Favorite Joysticks?

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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emphatic
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by emphatic »

bcass wrote:Presumably that oversized actuator is compatible with the Sanwa JLF Silent (ver. B)? I'll be replacing a Hayabusa Silent stick, which has a slightly too generous deadzone for my liking.
AFAIK, the only difference is what type of microswitches are being used.
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xorthen
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by xorthen »

HSS-0136 with some slight mods. I actually got it from some guy on here a long time ago but the thing is amazing. Click and responsive to fireball motions and all that plus buttons are smooth.
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Klatrymadon
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Finally got around to sticking a Brook UFB into a Virtua Stick High Grade. It was a pretty half-arsed, solder-free mod, involving salvaging the original USB cable and daughter board by cutting and splicing some wires, and I've forgone PS4 touchpad functionality altogether, but I'm really happy just to have a good PCB in there. Even considering the touchpad issue (sadly, this is the pause/menu button in some PS4 shmups), it's a much less limited stick than it was before! It's always nice to give an old stick a new lease of life.

Thinking of switching in a yellow balltop and buttons, too, to give it some of the vibrancy of the Namco PS1 stick. :P
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Obiwanshinobi
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

Klatrymadon wrote:(I'm not including any of my 360 or PS3 sticks in this, since those still feel basically contemporary to me and are compatible with PC/newer consoles in most cases, etc.)
I could say about the same about my ASCIIware PSX stick (first "official" PlayStation stick, apparently), for the reasons as follow:

1) I wanted to play Baraduke PSX port with it on actual hardware & RGB CRT first and foremost,

2) as the first PSX stick I've bought that still was any good for playing real-time games with it, left me no real choice other than to keep it, also

3) works with a USB adapter on my PC, obviously a great number of PS2 games, hopefully some DC games via adapter (I've yet to try this out), although no such luck with my PlayStation-to-GameCube/Wii adapter. The latter are a weird bunch - say, worked with one of my DualShock 2s, but not with the other (both legit Sony products). 'Cube SoulCalibur 2 is fully playable with two most rudimentary PSX (legit Sony), digital-only gamepads, but not with the stick. Ever since I've discovered 'Cube games via Nintendont merrily work with Classic Controller Pro, this had become even less of a real issue.
In fact, I do so little gaming anymore that the sick under my roof is more of a middle age crisis symptom rather than genuine gaming device. Still, I'm glad to demonstrate playing a credit or two of a shmup with it to my nephew every now and then, as a piece of gaming culture that's prehistory for him. On said RGB CRT, no less + my home soundsystem... His very own gaming rite de passage is likely going to be (or it was already) Minecraft on PC (I'm cool with that, sounds a lot like LEGO to me).
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cave hermit
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by cave hermit »

I have two joysticks, one that I use for fighters and one for shmups.

For fighters I actually jumped on the Korean stick bandwagon and got a crown 309 mj. I liked it quite a bit, but it wore out around the time GG Strive released so I swapped it out for a low collar Taeyoung Fanta, and I actually like it even more than the Crown stick.

I'm not the best at articulating these things, but I think it comes down to the extra travel time required on Korean levers to trigger an input, meaning it's more suitable for people who like to really manhandle their joysticks when they get into a tight match (like me!). And of course playing Tekken with Mishima characters feels great on it with its quick returns to neutral.

For shmups I use a stick with a Seimitsu ls-56. I have even less to say about this one besides its good for tap dodging and I also like to use it for early era fighting games like SFII and Neo Geo games.
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Klatrymadon
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Klatrymadon »

I wanted to see if the VSHG would look nicer with some more colourful buttons, so I decided to attempt a tribute to the Namco stick. :P

(Internally it has a Brook UFB, and the JLF has been modded with a 1mm oversize delrin actuator and a 1.6 gauge spring, supposedly making it 60% stiffer than a stock JLF. Feels amazin', almost like a Seimitsu.)
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bcass
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by bcass »

That looks nice.

I'm currently building a new stick, using the Brook Universal board with a TMX case and a Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT (with silent mod done by Paradise Arcade shop). I've wired the stick up, and unfortunately diagonals aren't working. Up, down, left, right work fine. I have no idea if the issue is with the stick, the Brook board, or the TMX which interfaces with with Brook board with some of the connections going through it (including the stick).
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Klatrymadon
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Hmm, that's a weird one. The first thing to check is usually that the 5-pin JST connector is the right way round, but if it wasn't then your cardinal directions would be wrong, or unresponsive. The Brook board itself has no problem at all with diagonals or handling multiple inputs, so it could well be that there's something happening with the TMX itself. Maybe try hooking up your stick and buttons to the Brook board and then connecting it directly to your PC (via a USB A-to-B/printer cable, if you have one)? If everything responds normally in something like JoyToKey then it must be the TMX, I guess...

This would still be a pretty disheartening result, though, since the case is surely designed precisely for housing this kind of PCB.
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bcass
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by bcass »

Fortunately, I have the Brook Fighting Cable (not needed for the TMX as it comes with all the cables), so I was able to test the Sanwa and Brook Universal Board in isolation from the TMX circuit, and diagonals are still not working. I don't have a second stick to test with the Brook Universal. Any ideas how I can narrow the problem down to either the stick or the board? If I have to return the stick then it's going to be the best part of two months before I can use my stick again, as it took over a month for the modded Sanwa to be delivered from Paradise Arcade Shop. :(
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Klatrymadon
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Is it worth grabbing a cheap Zippy stick and trying that out? Sadly I don't have any spares at the moment, or I could have sent you a decent one to mess around with. What's the extent of the modification to your JLF? Can you hear the microswitches clicking when you hit diagonals? I'm just wondering if something has been botched during assembly...

If there's nothing wrong there, and another joystick works fine, it could be that you have a dud Brook board, but I've never heard of any problems with them before - it'd be awfully unlucky!
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bcass
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by bcass »

Crisis averted. I swapped out the standard plastic actuator with a 2mm metal one, and it now works. I also put in a 2lb spring. The stiffer spring is going to take some getting used to, I'll have to give it a few weeks.
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Marc
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Marc »

I take it the Hori Real Arcade Pro is decent? Looking at the one with the SFII Cab artwork on it. How's it as a general-purpose stick without modding?
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Klatrymadon
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Klatrymadon »

I've got the RAP Pro N and have had the RAP 4 Kai in the past, which both have the same Hayabusa stick and matte/textured buttons as the SFII version. They're not my preferred ones, but I can't fault them as stock parts go - the Hayabusa lever isn't a million miles from a JLF in terms of feel*, having about the same engage and throw, similarly low spring tension, etc, and the buttons are as hair-trigger responsive as Sanwa's, too. They're certainly arcade-quality parts, and you definitely don't need to mod the stick if you don't want to.

(If you did want to, though, a JLF is a drop-in replacement with the standard flat plate, and an LS-32 or 40 will drop in with the stepped SS plate - just use the two middle screw holes. Alternatively, there's an octagonal restrictor gate for the Hayabusa that you could install if you wanted to use a 1mm oversize actuator, which, sadly, doesn't seem to work correctly with a square gate.)

*its construction is actually quite different, though!
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bcass
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by bcass »

I had the Real Arcade Pro V Hayabusa Silent. It's a solid stick, but felt like the lever could have done with a slightly bigger actuator, and the silent buttons are super super sensitive. More sensitive than any other button types I've ever used. I managed to get some 1CCs with it, but think I would struggle on some of the harder shmups.
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by BrianC »

Anyone try the new firmware for the Mayflash sticks? They claim to have significantly lowered input lag and from what I heard and tried so far, that definitely seems to be the case. Seems to be more on par with the RAP4/V/N and the Qanba Obisidian now (though the latter is still the sexiest PS4/PC stick I own).
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Don't suppose anyone can confirm/deny whether the lighter LS-60 spring would fit in an LS-40 or -32?

@BrianC: bit late to reply to this, but yeah, one of my sticks is an F500 Elite, and it performs as well as anything else after that update. It used to be a stick that was denigrated by a lot of people, but given its generally excellent build quality and customisability, and the low post-patch latency, I'd recommend it to anyone now. (I've sold a stick that had a Brook Universal Fighting Board in it on the back of that patch, actually. I do have another one with a UFB installed, but I'm thinking of letting that go, too...)

Edit: never mind - the LS-60 spring is a different size!
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Sorry to double post, but does anyone know which joystick was used in the Neo Geo Stick 2 for PS3/PC? Obviously it's modelled on the original AES one, but I've no idea if this is purely cosmetic or if the parts are meaningfully similar.

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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Cel7 »

How many sticks exist for gamecube ?
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bcass
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by bcass »

Does anyone have any ideas how to cleanly remove the colour paint from the Paradise metal actuators? After just a few months of using one, I noticed a lot of the paint had come off and had collected as coloured dust at the base of my stick case. I know you can apply grease but I'm guessing that will not entirely prevent the colour paint being removed after prolonged use.
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Cel7 wrote:How many sticks exist for gamecube ?
I'm not sure about the total number, but AFAIK the only half-decent one is Hori's Soul Calibur II stick, which is the same as its PS2 counterpart (although rarer and usually more expensive). It uses the same body and stock Hori parts as many of their other sticks from the period, and is very playable, if not up to par with the HRAP line. For a stick from before arcade-quality parts became standard, it's excellent, and more durable than you might expect.
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by BloodHawk »

BrianC wrote:Anyone try the new firmware for the Mayflash sticks? They claim to have significantly lowered input lag and from what I heard and tried so far, that definitely seems to be the case. Seems to be more on par with the RAP4/V/N and the Qanba Obisidian now (though the latter is still the sexiest PS4/PC stick I own).
Back at the end of last year I did a before/after lag test of their V1.26 firmware for the F500 and it showed some pretty good improvements.
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Klatrymadon »

I grabbed a 'Qanba Gravity Silent Stick' recently, mainly because it was for sale on Arcade World UK and silent levers are hard to come by here, without just buying an entire HRAP V Silent or whatever. It seems to be a great lever, so far. It feels like a slightly spongier JLF, which I thought would be a dealbreaker at first, but I find that during play it's perfectly responsive - it meets the demands of tap-dodging in shmups, causes me to die no more than I normally do in GnGR, and effortlessly handles any fighting game technique I can throw at it.

I'm impressed with how quiet it is, too - I was expecting there to be a vestigial click of some sort, but I can only hear anything if the game is switched off completely. My 9m/o daughter is such a light sleeper that my gaming in an adjacent room can wake her, but there's no danger of that with the Gravity, so arcade controls are an all-day thing again! I never thought I'd care about silent buttons, but the difference in stick noise is so great that standard Sanwa OBSFs now sound deafening by comparison, so I may have to invest in a set of quiet ones and have a full stealth stick. :P

Anyone else tried one of these?
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Rastan78 »

So I don't have that one, but I've tried a couple of the new Seimitsu silent sticks. They're great and have no audible clicking at all yet you do still feel the resistance of the switches. I agree having a silent stick is awesome as I have young kids as well. I mean even playing alone it's nice to not have the obnoxious clicking.

Back in the day silent joysticks like Sanwa had optical switches with zero physical resistance. It was a real tradeoff losing the tactile feel of the switches for silence. Since they were also very expensive and required hooking up voltage to the stick they got discontinued. With these I don't experience trouble knowing when I'm hitting the Switch during light tap dodging etc.

I've tried the one that is similar to an LS40 but silent and currently use the Nobi silent model which cost a frickin arm and a leg.

I prefer the Nobi one as it has some cool features like the unique "bullet" lever top. Also the shaft doesn't spin. This feels much more precise to me once you get used to it. Also these sticks are much heavier in resistance which makes them feel great for shmups IMO if you can get used to the big increase in tension.

Honestly I wonder why most shafts on sticks do rotate? Is it ergonomics? I wonder if it was partly bc it's more expensive to manufacture a locking mechanism to prevent spinning. Also in arcade setting a spinning shaft means players can't just twist off the balltop. With the Nobi you can do that.

Also been tempted to try out those silent Sanwa buttons to match. I guess the newer Sanwa silents use a rubberized material for the plunger that is clear coated to make it feel more like hard plastic. Supposedly Seimitsu is developing buttons that use the rubberized material for the base of the plunger fused to a plastic cap so they feel just like regular buttons. Not too familiar with the Qanba and Gamerfinger options.
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bcass
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by bcass »

I use Cherry D44X switches on my JLF, and they are barely audible in a silent room and definitely can not be heard outside the room.
Last edited by bcass on Sun Mar 26, 2023 5:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Air Master Burst »

Really excited to try out the Qanba Gravity, I've been looking for a decent silent stick for ages. Might look into the Seimitsus too, though, especially if they release a silent version of the 56.

As far as silent buttons go, I highly recommend Punk Workshop's Cherry MX buttons. I got silent blacks in mine and they're fantastic.
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Rastan78
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Rastan78 »

Actually they are coming out with a compact silent similar to the 56. It'll have some of the cool features of the Nobi like the non-rotating shaft, the new octo gate, and increased tension.

I'm a fan of their new octo gate. It's more like a square with deeper diagonals and the cardinal directions just have a slighter indent. Sort of a best of both worlds between square and octo.
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Klatrymadon
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the Gravity stick (at least on AWUK) comes with a choice of Omron or Cherry MX switches. I went with the Cherries purely because I'd never used them before, and they're great, but it's now incredibly tempting to order a second one to try out the other configuration. :P
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Rastan78
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Rastan78 »

Is that Qanba silent the one that uses mechanical keyboard switches instead of the standard arcade style ones? In that case you could try out any combo of new switches by just replacing them without a whole new stick right?

Side note: did you guys know there is a redesign for the classic Sanwa JLF coming called the JLX? Not sure if it will replace the JLF or they'll keep making both.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Air Master Burst »

Klatrymadon wrote:Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the Gravity stick (at least on AWUK) comes with a choice of Omron or Cherry MX switches. I went with the Cherries purely because I'd never used them before, and they're great, but it's now incredibly tempting to order a second one to try out the other configuration. :P
I ordered mine the newer high elasticity Omrons; I'll update this thread whenever it gets here and I can put it through its paces.
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Rastan78
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Re: Favorite Joysticks?

Post by Rastan78 »

My mistake about swapping the switches. Looking at this pic it seems there is a different housing for each brand of switch. Also looks like they might be soldered down?
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Idk it seems like this is a bit of a stretch to repurpose keyboard switches for a joystick? But I guess if they're nice to play that's all that matters. Looking at the two brands there's a big difference in the size of the stem that's meant to have a keycap attached. I could see where this would alter how hitting diagonals feels between the two since the actuator will grab the corner of the much wider Omron stem in a position where it wouldn't hit the Cherry?

Either way I'd be curious to try one as it's a pretty unique design.
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