there on how to conduct a proper games business."

It essentially allows you to bind any jey to a joystick button (meaning you could type an email with your joystick buttons if you wanted to). So just config the ingame controls to keyboard keys, and then assign those keys to your gamepad buttons through the software that runs in the background.

Also the EA help pages for this problem says to try two things. One is to remove your joystick software and use default Windows game controller support (no go with either software). Two is to turn on (something like) combine axis or split axis or something like that, but neither my USB nor my DB-15 single axis joystick have any such setting.

Its also too bad that the save data is a monolithic binary block, otherwise I would just go poking around a config or INI file and try changing it that way. I have had to do that with other games to get keyboard settings right some times, but its just a big binary.

It wasn't long ago we learned that the Wii U was getting a special version of Need for Speed Most Wanted, complete with a local co-op mode. I recently went hands on with the game and checked out just how the co-op works, and while it's not a "true" co-op mode in the sense there are separate players working together for some sort of common progression, what is there is a family friendly way to play together.

I'd like to dub the co-op mode in Need for Speed Most Wanted - Drivers Ed. It's actually called "Co-Driver." The way it works is simple - two players can use any combination of controllers and both control the same car at the same time. It's like those cars in drivers ed where both driver and passenger have a steering wheel and gas/break pedal. I was told that the game will bias the Wii U's gamepad, but both players do have full control over the car. You can even use the Wii U Gamepad's gyro sensor to act as a steering wheel if you want.

I know what you're thinking, this doesn't really sound cooperative. If anything it'll be a way to grief the other player. And this is true - until you think about it from a family setting. Perhaps your 4 or 5 year old is learning to play the game. You sit back and watch with the gamepad in hand as they use a pro controller to try to drive. You give them subtle nudges and taps in the right direction when needed. You help them avoid the walls, and make sure they don't over steer on the turns. You teach them to drive without actually interfering. But it goes even further with the touch screen than just steering.

On the touch screen there are one button controls to do things like spin out the cops, turn traffic on and off, or even switch the scenery from day into night. There's also a button that allows you to switch or repair a car on the fly and adjust it's paint job. While some of this is cosmetic, some of it can help someone who isn't the best of a driver in a game like this.

I jumped into a few police chases in Need for Speed Most Wanted with one of the developers. There's definitely a co-op feeling during the intense speed driving, several times he'd give me the heads up of where to go next by looking at the map on the gamepad. In a way it felt like there were two of us in the car with one of them looking at a GPS on their phone.

3a8082e126