My XIM2 was delivered January 31st 2009 so I have had limited time to sort out the unit and the use of it with the PXL USB !

Setup

First impressions is the build quality is very good, other than the extra cable coming out of the wired controller the unit looks like a brand new controller.  The unit comes with a driver and software cd and small instruction sheet.

The software installed with little trouble, the installer will ask the user to plug the XIM USB cable and the Controller cable into the computer at same time for calibration of the XIM and Controller.  Get used to this process as you will be calibrating often.

Once the setup is done, the cord from controller will connect to the Xbox 360 and the modded controller can then be used to turn on the Xbox 360 and the controls work.  The other USB cord attached to the XIM electronics modded into the controller.

Once all cords are attached into correct places, the XIM.exe gets launched and the default config for keyboard and mouse gets loaded.  When the XIM is running on the host computer, the mouse pointer is shown moving sliders up and down and side to side on a graphic of the Xbox controller.  Pressing keys on the keyboard will show up on the application as well, all inputs are directed to the XIM app until it is shutdown by hitting CTRL+ESC.

The XIM program takes the input of mouse, keyboard or whatever else assigned to the program and outputs it to the XIM USB board inside the wired controller.  Assigning what button does what is as simple as hitting CTRL-ENTER and getting into the config mode.  With the config mode you pick from mouse, keyboard and joystick assigned to what analog XBox stick.  For Panther XL we do Joystick on Left Stick and Mouse on Right Stick.

Then in the config program click the button or trigger you want to setup with mouse and click button on joystick or keyboard you want it to be bound to.  Keeping in mind the game your playing may have different button uses for different tasks in game, more than likely the user will not have one config that works in all games.

Once done with config program the “save and close” box will allow to to save your current config.  The saving of the config on a Vista 32 bit computer does not work as expected, same operation in Windows XP works perfect ?

Calibrating

The XIM program may ask the user to again calibrate the controller, plug the XB controller into the computer and it will calibrate it’s self within a few seconds, when done plug the grey controller cable back into the Xbox 360

Playing Games

Once configed the unit is ready to use, start the Xbox 360 and navigate the menus with the wired controller sticks and buttons.  Launch the XIM.exe on the host PC by clicking the configfile.xim and all input to the PC is directed to the output of the XIM board and the wired controller.

In default mode moving the mouse around moves the players view and hitting the WASD keys on keyboard moves the player as one would expect.

Tough part is getting the mouse to input to be translated to looking smoothly in games. 

Mouse Smoothness Factors

1. 1)Speed of Mouse
   

2. 2)Model of Mouse
   

3. 3)Game
   

4. 4)How much auto-aim can acceleration can be dialed out of game
   

5. 5)Personal preferences to how the mouse should feel.
   

All of the above factors need to be taken into account when trying to get the mouse working well in specific games. The settings will vary for each hardware and game, sample configs included and more can be found on messageboard of XIM360.com.

As more units get out hopefully more configs and help will be posted.

Using a Joystick

Once the above settings have been done the joystick can be used but more considerations based on what version PXL you have and what mouse in it.

Ver2 USB PXL:

The version 2 is recognized by the XIM config program, once joystick is selected for left stick the user then assigns the buttons on the joystick to buttons on the wired Xbox controller.

This works fairly well, however, the PXL stick has to be moved to end of throw to make player move full speed, far to slow of action for me.  I have not been able to find a way to shorten the throw needed to hit 100% speed.

Ver3 USB PXL:

Unlike the ver2 PXL, the ver3 does not get recognized by the XIM program as a working device, I believe this is because the the unit has two device IDs shown in the joystick control panel.  Most games and applications will just use whatever device is shown on Device ID1 but the XIM doesn’t seem to want to do that.  I am looking into fixes for this issue on both hardware and software sides of the issue....

In keystick mode the with the XIM set to keyboard and mouse input the Ver3 works well.  The player movements are much faster but the analog speed control of the ver2 is gone.

Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical

With controllers modded with the wheel mouse optical, this is the default mouse in PXL mods last few years.

The performance of this mouse on the mouse pad as well as in the PXL needs settings work.  I have been playing with settings for COD4 and this mouse and I still have a ways to go, once it’s good it will be needed to be done again in other FPS games.

These MS mice operate at 800 DPI...

Logitech MX518 Mouse

This is the upgraded mouse for Panther XL mods over last few years, the unit works smoother on pad and installed in PXL, still needs some tweaks if I hope to get it perfect.

As with the MS mouse above, game specific settings will be needed to make unit work smooth.

The MX-518 operates at 1800 DPI....

Update February 27th 2009:  The MX518 used in the Panther XL I tested with by default runs at 800 DPI making the XIM2 work poorly.  By using the DPI adjustment buttons on the MX518 or by locking in the DPI via the Logitech software to the 1800 DPI setting the feel is very good !

I was able to play Halo3 with a very good feel once the software was installed on host computer and DPI was raised from 800 to 1800 on the MX518.

Conclusions and Delusions

Pros:

1)    Unit does as reported, transforms PC inputs to Xbox 360 inputs.

2. 2)   Has lots of mouse settings to play with in attempt to get the mouse working smoothly
   

3. 3)   Workings of the device are greatly dependent on the software used on host computer, as software improves the workings improve.  The physical hardware modded into the controller is the expensive part but gains in use come from the software.  Software is easily distributed, hardware is not !
   

Cons

1. 1)   As above the unit is difficult to setup and get mouse working smooth
   

2. 2)   Has lots of mouse settings to play with in attempt to get the mouse working smoothly
   

3. 3)    Needs a PC computer running modern Windows os to host the XIM control program.
   

4. 4)    Needs different configs for different games.
   

5. 5)   Configs are not being saved the way a user would expect them to be in Vista, currently not possible for a user to export his/her config for another person to use.   WinXP works perfectly
   

6. 6)    Ver3 PXL can not be used in Joystick mode, only in keystick mode.
   

7. 7)    Price:  At 179.99 it’s not cheap, but cool things never are....
   

Right now the sweet spot is a Ver3 PXL in Keystick mode modded with a Logitech MX518 mouse.

More configs, settings and info to come...

Steveo