I have a wired Xbox 360 controller [1.1] that has some drift in both analog sticks [1]. I would like to calibrate the deadzones [2] to fix this issue. How do you recommend doing this? I didn’t see any controller calibration option in the KDE Plasma controller settings [1].
References
- Type: Anecdote (Screenshot). Accessed: 2026-03-24T23:10Z. Location: “KDE System Settings”>“Game Controller”. Author: Meta
- All input methods are at rest.
- Type: Text.
Device type: Game Controller
Xbox 360
- Type: Text. Publisher: [Type: Webpage. Title: “Understanding Controller Deadzones”. Publisher: “Elevation IT”. URI: https://www.elevationit.uk/understanding-controller-deadzones/.]. Accessed: 2026-03-24T23:20Z. Location: §“What is a Deadzone?”.>¶1.
A deadzone is the small range of joystick movement that a controller or game ignores. It prevents unintended movement, such as stick drift, from affecting gameplay. […]
You must log in or # to comment.
For Steam games (and non-Steam games launched through Steam), you can use Steam’s controller settings to expand the dead zones. Not the most universal solution, though.
[…] you can use Steam’s controller settings to expand the dead zones. […]
I tried, this but I can’t get it to work: to use steam’s deadzone control, I need to enable Steam Input [2], but when I do that, my controller no longer works in games [1].
References
- Type: Anecdote.
- Type: Post. Title: “PSA: Valve added deadzones to every Steam Input controller with a Client update and it’s messing up racing/fps games. Here’s how to fix.”. Author: “ManlySyrup”. Published: 2024-05-18T20:15:35.382Z. Accessed: 2026-03-25T00:31Z. URI: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1cv67af/psa_valve_added_deadzones_to_every_steam_input/. Publisher: [“r/Steam”<“Reddit”].
I’m unfortunately of no help, but I love your use of references. [1]
References
[1] :3
What distro are you on? Make sure the kcm-joystick package is installed for KDE.
[…] Make sure the kcm-joystick package is installed for KDE.
On Arch Linux [1], that package doesn’t appear to exist [2].
References
- Type: Comment. Author: “Kalcifer” (“@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works”). Publisher: [Type: Post. Title: “How do you calibrate controller deadzones?”. Author: “Kalcifer” (“@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works”). Published: 2026-03-24T23:22:09Z. URI: https://sh.itjust.works/post/57363826. Publisher: [“Linux Gaming” (“!linux_gaming@lemmy.world”)<“sh.itjust.works”<“Lemmy”]]. Published: 2026-03-25T00:13:17Z. URI: https://sh.itjust.works/post/57363826/24475751.
- Type: Webpage. Title: “Package Search”. Publisher: “Arch Linux”. Accessed: 2026-03-25T00:19Z. URI: https://archlinux.org/packages/?sort=&q=kcm-joystick&maintainer=&flagged=.
What distro are you on? […]
Arch Linux [1].
References
- Type: Anecdote. Accessed: 2026-03-26T00:33Z.
The Arch wiki has a lot of good info on this:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Gamepad#Setting_up_deadzones_and_calibration
I would start with section 2.2.3: Joystick API deadzones and calibration, because the joystick API is the lowest common denominator for this stuff.
