Best Joystick

Stoner

Hi all,

I'm looking for an arcade style joystick (well 2 number) for the PC. Anyone got any Ideas where to get em, I want to use them with MAME, BTW can MAME be played over the internet?

BLITZ_Molloy

The best sticks are Hori ones. You can go for the Hori Real Arcade Pro one if you want real parts, but the cheaper Horis are perfectly good if you don't want to pay that much. The PS3 and Xbox 360 USB sticks both work on PC. I think the PS3 one plugs in and works outright, you have to download drivers for the 360 one.

www.play-asia.com/

Mad Catz have a new stick that's probably not bad (their past sticks were horrible but supposedly the new ones a vast improvement, if not quite up to Hori standards). I'm not sure what the story is with drivers. Google it. My college firewall is preventing me from looking. They're releasing SF4 on the PC soon so maybe you'll be able to get the stick on the high street, although they hardly have any PC stuff in Game and Gamestop so I wouldn't be suprised if you couldn't

Only other option is an X-Arcade, which is truly a horrible stick on every level.

You can play MAME online, in a manner of speaking. There's a program called GGPO. It's only for 20 or so fighting games though. You need specific roms to play as well, which can be a bit tricky to track down for copyright reasons, but you can torrent them easily enough.

There's another program that's popular for more general games, rather than fighting purists. I can't remember for the life of me what it's called though. I'd ask on the GGPO forum maybe.

Stoner

thats great info thanks, I was actually looking at the x arcade,

so something like this?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hori-Officially-Licensed-Fighting-Stick/dp/B000V02P6Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1242637023&sr=1-1

or

http://www.amazon.co.uk/HORI-Real-Arcade-Pro-Xbox/dp/B001GDONZS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1242637023&sr=1-2

there is a big price difference, I would not stretch to 2 x the pro one,

animaX

BLITZ_Molloy wrote: »

The best sticks are Hori ones.

No they're not!! They are the cheapest and easiest to find though. Madcatz street fighter sticks are better quality, though there was problems with the early batches which have been resolved. Even better would be to swap out the buttons on a madcatz stick with genuine arcade parts (sanwa/seimetsu)

Don't even consider x-arcade unless you're just playing for the sake of nostalgia.

You can play mame games online through kaillera i think

monkeyfudge

Stoner wrote: »

thats great info thanks, I was actually looking at the x arcade,

I have the X-Arcade sticks. I can give you a loan so you can try them out if you'd like.

Stoner

thanks monkeyfudge, you know I'll give that a go.... and if I like them I'm going to wait till you are skint and pissed and then I'm going to ........................................................... get them off you for half nothing!!!!

Last question, where's the best place to buy them? I'll tell you what I want them for, the 32 Bit Dungeons and Dragons, with Trix etc the Sega game that was only released on Arcade. It has a function where you tap the stick forward to run, this is needed for other moves in the game.

I'm just looking for ones that can handle that sort of action and are available handy enough at a reasonable cost. If thats Hori or Madcatz I don't mind.

thanks again all.

BLITZ_Molloy

Sorry, I meant to say best for the price. Good to hear that the Mad Catz problems have been sorted. I wasn't aware of that so that's why I was slow to recommend that one in particular. Hori have a good track record going back to the early 90s.

The Fighting Stick EX is a great stick. It doesn't use Seimitsu/Sanwa parts, but their immitation of them is very good. If you aren't a stick nerd or very into your Vs. fighters you're going to struggle to tell the difference.

Of course the HRAP is a better stick, with real parts, but It's costly.

The X-arcade is universally slated by any people who are into that kind of thing. They're always complaining about how indistinct the stick is on fighter forums. I haven't tried it myself but I hate anything with concave buttons so I wouldn't consider it anyway.

I've ordered a load of stuff off play asia (and before that lik sang) and had an arcade stick arrive in 3 days on one occasion. Great serivce.

Stoner

BLITZ_Molloy wrote: »

Sorry, I meant to say best for the price.

thanks , that was what I was looking for anyway.

KeRbDoG

BLITZ_Molloy wrote: »

...
www.play-asia.com/
...

Note, anything thats over the threshold of Duty will be hit by custom coming from Play-Asia

CiDeRmAn

Yeah, those X-Arcade sticks are a doozy, just make sure you pick up the correct adaptor for whatever console/arcade system you want to use it on.
Kerbdog used to have a set, must see about that!

animaX

BLITZ_Molloy wrote: »

The Fighting Stick EX is a great stick.

Yeah, I actually have a hori ex2 and its great for a first-time stick. I'll be modding it this weekend with real sanwa buttons etc since one of the buttons is unresponsive.

brianon

If you are so inclined its very easy to make your own. Bit of mdf, and ipac and buy the joysticks. V.easy.

If not then whatever you get I'd recommend you put in sanwas or seimetsus.

The Hori comps are ok though and maybe a bit cheaper (not sure).

MarthaT

we've used this one for a while, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hori-Officially-Licensed-Fighting-Stick/dp/B000V02P6Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1242637023&sr=1-1 and its been fantastic

Gadge

I have an X-Arcade Dual stick with a PC adapter I'd be willing to part with if you're stuck. To be honest I love the feel of it. I bought an Egret 3 cab lately so I have no use for it anymore. If you can pick it up in Limerick I'll give it to you for €70, which is about half price. Probably less with the adapter. I also have an Xbox adapter I can give you instead if you were gonna use an Xbox as the cab's base (which does a fantastic job). I have decent feedback on adverts.ie if you wanna check up on me

Stoner

Gadge wrote: »

I have an X-Arcade Dual stick with a PC adapter I'd be willing to part with if you're stuck. To be honest I love the feel of it. I bought an Egret 3 cab lately so I have no use for it anymore. If you can pick it up in Limerick I'll give it to you for €70, which is about half price. Probably less with the adapter. I also have an Xbox adapter I can give you instead if you were gonna use an Xbox as the cab's base (which does a fantastic job). I have decent feedback on adverts.ie if you wanna check up on me

thanks for the offer, sounds like a good price, but I'll try out MFs one first (no pun intended)

I actially bought a cheapo arcade type stick on eBay last night c/w all MAME DVDs, so I'm going to give the games a go first to see what I think of them before I invest in something better.

Thanks all

brianon

Gadge wrote: »

I have an X-Arcade Dual stick with a PC adapter I'd be willing to part with if you're stuck. To be honest I love the feel of it. I bought an Egret 3 cab lately so I have no use for it anymore. If you can pick it up in Limerick I'll give it to you for €70, which is about half price. Probably less with the adapter. I also have an Xbox adapter I can give you instead if you were gonna use an Xbox as the cab's base (which does a fantastic job). I have decent feedback on adverts.ie if you wanna check up on me

Where did you get the egret 3 cab from ? Did it cost much ?

Gadge

brianon wrote: »

Where did you get the egret 3 cab from ? Did it cost much ?

I'm getting it from the guys at Insert Coin 2009 (http://insertcoin-09.com) and I got it for about €700 with delivery, but it was a one-time thing. There's gonna be more for sale at the expo as far as I know, but I'd say they'd be closer to their normal price.

I managed to pick up 2 Naomi cabs off a private trader as well lately on the cheap. Much joy!

Stoner wrote: »

thanks for the offer, sounds like a good price, but I'll try out MFs one first (no pun intended)

I actially bought a cheapo arcade type stick on eBay last night c/w all MAME DVDs, so I'm going to give the games a go first to see what I think of them before I invest in something better.

Thanks all

You should definitely look into using an Xbox as the heart of your cab. You don't even need to upgrade the hard drive to be able to play thousands of MAME games.