How to Set Up Call of Duty 4 With a Joystick

Call of Duty 4 is one of the most popular first-person shooter games available for modern gaming machines and computers. The game recreates the hectic action of modern-day war zones via high-resolution graphics and sound. Some PC users, though, may want to play the game with a joystick, a common control method for older shooting games that is not supported by Call of Duty 4. However, freely available software makes joystick use possible within Call of Duty 4.

Download Joy2Key. This free software maps keyboard controls to your joystick, and can be downloaded from the link found in the Resources section of this article.

Connect your joystick to one of your computer's USB ports.

Start Joy2Key by double-clicking the "Joy2Key.EXE" file.

Click Joy2Key's "Create" button. Highlight the newly-created configuration file and click "Rename." Name the profile "Call of Duty 4."

Double-click "Left" in Joy2Key's right pane. When asked to assign this direction to a key, press the key you use to turn left in Call of Duty 4. By default, this is the "A" button.

Assign keys to the "Right," "Up" and "Down" directions of your joystick as above. By default, these keys are "D," "W" and "S," respectively. This binds the movement controls of Call of Duty 4 to the directions on your joystick.

Double-click "Button 1" in Joy2Key's right pane. Click the "Mouse" tab and choose "Mouse 1." This binds Call of Duty 4's default "Fire" command to your joystick's trigger.

Double-click "Button 2" in Joy2Key's right pane. Press the "V" on your keyboard. This binds Call Of Duty's default "Melee Attack" button to the thumb button on your joystick.

Start Call of Duty 4, without closing Joy2Key. Your character will now move, fire and attack using the joystick.