Rate these Joysticks

[Diabollokus]

I've never owned a joystick before but thinking about trying it, as I'll never get to play shmups in an arcade + DC pad not great. Dreamcast pad and saturn pad are what I'm currently using but which of these is the best?

These are on ebay at the mo, I know sanwa and seimitsu are the real deal just looking to start of at the begining.

Dreamcast true arcade

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 59792&rd=1

The official one

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 28339&rd=1

This cheap lookin topmax

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 50507&rd=1

Tornado (Never seen it before)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 73677&rd=1

Saturn Virtua Stick

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 23410&rd=1

Hori Fighting stick

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 05104&rd=1

Ascii saturn stick

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 83064&rd=1

[Naiera]

STEAR CLEAR of the Virtua Stick you've linked to. There are no microswitches in the stick itself, which makes it pretty much useless. The buttons are also horrible.

I'd go for the Hori stick or the official one (with new buttons and a new stick).

[raiden]

Dreamcast true arcade

this is a cheap HK developed stick. The stick is good, reminds of the Neo Geo, except the ball is a little loose, you will want to fix that with glue or something. The buttons are not so good, sometimes they get stuck. If you want to play with autofire mostly, this thing is worth considering if the price doesn´t climb too high.

The official one

Buttons are better than the first one, the stick is worse (too loose). Shape and case are well-prepared for a Sanwa-mod, so if you can imagine wanting that later on, it´s a good idea.

Saturn Virtua Stick

this is the western version, no good at all, there´s also a much better, jp one which was sold out for very cheap a few years ago. Similar to the official DC stick, it´s good for a Sanwa mod.

Hori Fighting stick

very durable, the stick is a little too loose for my taste, the buttons too tight, not as easy to trigger on as the jp Sega sticks or Sanwa.

Ascii saturn stick

haven´t played this, but every Ascii stick I have played was of outstanding quality, much better than everything else on the respective system, so I´d recommend that blindly.

One thing left to say: if you are planning to use a stick on several consoles, I´d prefer to buy one very good joystick, mod it for Neo Geo format (because that has no data compression and thus, is the most precise one) and build converters for every console. Having one joystick each for several consoles requires to readjust yourself when changing systems, takes up more space and, if you´re going for quality, will be much more expensive.
If you want optimal results from your stick experiments, try fixing it to a solid base, like putting it on a table with rubber underneath.

[Diabollokus]

Thanks raiden that was an informative post

Looks like its a case of dreamcast official stick and japanese saturn stick.

Sanwa parts seem interesting would this fit?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 81232&rd=1

[oxtsu]

For modding, none of those are 'plug and play' with Sanwa/Seimitsu (only a very few are). Some drilling and soldering is expected.

Of the ones linked to, only the Sega official and Hori SS are worth a toss. The others are pretty much junk.

[Capt. Takehiko]

If you've got a lot of money I would personally recommend the X Arcade sticks.

[Neon]

I don't have much experience with various types of arcade parts but once I got a stick with Sanwas my skills in fighters improved dramatically. I'm better at it with shmups too though it's not as drastic of a change compared to a pad.

If you're going to get a stick, just don't bother messing around with the bullshit quality ones like saturn virtua stick, etc. and get a nice one with Sanwa or other quality parts.

[mannerbot]

If you've got a lot of money I would personally recommend the X Arcade sticks.

That's a bad idea.

[GaijinPunch]

Pay $100 or whatever one of the guys at Shoryuken.com to make you one. Sanwa parts...they even print artwork for you. You can also get the Japanese button layout.

[mannerbot]

Custom stick is best of course, but it'll actually cost a bit more than $100 for a custom Sanwa due to the cost of parts. Expect to pay ~$160 for such a stick.

And I don't think the topic creator is looking to spend that type of money on his first stick, especially since he probably won't notice a difference between Sanwa parts and Hori ones.

[japtor]

for a lot of money you could get a sega arcade panel, build a base and wire up to that. or just buy the astro city sega saturn one if you can find it.

otherwise for a more realistic amount of money, ive heard good things about the japanese namco and sega sticks (both hori parts?). and the hori stuff itself. not that ive played them...but i hear theyre pretty good.