Controller deadzone is an area where the input of your controller is not registered. It is used to adjust the analog sticks so that they do not drift (move without any input) or so that they are not overly slow and laggy.
When you set the deadzone sensitivity too low, sticks can move on their own, seemingly without any input. This is known as stick drift. Stick drift can be very frustrating to deal with, but so is an unresponsive controller. The key is to set the deadzone in between, so that there is no drift, but the controller remains responsive and usable.
In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 they have added a brilliant feature to test your controller deadzone in real time! Watch the video below.
Starting from the lowest possible deadzone setting where there is no drift, adjust the value upwards until you find the balance between no drift and good response.
Text Guide
Start by putting your “Left Stick Min” and “Right Stick Min” to Zero (“0”)
Now, go to “Test Stick Deadzone” and toggle the setting to “ON”
Once Enabled move both your Left Stick and Right Stick around in a complete circle motion. Maybe a couple of flicks thrown in too!
As you can see from my testing, my left stick is reporting a value of “3” and my right stick is reporting a value of “1”
Ideally, setting “Left Stick Min” to a value of “3” and “Right Stick Min” to value of “1” should do the trick! However, when testing a further couple of times I did end up with +1 on left stick and 3 so as a good measure I used 4 and 3 values.
Now, as you can see doing the same circle motion, flicking etc results in Zero stick drift!
My deadzone is now calculated and set. IT’S GAME TIME!
The idea of the test stick deadzone feature is to always end on (X) = 0 and (Y) = 0 with both numbers as low as possible!
