Andy L. wrote:
I am using a fairly old joystick (read: cheap) and is plugged into the
gameport. I could go to a USB but currently I only have 1.1. I have been
planning to put a 2.0 card in and then I could use that.

The traditional joysticks use an analog-to-digital chip and, depending
on the quality of your sound card (they're usually embedded into the
sound card chipset), the quality of the control can be very hit-or-miss.
Also, the whole calibration procedure (suggested by someone else) is
designed to make up for electrical and mechanical differences between
joystick.

Do you have any other joysticks that you can try?

Alternatively, a cheap USB joystick might just solve the problem
entirely. Also, USB joysticks get very little benefit from doing the
calibration procedure, since the analog-to-digital unit is inside the
joystick and was calibrated to match the potentiometer when the joystick
was built (or maybe the "calibration" is done when joystick was designed?).

Analog joysticks are a throwback from the '80s. The joystick ports were
fun to play with, though, I was but an electronics-minded adolescent... :-)

-Luke