GPD has released the joystick deadzone fix tool for the GPD Win 4, I and several others have tested it and it seems to wholly remove the deadzone issue with the Win 4 and also provide some customization of the deadzone and center in the WinControls tool!
How to:
- Download the file GPD_Gamepad_WIN4_X408K407.zip
- Extract the .ZIP file
- You may get an alert from Windows Defender claiming that "GPD Gamepad WIN4 X408K407.exe" is a virus named "Win32.Trojan/Wacatac.B!ml", but this is a false positive -- a cursory google search will show that this is a very common false positive for Windows Defender, it has historically triggered on other applications like No Man's Sky when downloaded directly from Xbox Game Pass. If you receive this alert, open Start Menu -> Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Windows Security -> Virus & Threat Protection -> Protection History and find the recent quarantine event and then tell Windows to not quarantine and to allow the tool to execute. If you're not the trusting type, you can install a tool like Process Monitor and monitor precisely what the firmware update tool is doing to see that it is, in fact, just updating the firmware on the joystick controller.
- Execute the "GPD Gamepad WIN4 X408K407.exe" and once it has launched and confirmed the existing gamepad firmware, click the update button.
- Wait for the update to complete and for both panes in the UI to show that the firmware was successfully updated.
- Uninstall the existing version of WinControls
- Install WinControls from the "GPD WinControls V1.14.exe" file
- Power the GPD Win 4 off entirely.
- Power the GPD Win 4 on.
- Open WinControls and see that there are now deadzone settings in the Mouse Mode configuration window. Yes, it says V1.11 in the bottom even though it's V1.14 :)
So far, the consensus seems to be that setting both left/right stick center to -8 results in the smallest deadzone with no jitter, but this will vary joystick by joystick.
In my testing this has completely removed the deadzone, given me fantastically precise movement and made FPS games and driving games infinitely more playable on the device. I'm ecstatic that the tool finally released!