Major Microsoft Surface Pro 2 Flaw with Pen Tracking

[MBytes]

It is 273 point calibration.
You'll also notice that you can't reach the left right most and bottom most edge of the screen when you do it, because the command is wrong.

I fixed the command here:
Surface Tweak Tool for Surface Pro 2 - Release!

 

[randomscandinavian]

No, I had to place the one point furthest to the bottom left about two mm off because the pen point was outside of the screen. But besides that one point everything went fine. Nothing to click on accurately down there in that corner ayway.

 

[Zodman]

I was having a very similar issue; my pen tracking was waaaaaay off when my type cover was disconnected, but was fine when the type cover was connected. In my case, when disconnected the tracking seemed to be upside down and back to front (pen in bottom left put tracking in top right, etc).

After a call to Microsoft support, we installed a specific driver: wacom.com/feeldriver. After installing this my tracking was the same with the cover in both connected and disconnected configurations.:smile:

I have not attempted the 273 point calibration; I've only used the built in windows one.

Hope that helps.

 

[neonspark]

I ended up doing what most sane people would do and just bought a pen and tablet to hook into the SP2 as its calibration is utter and complete garbage and no matter which drivers and number of devices I tried (went the MS store and tried ALL), THE RESULTS WERE BAD.

But this gives me hope...surface pro 2 isn't a pro-scam after all...

 

[MBytes]

Did you try the newly release (a moment ago) 60-point calibration with Surface Tweak Tool.
I have been working on this calibration for a while, and I am getting much better calibration result. As I am no artists, I can't say how better or worse it would be, but for note taking it's the best calibration I got so far. The only caveat, is that you need to take you time to do it, it's important to be the most precises as possible due to the reduce point number. But because of the reduce number of point, it interpolate smoothly. It's perhaps worth a try (Surface Tweak Tool for Surface Pro 2 - Release!)

Let me know.
Currently the pen calibrations don't support Wacom drivers.

 

[neonspark]

Mbytes, are you kidding me!!! this thing works great!. I can finally tap the stupid photoshop toolbars which was nearly impossible before. I followed your advise of laying the device flat on the table instead of with the kickstand but regardless, your tool works 100 times better than the stupid windows tool. awesome work. awesome. I think for desktop and note takers you've solved the problem. The thing is off course the wacom pressure sensitivity doesn't work in photoshop unless you get their drivers. I ended up just uninstalling wacom as I don't really use the pressure sensitivity for my graphics work (mostly text and layout, not artist stuff).

 

[MBytes]

Glad to hear you like it and enjoyed it

 

[hopmedic]

MBytes - thanks for the tool. I'm stuck, though. I must be doing something wrong. I click on pen calibration in the tweak tool, and it opens the Tablet PC Settings, and says I need to reset. I reset, it says that the data has been removed, and I click ok on that message. Then when I click OK to close the Tablet PC Settings window, I get a command window that's empty, and an error message:
[WARN]Digitizer Calibration Tool
Linearity calibration data is already present. Please use the reset button in the Tablet PC Settings control panel applet to remove the data.[/WARN]
I've tried multiple times, tried reset then reboot, and this is what I get. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

 

[MBytes]

It does not work if you have the Wacom drivers. At least not as today

 

[hopmedic]

I thought of that... :wink:
So I rolled back the driver, and now I get "Failed to open digitizer device."
:straight:

Edit:
Got it to work. Went back into Device Manager again and updated the digitizer driver - just the right-click | Update driver method.
Thanks!

 

[MBytes]

Glad to hear! Hope you enjoy it.
Let me know how the calibration works out for you.

 

[NeoGrandizer]

I just got my Surface Pro 2 a week ago, but started setting it up a 2 days ago. Was going around figuring out how 8.1 works (still need to adapt).

I have bad calibration with the stock MS Surface Pen (I have 2 of them; got a spare). However, I tried my S Pen with eraser (designed for the original Galaxy Note 10.1) and it works without any real calibration issues. No messing with the settings or anything. Yes it may be off by 2-3 mm now and then, but it auto corrects itself in a bit. Weird. I'm not complaining since I prefer to use the S Pen with eraser because I can use the flex nib with it and not the slippery plastic nib. I prefer the grippy feel of the flex nib better when working on my doodles and drawings.

Still playing with the SP2 and will see how it goes. I bought this to replace my original Note 10.1.

 

[randomscandinavian]

Interesting! Think I'll buy one of those S pens then. Could always use a spare pen in any case. I don't use the original magnet attachment anyway since I have a case with a pen loop.

 

[NeoGrandizer]

Okay, got the power cover and attached to the SP2. No real calibration issues so far with the S Pen with eraser. The stock pen still sucks and not calibrated properly. I have to wonder if its hardware related (considering the pen button is magnetic and possibly causing interference with input). The S Pen with eraser still works fine for me. There is an offset sometimes dependent on how the pen is held. The only time you will see a huge offset is if you hold the pen almost horizontal to the screen or at a very steep angle. Other than that, I will see at most a 1-2mm offset which I can easily compensate for.

 

[randomscandinavian]

After the latest updates I can no longer reset the calibration in order to do it anew. Pen data already exists, it says. Before it could be reset in the control panel but not now. Since the pen tracking is about 8mm off after the latest upgrade I can no longer use the pen at all.

Not that I've been able to use it for much at all but even if I have given up on getting the features I need it is a setback to lose the ones I kind of had working.

 

[MBytes]

After the latest updates I can no longer reset the calibration in order to do it anew. Pen data already exists, it says. Before it could be reset in the control panel but not now. Since the pen tracking is about 8mm off after the latest upgrade I can no longer use the pen at all.

Not that I've been able to use it for much at all but even if I have given up on getting the features I need it is a setback to lose the ones I kind of had working.

Did you try my Surface Tweak Tool?
Surface Tweak Tool for Surface Pro 2 - Release!

For me it works. And I use the 80 point calibration which I developed specifically for the SP2. Took quiet a bit of time to adjust and tweak, but the results are worth it.
Have it a go.

 

[randomscandinavian]

Did you try my Surface Tweak Tool?
Surface Tweak Tool for Surface Pro 2 - Release!

For me it works. And I use the 80 point calibration which I developed specifically for the SP2. Took quiet a bit of time to adjust and tweak, but the results are worth it.
Have it a go.

Yes I did now and that took care of it. Many thanks! I must confess to not trying your tool before after reading the first couple of pages of mixed reviews upon its release. But that was several versions ago I see. It was a lot more helpful to navigate now than the native calibration settings.

As for the Samsung pen mentioned somewhere in (I think it was) this thread, I bought the very same one and it is rubbish. It works but it veers far of in many places and system calibratiuon protested when I tried using it for calibration. A shame but I am used to pouring out money on bad choices by now. Anyway, it may work for others of course but I wouldn't go and buy one hoping for a magical fix. But if you already have it that's fine.

 

[MBytes]

Awesome! Glad it worked for you!
Thanks!

 

[Egleria]

Hi,

Yesterday I invested about 10 hours calibrating my surface pro 2. For exampe I tried the following:

1. Deactivate Wacom ISD Service: thats necessary to be able to use the windows standard calibration instead of the wacom one (you can reactivate it afterwards)
2. Calibrate with the Tweak Tool and 300 points and save the registry entry afterwards
3. Calibrate with the Tweak Tool and 271 points and save the registry entry afterwards
4. Calibrate with the Tweak Tool and 80 points and save the registry entry afterwards
5. Calibrate using the popular 100 point method and save the registry entry afterwards (search google for 'surface pro 2 100 point calibration')
6. Compare all four Calibrationsetting by switching the content of the LineartyData registry entry.

The result is hat I can't find any difference between the first three seetings and the last one gives me the best results, although all 4 settings have annoying problems with the upper left corner. I assume in my case the results only depends on the way I behave with these unclickable points in the upper left corner while calibrating. At the last try with 100 points I moved the tip of the Pen directly above the points and start hammering slightly up and down until my input was regocnized. I assume that I could get the same results with your Tweaking tool when I would repeat calibration with this method.

Why am I writing this? First of all to explain you guys how to use wacom drivers and still be able to calibrate with the standard windows calibration tool or the twaking tool (see step 1), and secondly to ask one of the surface pro 2 owners with a perfect calibratet pen to upload his linearity data. I would really love to try that out. Do the following:

1. Open the registry editor by searching for 'regedit'
2. Browse to the folder HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\HID
3. Search the folder (strg+f) for "LinearityData"
4. Export the REG_BINARY called "LinearityData" (sometimes "UserLinearityData") and upload it somewhere
5. Post the link