I have a huge problem: many (but not all) games cause my character to move in one direction automatically. I can adjust the direction by moving a stick or pressing a key, but by default, the character just keeps moving. It also makes the menu selection keep changing, which makes it very hard to choose an option! There's nothing wrong with my keyboard, mouse, or any other devices.

Today I tried playing Cthulhu Saves Christmas (and I'd really like to not have to wait until after Christmas to play it!), and once I was able to get through the menu by timing my selection just right, the character just kept moving up and left. I could press down and that would move him down, but pressing right wouldn't move him right.

This does NOT happen with all games. Some games work perfectly fine, and others don't.

I suspect it could be a conflict between various controllers; I have a lot of game controllers, but I don't leave them all plugged in simultaneously. I currently have an XBox 360 wired controller and a 3DConnexion SpaceMouse Compact plugged in, but I tried unplugging one, the other, and both, restarting the game each time, and that didn't fix it.

What's causing the problem?! If anyone can fix it, I'd really appreciate that, thanks!

I'd imagine one of your connected controllers is having joystick drift. You can try the W10/W11 option of recalibrating your controller to account for this - https://www.howtogeek.com/241421/how-to-calibrate-your-gaming-controller-in-windows-10/

If this doesn't work, you might have to open up the controller, clean the contacts and relube with a silicon-based lube, and/or replace the joystick sensor entirely. May or may not include soldering. If this is too much work, you can try a repair shop, sell it for parts, or trash it.

Some games just have a really dumb calibration. Tyrian for example has no idea what the heck my controller is, and will always read diag left. Some games? Simply unplug and replug the controller; don't touch anything for a moment.

Don't need to go the extreme of Unashamed.

That's a classic low-battery symptom.

Assuming your controller has batteries, change (or recharge) the batteries.

That or the dead zone in the middle isn't quite large enough. I was having a lot of drifting til i pushed it up to like 15% in the middle to be a dead zone, then it was no longer drifting.

Still interesting to know. I know hardware is suppose to be designed to work with +/- 10% of the official rating. And with rechargeable that seems a bit higher, as batteries give a 1.5v output, but rechargeables are more like 1.2v. out.

Sorry I don't know what is causing the problem (apart from what others have guessed), but I had a similar issue with Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain... but only if I installed the Verok's GL Wrapper & Patch that enhances the game. With that patch, the character would constantly move to upper left direction.

I didn't have any gamepads etc. installed, but I presumed there was still some odd issue where some other USB device would be recognized incorrectly as an USB gamepad... but even that theory didn't seem plausible as it happened on a laptop even if I disconnected absolutely everything.

Anyway, in my case reinstalling Windows 10 fixed the problem for some reason. After that I didn't have the issue anymore, go figure.

Well thanks, but one thing you all seem to be overlooking is this:

"...but I tried unplugging one, the other, and both, restarting the game each time, and that didn't fix it."

So if NO controllers were plugged in, then wouldn't it imply that they're probably not the problem? Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned them at all. It's just that I like to give a detailed explanation of what I've tried and the results that I got, in case they could be useful.

But really, if I don't have any controllers plugged in and it happens anyway, wouldn't that imply that the issue may be unrelated to that, somehow? Though I'm not sure what other issue it could be.

But in any case, it's not just causing characters to move a little bit, but at maximum speed. And it also makes menu selection zoom through rapidly as well, so I have a very difficult time choosing the option that I want.

EDIT: Oh, and like I said, it only causes a problem for some games, and other ones work perfectly fine, using controllers with no problem at all, so that would imply that it can't be a calibration issue, right? I mean, I guess the game itself could be incorrectly calibrating them, but if that were the case then I'd think that game wouldn't work correctly with any controller, so the game would be defective to have such an obvious bug, and I can't believe that would be so common. And like I said, I doubt it's directly a controller issue, since I tried unplugging them and restarting the game. Does anyone know how to disable controllers completely in Cthulhu Saves Christmas?

Do you have multiple displays? Some games have a lot of trouble accounting for that and can show weird behavior like this.

Did you try playing the games with admin rights and got the same results?
Also i don't know are you on windows or somewhere else and also don't install in program files but that is maybe unrelated to this problem.

I have one monitor, and I'm using Windows 10, with the game installed in the normal default GOG folder, where I have all of the other games installed, and they mostly work. I just got a bunch of new games and tried a lot of them, and didn't have a problem with any of them except this one (though I've had the same problem with other games before).

EDIT: And I believe I used admin rights, but I'm not sure. I think initially I just clicked the launch button after installing, but I know I went back into it again using the shortcut, and I generally use admin rights whenever I do that.

Can you try a keyboard and see if it happens too? That'd at least cofirm it'a controller issue.

Fonzer, that's the way I always run as admin, from the right-click menu. I'm not sure I have the newest drivers, but my computer is newer than my devices, and I got the computer about 3 years ago, and got the new drivers then. In any case, the devices seem to work fine in general, and as I said before, I tried it with them unplugged, so I'm not sure why that would be a problem, anyway. I didn't try restarting after installing, though I restarted that game itself, but I'm not sure why I'd have to restart the PC. There shouldn't have been any other program running, because I'd just started my computer, and I don't have much of anything in the startup at all, and nothing that should interfere. I didn't try alt-tab, but doesn't that just switch between other programs? I could try it, but why would that fix it? I'm just curious. I didn't search Steam, and didn't think to, since I never use that website in the first place, but I didn't realize they had any useful information. I didn't see that post on this forum, but it's interesting. His problem isn't exactly the same, because the axis is inverted, which suggests a different setting or mapping, but it might be caused by a similar issue, so I could check it out.

idbeholdME, I tried the keyboard, and it can move my character, but it doesn't stop the default movement when I'm not pressing anything. And my keyboard works fine normally, so that everything I type happens correctly, so I don't think there's anything directly wrong with the keyboard. And like I said, even when all controllers are unplugged except the keyboard, I still have the problem.

Anyway, I may try again tomorrow, but it's getting a bit late, and I use Linux for the Internet, so when I want to use Windows I have to restart, and it's too much hassle right now, so I might try it tomorrow.

Launch Cthulhu Saves Christmas windowed and keep this gamepad tester in the background either so you can see if any buttons are being pressed - https://hardwaretester.com/gamepad

When you do encounter this problem, have this keyboard website tester ready to see what key is being registered - https://keyboard-test.space/

Are you also sure you don't have some custom key bindings elsewhere on your game or keyboard software running in the background that is causing this?

I doubt this is it, but I have this problem with my Logitech controller every time the computer restarts. If I don't go into the controller properties and recalibrate it after a restart, then I get the same behavior because after a restart it always resets to where when the stick is centered, it "reads" as the stick is in the upper left corner. So in game the character is always moving NNW in relation to where he stands.

So I guess it may be worth a try to just recalibrate your controller.