Responsive basic controls

[To the Sun]

For my first QuadStick game I thought I'd try something relatively easy, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages on an emulator on my PC . For the most part I think I've got it down, but some parts can be unreasonably difficult and I think I know why. I don't think I'm getting the same responsiveness from my controls as you would have with a regular controller.

What I want is for the slightest sip/puff to instantly trigger a keystroke.

But the minimum delays on both the Low Threshold and Long High Threshold are still 100 and 1000 ms (instead of 0). Therefore I've resorted to lowering the High Pressure Threshold to its minimum and triggering all my controls based on that, since there is no extra delay tied to it. However, the minimum you can set it to is still 10 which seems to result in a small amount of latency each time you sip or puff to cross it. It's not really enough to be noticeable at first, but the further you go through the game and the more difficult parts you come across, it starts to become apparent.

How do most people set up their controls to be as responsive as possible?

[Fred Davison]

I think you have a misunderstanding on how the long high threshold delay works.   That is for the side tube delay before it starts the file selection process with a long hard sip.  It is not for general hard sips.  They have no delay.

Soft sips have a delay to allow the pressure build past the high pressure threshold, without triggering a soft sip/puff.    The pressure cannot physically go from 0 to the high threshold instantly.  There will always be some readings in between.

http://quadstick.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/user_manual/um/sip_puff_sensors.htm

Keystrokes will be activated just as the pressure crosses the high pressure threshold.

A soft sip delay of 100ms is probably too short.  Most people would not be able to get past the soft range before it would time out.

Try settings more along the lines of the default 70/40/8 (Max/High/Low), with a 250ms Low threshold delay.  Long high threshold delay of 1000ms or so would prevent you from accidentally triggering the file selector when you just wanted to change modes.

[To the Sun]

Okay, so the long hard sip is only for the side tube. Wasn't sure about that, but I think I understand the rest of it. 

So basically most people using the defaults would trigger their main controls off of the hard sip/puff and save the soft for controls where timing is not critical, like opening a menu, correct?

I think it illustrates what I'm getting at when you say "A soft sip delay of 100ms is probably too short.  Most people would not be able to get past the soft range before it would time out." So that means for most people there's a >100 ms delay between the time they intend to initiate an action and when it actually triggers, right? I can't imagine playing competitively with a 100 ms lag on all the controls. With the high threshold lowered to 10, there is probably only maybe 20-30 ms lag, but I still feel like it can make me a little cumbersome when I really need to perform.

What I would really like is to set the Low Threshold Delay to 0, the Low Threshold to 1 and then just not use the High Threshold. That way I could eliminate as much latency as absolutely possible. Unless I'm missing something, I guess that's just not possible? Perhaps a… feature request?😁

[Fred Davison]

Regardless of the soft sip delay setting, hard sip/puffs have no delay once the pressure is reached.   You could make the soft sip delay 10 seconds if you wanted and it would not affect the timing of the hard sips.

If your system seems slow to reach the pressure, make sure your mouthpiece is clean.

Find whatever settings work for you.  If you want to experiment with values below 5 on the soft sip/puff, set those preferences directly in your game config file.  The preference is called " sip_puff_threshold_soft" and it can be set in a Preferences sheet, or on a mode sheet.

http://quadstick.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/user_manual/um/preferences.htm

sip_puff_threshold_soft	8	percent	Percent of full scale Pressure to detect Soft Sip/Puff
sip_puff_threshold	40	percent	Percent of full scale Pressure to detect Hard Sip/Puff
sip_puff_maximum	70	percent	Percent of full scale Pressure to scale into 100% button push pressure

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[To the Sun]

Ah, there we go, that's what I was missing! Thanks Fred