Why I Ditched my $3,000 HOTAS for a $50 Controller (How to Play DCS World with a Gamepad)

ever since 2016 I've spent thousands to try and find my perfect DCS world flight Sim setup and after all these years why am I replacing it with [Music] this good shot reborne gears up flaps up wearing right hand turn now why am I doing this because I need to show you what can be done with a simple console controller just in case you can't afford a hotas oh boy here we go passing 310 oh overshoot passing 230 knots 9:00 you don't need a hotas to hit the brakes and make them fly right by Joker 11:00 come on here it is here it is and when he's too close for missiles you can still switch to guns got them contact even the hardest tasks are possible with practice you're taking fuel bu the books air to a refuel you can explore every facet of DCs World from Modern Day Air Combat where sometimes you don't even see what you're shooting at to Old School piston engine aerial Warfare whatever it is you want to do in DCS world I've got you covered because today not only will I I show you what you need to get started but I'm also providing you with every controller profile I've ever made so you can easily download and import them and get straight to Flying so whether you're new to DCS or like me you've been around for a while I hope this helps all right first things first in order to set up your controller with DCS you're going to need steam so if you don't have steam make sure you downloaded but I figure most people who play games today on PC are probably using steam as well now you're going to need to get DCS one of two ways first of which and probably the easiest is DCs World steam Edition from the steam store also it's worth mentioning if you're planning on using DCS World steam Edition go straight to this timestamp to skip to the controller setup portion of this video the second way to play DCS is DCs World Standalone Edition which is found on the digital combat simulator website there are at least two benefits to using this version of DCs the first is the Ed Rewards program which allows you to put points towards your next module purchase and the second is the free 2E trial program on participating modules for instance the DCS fa18c is available for 2 weeks for free if you want to give it a shot in case you might want to purchase at a later date and after those two weeks are up you have 6 months before that renews and before then you can move on and trial another participating module like the DCS f-16c for 2 weeks separately and then you wait 6 months for that to become become available again but in order to play DCS Standalone you have to download it first so to do that go to the digital combat simulator website go to downloads go to DCS World 2.9 and make sure that you meet at least the recommended system requirements namely putting DCS on a 500 GB solid state hard drive plus extra space for paid content and at least well depending on what you are intending to play generally speaking it's a good idea to have 32 gigs of RAM for multiplayer but if you're only planning on playing single player then 16 gigs of RAM is probably good enough just you may want to consider getting more RAM for this game and then when you're here simply click on download to download the installation package and when you do install DCS Standalone take note of where it decides to install on your computer because we're going to need to know this information when we want to add this to steam later so again keep note of where it's being installed and here is where you get to choose which Maps you want to install with DCS most people play on the Caucasus terrain and there's many more terrains to choose from uh but it is your choice on what you want installed you can even choose to install it with no terrains which I don't know why you would want to do that but that's an option in my case I'm going to install it with both Caucasus as well as the Mariana Islands terrain once the installation is complete all you have to do now is make sure start download is checked and then click on finish then DCS will begin actually installing in this Cas because I already have DCS installed in a separate location it's actually just copying it from that location so keep that in mind if you have steam Edition and want to change over to Standalone DCS is now successfully installed just hit okay and now we can continue on to adding Standalone to our steam Library all right now that you have stone version installed it's time to add it to your steam Library as a non steam game to do that either go to games add a non- steam game to my library or click on add a game and then click on add a non- steam game then from this window click on browse then find where your DCS was installed this is why I told you to keep note of where you decided to install DCs so in my case I'm going to go to C program files Eagle Dynamics BCS world then from here I'm going to choose either bin or bin Mt in the future bin Mt is going to go away and multi-threading will be the default option but for now we're going to go into bin Mt and then select DC s exe and don't worry if you don't seeex at the end of DCs it's there you just can't see it because you don't have file extensions enabled click on open and then here you'll find that is now added but before we click on ADD selected programs we're going to click on browse again and then in this case we're going to also add from the DCS World folder let's go to bin instead and we're going to add the DCS updator exe click on open and now you should have two check boxes check checked click on ADD selected programs all right with these two new shortcuts now added and keep in mind if you're using Stalone version you should not have steam Edition on this list and if you do you might want to uninstall it because that's taking up a lot of space uh but anyways let's go ahead and rightclick the first one which is this DCS World shortcut so right click it go to properties and from here we're just going to make sure that there is a double quot at the beginning and end of the Target location Also let's update the name of the shortcut so that we can identify that this is purely going to update DCS not play it let's put a space then put in the word update then after this double code put a space then add the word update in all lowercase and just like that we now have a dedicated DCS World updater shortcut in Steam let's close that then let's click on DCS world Mt right click it go to properties then here once again we're just going to make sure it has has the double quotes on the front and back it does not have this your game May crash when you launch it so if you find your game is crashing this is probably why also like I mentioned earlier one day bin Mt is no longer going to exist because multi-threading will be the default version the day that happens will be the day you find out this shortcut no longer works and when it doesn't simply remove hyphen Mt so that it looks like this from here as well as from here and this is what you want the day they remove the bin Mt folder because when they do this isn't going to work anymore so make sure you do this I'm not going to create a new video just to show you how to remove those three characters let's add those back because multi- threading is not gone yet and there you have it and feel free to rename this whatever you want in my case I'll just call this DCS world to keep things easy and next we're going to have to enable controller support in our steam application you guys haven't done this already you do this by going to steam settings going down to controller then from here you just enable the toggle that represents your controller of choice because I'm using an Xbox series controller I'm going to enable two items this first option which is enable Steam input for Xbox controllers and also Xbox extended feature support driver I'm going to click on install and then here it's going to ask you to restart so make sure to do that otherwise you will not be able to enjoy the benefits that comes with this extended feature support which allows you to use the share button as an extra bind which is really nice for series controllers also if you're not using an Xbox controller but are instead using a PlayStation 5 controller otherwise known as the Dual sense you'll want to go to PlayStation controller support and set this to enabled in games without support all righty and once you've enabled support for your respective controller in my case I'm going to go with the Xbox style controller then all you have to do is close this and then simply make sure you connect your controller to your PC but whether that's via Bluetooth or through a wired connection just make sure it's connected to your PC once it is you'll find that a new controller logo pops up here on the right now depending on which version of DCs you have installed whether it's stanolone version or steam Edition you'll want to click that controller icon and then from here we're going to set up our controls and from this point on we can actually use our controller to navigate the menu so let's go to edit layout and then from here let's go down to the bumper section specifically for left bumper click the gear icon click on add extra command tab over to the mouse section then select right Mouse click yes right Mouse click for left bumper it's a little confusing but it'll make sense once we actually play DCs so right Mouse click for left bumper then go down to right bumper click the gear icon go to add extra command and under Mouse guest it do left Mouse click for right bumper then next go back up to left bumper click the gear icon again go to add extra command again then tap T over to keyboard and on this one we'll set this to left alt for left bumper and then do the same thing but for right bumper click the gear icon go to add extra command then go to write alt for right bumper then once you're done there it should look like this lb executes three commands left bumper right Mouse click and the left ALT key and then right bumper executes three commands right bumper left Mouse click and right Alt next let's go over to triggers so under triggers let's select the first trigger option and go to create mode shift and then now if you notice there are now three sections one for right trigger Behavior one for right trigger mode shift and then one for left trigger Behavior under left trigger Behavior click the trigger option for that then go to create mode shift this will create a fourth section so now under the second section which is right trigger mode shift I want you to you go to the gear icon for this and then under the mode shift button set this to left bumper then do the same thing for left trigger mode shift so go to gear icon go to mode shift button and then left bumper all right with that now set go to RT full pull click on ADD command tab over to Mouse then set this to scroll wheel up then go to add command for soft pull and also set this to scroll wheel up and then under full pull I want you to go to the gear icon and then go to add extra command and set this to scroll wheel up so when this is all said and done you should have two commands Under full pull for scroll wheel up and then one command for soft pull for scroll wheel up and then do the same thing for a left trigger but in this case you click on ADD command it'll be scroll wheel down then do the same for a soft pool then just like before we go to full pool go to the gear icon add extra command then set this to scroll wheel down when everything is all said and done left trigger mode shift we'll have two commands Under full pull or scroll wheel down and one command under soft pull or scroll wheel down let's go back up to right trigger mode shift and for this first scroll wheel up go to the gear icon go to settings enable hold to repeat turbo and then under repeat rate I want you to press start so that you can edit the 100 default and set this to 80 instead then hit enter and then hit close then for command two scroll wheel up I want you to go to the gear icon settings enable hold to repeat turbo then again set this from the default 100 to 80 but in addition to that I also want you to change the fire start delay to 40 or 40 and then enter and then close then we will not do anything to soft pull we'll leave this the way it is not a turbo so again scroll wheel up will be a turbo set to 80 the second scroll wheel up will be a turbo set to 80 but also a 40 fire start delay and then the soft pool scroll wheel up is set to nothing then next let's go down to left trigger mode shift and then do the same thing for these as well so for the full pull command one go to the gear icon settings turbo 80 and then close then for left trigger mode shift command two go to gear icon settings Turbo 80 then fire start delay set that to 40 and then close and then just like before this first one is going to have turbo and 80 the second will be turbo 80 and then 40 then this last and first off pull will have no turbo setting and just like that we are done with the triggers now let's move on to joysticks and for this right joystick Behavior select joystick and go down to create mode shift then under this create mode shift click on ADD command tab over to gamepad and then set this to the right stick click next go all the way back up to the original joystick and change this to joystick Mouse and then click on ADD command for the right stick click and once again set this also to right stick click next go down to right joystick mode shift click on the gear icon for this then set this to the mode shift button left bumper then go up to joystick Mouse click the gear icon for this and here is where you're going to set up all your customizations for your mouse control on your right stick so a lot of this will be up to your preference but as a nice starting point I recommend a setting of 400% for mouse sensitivity then under stick response curve set this to custom curve and then for custom response curve set this to 70 and then lastly go down to the dead zone setting and change it from default to custom then for Dead Zone inner I want you to set this based on your thumb sticks and how old they are are the older your controller the larger a dead zone you're generally going to need for example I know in my case I need a dead zone of at least 1,500 or otherwise known as 15% because these are slightly older thumb sticks and because they develop stick drift because they're potentiometer based so I'm going to set this to 15 0 0 enter let's go back and just like that we are now done now if you go down to the button section and review what's in this list you'll find that there's way more things now added because we set up all those mode shift buttons in this case your left bumper section should look like this left bumper right Mouse click ALT key which is your left ALT key mode shift right trigger mode shift left trigger and mode shift right joystick and then your RB section should look like this command one will be right bumper command two left Mouse click and command three is the right ALT key and if you are using an Xbox series Style controller here's a little bit of a bonus you scroll all the way down and this assumes you installed the extended feature support you get this additional option in addition to start and select and that is take screenshot in this case we don't really want take screenshot set to the share button so instead we'll go ahead and set that to the keyboard section and set this to left shift and now just like that that becomes a modifier you can use in DCS which is super beneficial all right and just like that we are now complete so just hit B to close until the window goes away and now we are all set now if you have a PlayStation 5 controller otherwise known as a dual sense controller and I don't think this applies to Dualshock 4 but you can check if you have one uh you'll actually have an additional option just like the series X controller that is you'll have the ability to set your microphone key to an additional start and select button in this case we'll do the very same and set this to keyboard left shift and just like that you also have an additional modifier set to this microphone button now on top of this there's also additional track pads as well as gyro options for the Dual sense controller under track pads what I recommend is setting right trackpad Behavior to the select button so by default it's set to start so instead we'll go to Gamepad and set this to select and then for the left trackpad behavior I'm just going to Simply disable this let's change it from single button all the way up to none and the reason why we do that is because we want to utilize the left trackpad Behavior for something else and that is the gyro let's go to gyro and then change this to as Mouse and select the gear icon then we will tell it how we want to turn this on in this case we want the gyro enable button to change from always on to left pad click and then the button behavior is not to be on but toggle just like that we set up our gyro then just keep hitting back until the window closes all righty and with our controllers Now set up for DCS world let's go ahead and launch d DCS by selecting either our DCS World shortcut for Standalone or if you have steam Edition select steam Edition and click on play in my case I'm going to use Standalone and now we are in DCS and if this is your first time playing DCS you'll probably notice that the music is loud so if the music is Extremely Loud simply go to options go to audio then take this slider for music and turn it all the way down to 0% then hit okay to save and and now let's go ahead and test and make sure that this controller actually works with DCS the way we want it to to do that go to oh my head is kind of in the way so to test that let's go to instant action here on the right was that again right about here there we go and from this list let's select the tf51d then choose cold start in crims we are now loaded into the mission and the first thing we want to test is the right stick behavior let's go ahead and wiggle the right stick and make sure that actually moves the mouse and if it does that's perfect that's what we want next let's move the mouse over to the green fly button and press the right Bumper in order to left Mouse click and now we are officially in the cockpit of the free full Fidelity tf51d Mustang that comes with DCS unfortunately it comes with a very basic set of default binds and they all they they kind of suck but fortunately I've got you covered if you go to escape adjust controls select any cell underneath the controller Xbox 360 category so that this whole column is now selected and go to load profile then from here you can select any profile I've provided in the description below and I'll show you how to download these profiles now to find my controller profiles just go to the digital combat simulator website go to downloads user files then change the type to device profiles then set the username to tuos then click on show from here you select the module that you want to download for example the tas's official tf51d Mustang and then click on download from here you can simply download it to wherever you want in this case I'll just send it to the download folder and open it and go ahead and extract it wherever you want in this case I'm just going to extract it straight to the download folder and once it's extracted you'll find two files one is the actual profile that you import into DCS and the other is an image of what the layout contains this is the tf51d layout next go ahead and cut or copy the diff Lua file which is the profile you're going to import into DCS and send it to the saved games DCS folder if you don't know where this is it's under C users your username saved games and then DCS and in here I want you to create a new folder if it isn't there already called input user profiles then go into that and paste the downloaded profile into this folder now that you have your profiles downloaded let's go ahead and select the one that applies to this this module in this case we know that we're using the tf51d so let's scroll down and find the profile for the tf51d and hit okay and now you have every single bind I've set up for the tf51d Mustang now let's hit okay and now let's make sure all our controls actually work in DCs so by default the right stick controls the mouse in cursor control mode but if you press and hold the right bumper and click in the right stick it'll switch from cursor control mode to camera control and now the right stick controls the camera so that's how you switch between interacting with the cockpit and moving the camera so let's say you want to look down and interact with these switches here well while in camera control mode you can also press and hold the left bumper and pull the right trigger that allows you to zoom in or you can zoom out by pulling left trigger while holding left bumper so let's zoom in all the way and now let's switch to cursor control mode with right bumper and right stick click and now we can test what happens when we left click each one of these switches and as you can see we are interacting with all of them but if you notice we can only go in One Direction with left Mouse click so if you want to go in the upward direction for example for these wing and tail lights you'll have to right Mouse Click by pressing left bumper and now those go up instead of down so left click goes down right click goes up let's go ahead and switch back to camera control zoom out then look back forward and let's look at this cockpit light here in cursor control mode if you were to Mouse over this knob how would you control this to do that you can press and hold left Mouse click then drag the cursor down or up to interact with the knob by turning it left or right but there's actually another way you can do this if you hold left bumper over the knob you want to interact with and then pull left Trigger or right trigger since these are bound to Mouse scroll up and down you can use that to interact with these kinds of knobs all right then let's switch back to camera control then Zoom back out and with that we are now done verifying that the controller is all set up using steam for DCS now before I send you guys Off to the Races I wanted to give you a few tips on how best to use your new controller profiles so to do that let's go to instant action SC 25t the caucus this map and use free flight at Min vodi now go ahead and hit fly then press Escape go to adjust controls select any cell under the Xbox 360 category click on load profile and then load the su25t frogfoot profile that you download from the website click okay that loads the profile click okay to save and just like that you have my bindings for the su25t Frog foot now let's go over the basics of flight with my profile so in order to control the aircraft you have the left stick to control pitch and then roll then left trigger controls left Rudder and right trigger controls right Rudder and if you want to speed up or slow down you can press the right face button to go up up and then the bottom face button to go down and just like that you now know the basics of flying with a controller now this is digital combat simulator and it wouldn't be a lot of fun if all we did was fly so let's go ahead and try to shoot some stuff now before we do that we need to understand what binds are available to us this is the layout image for the su25t profile now I know it's a lot to take in and it looks like you need a total of four controllers just to play DCS but trust me it's not that bad if you notice each one of the these sections are identified by a shoulder button press that needs to be held in order to access that set of controls in this case if we hold right bumper we now get access to this set of controls If We Hold left bumper we get access to this set if we hold both bumpers we get access to this set and if we don't hold bumpers at all we get access to this set in this case because we want to do some combat we know that under left bumper we have access to air to ground mode as well as Cannon let's see what kind of damage we can do with these two binds so we know that in order to access air to ground mode we have to press and hold left bumper then press the right d-pad direction just like that we're in air ground mode and luckily enough we already have our Rockets selected and even more luckily there's some targets over there let's go kill them all right looks like we're in a good position so let's roll in towards our targets and all we have to do is put that green circle on whatever it is we want to go away let's do that we'll level out and once it's in a good spot we'll simply press and hold the start button and just like that everything down there disappears now let's say we wanted to use our Canon instead well since we're already in air to ground mode all we have to do is press and hold the left bumper and then press left on the d-pad just like that the start button will now fire our Cannon see easy peasy now let's say we just completed the mission and we're currently rtb and wouldn't you know it there's actually an Airfield right there off in the distance but we're a little heavy at the moment so we want to jettison some weapons before we go in for landing well if we review our handy dandy layout we'll know that in order to jettison weapons we have to press and hold both modifiers and press the start button so if I press and hold both modifiers and then press start then each successive press will drop each set of weapons and don't worry they are disarmed so they should not explode on anything they happen to hit on the ground now before we can land let's go ahead and configure our aircraft for a landing to do that let's review our controls and we know that in order to put our flaps down we need to hold right bumper and press the left face button for flaps landing position and to drop our gear we have to hold both bumpers and press left stick click let's go ahead and do that now that we're at a safe speed so let's drop our flaps with right modifier and the left face button the landing position and we'll drop our Gear with both both modifiers and left stick click now that we're on Final let's switch to navigation mode by pressing right bumper and up on the d-pad and then throttle all the way back so we can slow down and then we'll slowly pull the nose up as we descend to the ground we want to keep our vertical air speed as close to zero as we can which is indicated by that arrow on the right side of our HUD it's currently at zero and then hold it hold it hold it and touch down and we'll keep the nose up to Arrow break for a little bit and we'll use the right trigger to keep ourselves closer to the center line and hold the stick full back now that the nose is planted let's hit the wheel brakes by pressing both bumpers and the bottom face button to start applying wheel brakes then let go of the bumpers and start using triggers to steer our aircraft to keep it Centerline as long as we keep holding the bottom face button will continue to apply brakes even though we let go of the Two bumpers and just like that we' slow down to a safe ground speed now even though I'm giving you these guides in order to set up your controller for DCS DCS is a very complicated game so it's entirely up to you to put in the time to practice and get better at it because no matter what everyone starts somewhere whether it's with a controller or a proper Hood task you are the one that is the determining Factor on whether or not you're going to actually enjoy DCS world to begin with so I wish you the best of luck and maybe one day you'll decide to graduate from a control to a proper hotas but at least for now you can at least give DCS a shot in the first place but please enjoy it while you can and hope to see you in the skies

Channel: Tuuvas

Views: 26,729

Keywords: DCS, DCS World, Digital Combat Simulator, Beginners Guide, Tutorial, Gamepad, Controller, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Flydigi, Bigbigwon, Bigbig won, EasySMX, Razer, DualSense, DualShock, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series, F/A-18C, Su-25T, TF-51D, Hornet, Frogfoot, Mustang, Flanker, Fulcrum, Su-27, MiG-29, Su-25, AH-64D, Apache, Helicopter, Jet, Fighter, Airplane, Aircraft, dcs dogfight, dcs apache, dcs world, How to, How to play DCS World, how to play dcs world with controller

Id: 7Zy_P-EhjPo

Length: 28min 50sec (1730 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 28 2024