Hardware & Technical Saitek x55 rhino

Nomadski

Nomadski
Theres some great information in this thread, particularly from Aleksej, and a few warnings have gone off in my head as I ordered this HOTAS last night.

Still going through with the purchase as I simply cant afford a Warthog, and I do like my twisty rudder, but am becoming a little wary of potential build issues.

Anyways, upgrading from my trusty old Saitek Cyborg 3D joystick which in comparison was a very simple joystick.

One thing I am a little confused by is this curve thing in setup. How is it meant to work? By changing the shape how exactly are you affecting the performance of the joystick?
 

Aleksej

Aleksej
Nomadski said:
Theres some great information in this thread, particularly from Aleksej, and a few warnings have gone off in my head as I ordered this HOTAS last night.

Still going through with the purchase as I simply cant afford a Warthog, and I do like my twisty rudder, but am becoming a little wary of potential build issues.

Anyways, upgrading from my trusty old Saitek Cyborg 3D joystick which in comparison was a very simple joystick.

One thing I am a little confused by is this curve thing in setup. How is it meant to work? By changing the shape how exactly are you affecting the performance of the joystick?
Click to expand...

The curves allow you to change joystick's sensitivity in those joystick movement areas where they are needed most. E.g. I need more sensitivity for joystick closer to the neutral positions. In this case you will need to move joystick more in order for the ship to perform a little turn in the zone with increased sensitivity. You will still have normal sensitivity in extreme positions. However you need to find the balance. If you set too high curvature you might have slow ship turning rate along almost all joystick movement and then sudden maximum turning rate. I have spent sometime testing different curvatures and found that optimal curvature is at the value of 650 for me. As shown here:
http://bayimg.com/panMPAafO
 

[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
is it my imagination or has the rhino gone up in price?

I could have sworn i could pre-order direct from saitek for around £165 a few weeks ago but now I can only see the option to preorder in US or Canada, and places in UK seem to be mostly the wrong side of £200 now.

at that price I will be going back to plan A of an X52 standard for around £100 or less.
 

Aleksej

Aleksej
Mad Mike said:
is it my imagination or has the rhino gone up in price?

I could have sworn i could pre-order direct from saitek for around £165 a few weeks ago but now I can only see the option to preorder in US or Canada, and places in UK seem to be mostly the wrong side of £200 now.

at that price I will be going back to plan A of an X52 standard for around £100 or less.
Click to expand...

Yep, the prices increased significantly during the last week or two. However, these are at about 200EUR, which is cheaper than £200 in UK.
 

MDK-187

MDK-187
Mad Mike said:
is it my imagination or has the rhino gone up in price?

I could have sworn i could pre-order direct from saitek for around £165 a few weeks ago but now I can only see the option to preorder in US or Canada, and places in UK seem to be mostly the wrong side of £200 now.

at that price I will be going back to plan A of an X52 standard for around £100 or less.
Click to expand...

I managed to pick up the Saitek X55 for $239 here in Australia, that's somewhere around 130 pounds I believe.

Edit: I should have another Saitek in a week or so / the store I purchased it at is out of stock / so they haven't been able to give me another one. they're swapping me a new one since the last one's throttle tensioner was broken / not working.
 
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Aleksej

Aleksej
MDK-187 said:
I managed to pick up the Saitek X55 for $239 here in Australia, that's somewhere around 130 pounds I believe.

Edit: I should have another Saitek in a week or so / the store I purchased it at is out of stock / so they haven't been able to give me another one. they're swapping me a new one since the last one's throttle tensioner was broken / not working.
Click to expand...

I have pre-ordered mine at amazon.fr the 20th of February for 178EUR + 15EUR for delivery (about £142+£12) with unknown delivery date. I was very lucky as have received it one day before A3 release, which already had multiple controller device support implemented.
 

Spyder78

S
Welcome Mike!

I've justified my purchase by kidding myself that my poor flying skillz are down to me using a 360 controller ;)
 

MDK-187

MDK-187
Spyder78 said:
Welcome Mike!

I've justified my purchase by kidding myself that my poor flying skillz are down to me using a 360 controller ;)
Click to expand...

This is the first time I've played a flight game & needed to use a joystick in ten years.

I know my lack of flight skills aren't a reflection on the controller that I'm using. :p
 

Aleksej

Aleksej
MDK-187 said:
This is the first time I've played a flight game & needed to use a joystick in ten years.

I know my lack of flight skills aren't a reflection on the controller that I'm using. :p
Click to expand...

These are technological advancements. As far as I understand 1984 Elite used only keyboard. And now we have all controllers possible.
 

Nomadski

Nomadski
Received the X55 Rhino today (2 days between ordering and receiving! Don't believe those "Out Of Stock" messages on Gameshark and the like!) but as I was working a late shift I haven't had a chance to try out.

I have tonight got it out of the box and the first thing I have noticed is the black POV on the flight stick doesn't feel like its registering 'left'. With the other directions I can feel it sitting, so to speak, but the left feels like its dud.

Will have to have a play tomorrow and see if I have received one of those Friday Afternoon models...

EDIT: And despite the fact I should have gone to bed, I see the thing sitting there and I go "what the hell" and install...well I tried to install the drivers, but the next is greyed out despite me plugging them both in, and both units lighting up... I know someone in this thread had the issue (I'm Windows 8.1 64bit too).

EDIT 2: Well I tried to reboot the pc, did windows updates and tried reinstalling driver. This time when the prompt came up to plug both units in I plugged the joystick in first, noticed the Next was alive, and plugged the throttle in after. It had already effectively installed the windows drivers as both units immediately came alive when plugged in. Something not quite right with the install software I reckon.

Anyways, went into Windows properties for the joystick, and the POV is definitely on the wrong side of dodgy - it can register left, but only after a couple of attempts. NW and SW are also difficult to attain, and when "rolling" the POV it almost always misses out NW and SW and only occasionally hits W (left).

Finally, also noticed on the joystick properties, button "15" is always lit, but I cant figure out which button its meant to be, or 16-17 for that matter. If anyone has any ideas, let me know!

Not great impressions, but quite willing to send this back and see if its replacement is equally bad.

I'm liking everything about the throttle bar the red button being very noisy so far though.
 
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Aleksej

Aleksej
Nomadski said:
Received the X55 Rhino today (2 days between ordering and receiving! Don't believe those "Out Of Stock" messages on Gameshark and the like!) but as I was working a late shift I haven't had a chance to try out.

I have tonight got it out of the box and the first thing I have noticed is the black POV on the flight stick doesn't feel like its registering 'left'. With the other directions I can feel it sitting, so to speak, but the left feels like its dud.

Will have to have a play tomorrow and see if I have received one of those Friday Afternoon models...

EDIT: And despite the fact I should have gone to bed, I see the thing sitting there and I go "what the hell" and install...well I tried to install the drivers, but the next is greyed out despite me plugging them both in, and both units lighting up... I know someone in this thread had the issue (I'm Windows 8.1 64bit too).

EDIT 2: Well I tried to reboot the pc, did windows updates and tried reinstalling driver. This time when the prompt came up to plug both units in I plugged the joystick in first, noticed the Next was alive, and plugged the throttle in after. It had already effectively installed the windows drivers as both units immediately came alive when plugged in. Something not quite right with the install software I reckon.

Anyways, went into Windows properties for the joystick, and the POV is definitely on the wrong side of dodgy - it can register left, but only after a couple of attempts. NW and SW are also difficult to attain, and when "rolling" the POV it almost always misses out NW and SW and only occasionally hits W (left).

Finally, also noticed on the joystick properties, button "15" is always lit, but I cant figure out which button its meant to be, or 16-17 for that matter. If anyone has any ideas, let me know!

Not great impressions, but quite willing to send this back and see if its replacement is equally bad.

I'm liking everything about the throttle bar the red button being very noisy so far though.
Click to expand...

It seems to me that you might have been performing the wrong actions during software installation. You said that you have plugged in both devices with the "next" button greyed out, however installation requests that you UNPLUG both devices first. "Next" button will be greyed out until you unplug them.

I also have 17 buttons in "Set up USB controller devices" with button 15 lit. However, actually you have only 14 buttons on the stick + POV so I do not see any problems.

I do not have any problems with POV or any other buttons/switches/rotaries/hats.

EDIT: button 15-17 in "Set up USB controller devices" for X55 stick correspond to mode switches on throttle - M1, M2, M3. So this work as intended.
 
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Xanderxavier

X
I only have beta access so alas have an old single player build which does not suit the x-55 at-all.

The reason why the throttle uses the X-Y axis is obvious as that's what allows independent thrust control just looking at what its doing in the windows game controller section shows what its doing easy enough.

Alas the build I have of elite doesnt support it, so basically cant play it, I can either have the joystick working and no hardware throttle or the opposite, however I tried it out with World of Warplanes for now and whilst it has no profile as of yet, with a bit of tweaking and fiddling I got it working, and it works nicely and feels good to hold, just have to wait till they release a beta version I can play.

I figured why buy an old x-52 when I can get a higher end and new x-55, sure it will have more issues in games for now, but long term it'll be a better supported purchase and it is in a higher price bracket, also star citizen arena commander(formerly known as Dogfighting Module Alpha) is getting x-55 pro support right off the bat, which suits me fine, I was hoping ED beta would have it to, but apparently due to lack of updates not so much, but I didnt have a spare extra couple of hundred to spend on alpha, afterall SC got you alpha and beta for about $20-25 usd, and the beta of this cost quite a bit more than that, so I guess ill have to wait till they release a beta build I can use with my shiny new joystick.
 

Aleksej

Aleksej
Xanderxavier said:
I only have beta access so alas have an old single player build which does not suit the x-55 at-all.

The reason why the throttle uses the X-Y axis is obvious as that's what allows independent thrust control just looking at what its doing in the windows game controller section shows what its doing easy enough.

Alas the build I have of elite doesnt support it, so basically cant play it, I can either have the joystick working and no hardware throttle or the opposite, however I tried it out with World of Warplanes for now and whilst it has no profile as of yet, with a bit of tweaking and fiddling I got it working, and it works nicely and feels good to hold, just have to wait till they release a beta version I can play.

I figured why buy an old x-52 when I can get a higher end and new x-55, sure it will have more issues in games for now, but long term it'll be a better supported purchase and it is in a higher price bracket, also star citizen arena commander(formerly known as Dogfighting Module Alpha) is getting x-55 pro support right off the bat, which suits me fine, I was hoping ED beta would have it to, but apparently due to lack of updates not so much, but I didnt have a spare extra couple of hundred to spend on alpha, afterall SC got you alpha and beta for about $20-25 usd, and the beta of this cost quite a bit more than that, so I guess ill have to wait till they release a beta build I can use with my shiny new joystick.
Click to expand...

Actually, you can play Alpha 1.1 with X55 Rhino, although it is only possible using 3rd party software but still possible, so "not at all" argument is not exactly correct.

You are wrong saying that ED does not support X55, it is supported since Alpha 3.0.

The price of the cheapest SC package that included Alpha and Beta access was about $40 and not $20-25. Now you get Beta access for $40. And you will probably have to pay for Squadron 42 add-ons. Arena commander access is additional $5 and as far as I understand you will have to pay extra for access to each next Alpha module.

As you already have Alpha 1.1 access than you have Premium Beta access that was priced 100EUR and this includes ALL future major game expansion for free.
 
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