Guide for Removal of Negative Mouse Acceleration (Input Normalization) in BattleField: Bad Company 2
by Beach of
http://www.slingblades.org
After reading a few guides for this fix, and reading about some of their side effects (unusable UAV, LightVehicle free look locked up), I did a bit of thinking about how the air/land/infantry sensitivity values had to interact with the "gamesettings.ini" settings and decided there had to be a better way to do things. I decided to leave the "gamesettings.ini" values stock and work on the scale settings in the .dbx files. After a bit of trial and error I came up with the value changes that not only eliminate the negative mouse acceleration (heretofore referred to as "normalization"), but allow you to keep the stock in-game adjustment functionality. This guide will also include lists of variables that you can change to tweak each vehicle sets' sensitivity independently, as you were able to in BF2.
On to the meat of this guide, the actual procedures and value changes. There will be no pictures, because they're not necessary. IF you follow my directions to the letter and possess common sense you won't have a problem.
First, make a backup of the input folder, named input-backup or something else reasonable. I will not accept responsibility for you screwing your game up. If you don't make a backup, you can delete the input folder to reset your settings back to stock. You will, however, lose your custom keybinds.
The first file we are going to edit is "infantry.dbx". Open the file in Notepad.
Ctrl-F and search for "ConceptPitch". Below that there will be a few blocks of data. The instances we want to edit end with "MouseInputActionData". The particular values we are editing in are as follows:
<field name="NormalizeInput">false</field>
<field name="ScaleValue">0.01</field>
You may have multiple instance entries. Be sure to change these two values for each instance that ends in "MouseInputActionData" under the "ConceptPitch" entry
Search for "ConceptYaw". Alter each "MouseInputActionData" entry with the same values as you did for "ConceptPitch" for the ones under ConceptYaw"
We have now eliminated normalization for the Infantry unit. You will still be able to adjust sensitivity with the ingame UI without borking your settings. If changing ingame still makes you nervous, make a backup of your altered .dbx files and/or make the .dbx files read-only.
Now we need to remove the normalization in the Land Vehicles.
Open the "land.dbx" file.
Ctrl-F and search for "ConceptPitch". The only value that needs to be changed is the following:
<field name="NormalizeInput">false</field>
This must be changed under each "MouseInputActionData" instance under "ConceptPitch".
Search for "ConceptRoll". Replace "true" with "false" in the necessary fields.
At this point normalization is disabled completely, as there is no normalization on the air vehicles.
Onto the advanced portion of the lesson, adjustment of sensitivity for the land and air vehicles independent of the main sensitivity setting in-game.
In the "land.dbx" and "air.dbx" files under "ConceptPitch" and "ConceptRoll" (not Yaw, that's only in "infantry.dbx"), you'll notice a familiar field:
<field name="ScaleValue">XXXXX</field> (Where "X" = what we're going to be adjusting).
"X", as you may have figured out, is a sensitivity multiplier. This value is multiplied by the main senitivity that you adjust in-game. Increase this value, increased sensitivity, but ONLY IN THE LAND/AIR VEHICLE, independent of your infantry sensitivity setting. This negates the need for all those fancy mice with the on-the-fly sensitivity buttons. I've also included the fields that determine camera senitivity in case your freelook views in the light vehicles or mouselook in the helicopter need adjustment. As a reminder, the in-game sensitivity adjustment affects ALL sensitivities; infantry, land, and air. In each case you need to adjust the "<field name="ScaleValue">XXXXX</field>" field.
Recommended values*:
"land.dbx" "ConceptPitch" and "ConceptRoll": Authour uses "0.1"
"ConceptCameraPitch" and "ConceptCameraYaw": Authour uses ".011"
"air.dbx" "ConceptPitch" and "ConceptRoll": Authour uses "2.5"
"ConceptCameraPitch" and "ConceptCameraYaw" (Mouselook adjustment) Authour uses ".01"
*Trial and error is the only way to make adjustments. You have to close down the game, make the value change, start the game, test in a game, then make another adjustment out of game if needed. Write down the original value or REFER TO YOUR BACKUPS. My values basically gave everything a boost, most heavily the turrets and the helicopter (turrets include IFV's and MBT's along with vehicle mounted turrets and stationary turrets).
Don't expect to be able to flip the turrets around and become a master stunt pilot with the helicopter. DICE has programmed maximums on the rate of roll/pitch/yaw on each vehicle that are not user editable. Find a sensitivity close to the max rate that still gives you fine control without being squirrely for best results.
As far as I know, these settings are PB safe. I haven't gotten banned/kicked from my own server yet, and I've put in many testing hours on it.
Feel free to pass this around the internet, all I ask for is the credit for it.
Regards, and happy gaming,
Beach Bum {SB},
http://www.slingblades.org
