Let's talk gamepads and joysticks for the PC... - by lost_soul
piln on 7/4/2010 at 10:39
Quote Posted by NamelessPlayer
I would like a keyboard alternative for analog movement in FPSs, but the Microsoft SideWinder Strategic Commander is long discontinued and apparently has no drivers for anything beyond XP 32-bit. That would be the most ideal design to me-kind of like a twisty joystick, only it's more of a left-handed mouse shape loaded with buttons-but no one has bothered to replicate it.
Heh, I forgot about that MS device. Never tried it. Will it not even show up as axes & buttons in newer Windows?
(
http://img580.imageshack.us/i/img1318.jpg/)
Inline Image:
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/8597/img1318.jpgYou could try the Saitek CCU, with (
http://xim360.com/community/index.php?topic=1082.msg11310#msg11310) this easy (non-solder) mod. I haven't done it properly yet, but I tried a quick mock-up and making the throw longer by just a few mm is a big improvement - I wish I'd bloody done it before I started playing! :rolleyes: And drivers shouldn't be an issue - on my current setup I've just plugged mine in and used it as a gamepad (21 buttons + analogue X-Y axes). I've played all the Thief games, Splinter Cell CT and Chronicles of Riddick that way without ever installing the software, just using the games' control options. Obviously, older games need Saitek's (or somone else's) profiling software for the buttons.
Just out of curiosity, does System Shock 1 support analogue joystick movement, I can't remember?
Quote:
And speaking of the MX1000, I always wished that Logitech would make a wired version with the G5's sensor or better. I got that and then some in the G500, but I would've preferred the thumb buttons to be in the MX1000's shape. Is the battery in yours still holding up? I'm thinking of picking up the Bluetooth version one day...
Yeah, I've read that long term battery life is a problem with Logitech mice, but (fingers crossed) mine is still fine after... :confused: I honestly can't remember how long, I've had this one for years.
Shadowcat on 8/4/2010 at 08:02
I have a 360-ish game pad which I still haven't played a game with.
I don't use a joystick much these days, either. I bought an ultra-cheap USB stick a while back, but haven't used that yet, either. The Descent source-port I'm using offered mouse-look, which was simpler.
A Logitech Wingman Extreme served me well for a great many years, though, along with a set of Thrustmaster Elite rudder pedals. That was back in the day when flight simulation was one of my more common gaming activities.
The rest of this will make NamelessPlayer sad...
Easily my biggest waste of money on a gaming peripheral was my Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS. Fabulous in theory (my thoughts were: best HOTAS ever; will never need to buy another stick or throttle), but the combination of a stick that was too large/heavy, and a poorly-designed spring system that made smooth movements near or through the centre pretty much impossible, absolutely ruined it for me. I spent a while trying, and then gave up. There are some very well-designed hardware mods which completely solve these problems, but I think it would be cheaper to buy one of the newer Saitek systems instead (which also don't have these issues). Also... metal sticks are bloody cold (blindingly obvious, except I'd never actually thought about it beforehand), and I don't really want to have to wear gloves to fly a sim comfortably.
I might have either modded or replaced it, but I simply don't fire up any of my flight sims any more, and I'm no longer willing to drop that much money on something I know that I'll get so little use out of. I still harbour vague ideas that one day this might change, though, which is why I haven't sold it...
My second biggest waste was the TrackIR (v2) I got at about the same time. At that point I didn't have any sims that worked with it natively, and the mouse-emulation mode had lots of re-centring problems which, combined with some sunlight reflection issues, made it quite frustrating, and I didn't stick with it. Unlike the Cougar, that one truly is obsolete now, as Naturalpoint have continued to develop better models.
My enthusiasm for flight sims was always greater than my actual ability with them, so they were one of the first casualties when my spare time started to decrease.
NamelessPlayer on 9/4/2010 at 04:56
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
The rest of this will make NamelessPlayer sad...
Nah, I'm not sad at all.
I'm not going to say that the Cougar's without its flaws. The paint on mine is coming off pretty badly, the stock pots can have some annoying issues, and there's some play in the stick handle and shaft that becomes really accentuated because of the FCC mod that was installed when I got it. It's even arguable that the Cougar shouldn't even need mods in the first place given the price tag.
On the other hand, I do love the software flexibility and the ergonomics, which is probably why I haven't sold mine off just yet. (To compare to similar high-end flight controls, I used to have a CH Products Fighterstick and Pro Pedals, both USB. Control Manager Scripting is indeed even more powerful than the Cougar's logical programming, which you'd expect as a later brainchild of the same person, but CH really needs to work on making their stuff comfortable to use. The Fighterstick dug into my palm a bit, and the Pro Pedals were rather narrowly spaced together. It was enough to make me sell them off.)
I can't comment on the TrackIR 2, as I think I first heard of them when the TrackIR 3s were out, but I didn't own one 'til I got a deal on a TrackIR 4 Pro second-hand. I personally wouldn't go any lower than TrackIR 3 with the Vector Expansion for 6DoF support for two reasons: software (TrackIR 2 apparently got dumped years ago on the software end) and 6DoF (even if the game/sim in question only supports 2DoF, only head rotation pans the view, not head movement along other axes).
