Wanting to upgrade my arcade stick...

[cyprien]

So I have the Mushi Futari Hori -> http://www.shopncsx.com/futariarcadestick.aspx

It feels like there is a lot of dead space before it hits the connectors to move my ships around when I'm playing and no matter how lightly I move the stick it seems to make the ship fly in the direction I push a lot more than I intend to. Is this just me, perhaps? I would like to be able to move in much smaller increments when I move the stick around so I can tighten up my movements inside some of these bullet patterns.

I'm not entirely sure what hardware is in the stick but is there a good replacement to get a sort of 1-for-1 feel on the movement? Is that not something that I want?

Suggestions?

[StarCreator]

The Futari uses a Seimitsu LS-32 lever. There are modifications that can shorten the distance needed to actuate the switches, therefore reducing the deadzone - I'm sure SRK has more than a few guides for doing this. As a matter of personal opinion, I use an LS-32 myself and I consider it to be perfect as-is. The LS-32 is known to have short deadzone and throw as-is compared to many other levers on the market.

As for the actual movement, arcade sticks are purely digital, so you're either moving or you're not. There's no changing the speed of your movement based on how far you push the stick. Many shooters are designed around digital controls, with certain actions like holding down the fire button slowing your movement.

[spl]

The stick is fine - the problem is in your technique. You are just holding it too long in the one direction that's all - with practice you will be able to tap in very small increments and this will improve your accuracy. Try sort of "flicking" the ball top and see how much you move. Try different ways of holding the stick. It's just muscle memory in the end.

You can get very tight sticks like Happ stuff and Suzo parts but the Semitsu stick in your Futari hori stick does not need any modification - these are used in Japanese game centers everywhere with great success.

[gray117]

hmm ...Indeed that stick should be ideal for relatively tight play... Perhaps a bit of experimentation/clarification is in order. 3 points:

1.
Without playing a game are you feeling this dead space? - ie. you can feel, hear and see when the stick engages a switch?

And how does this compare to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVNbMXzVn3U

Does it appear to have dead space? --- there is always an outside chance of some kind of fault or worn out micro switches.


2.
If this seems fine, but there appears to be deadspace when playing, is it possible you're mistaking joystick dead space for screen lag?

3.
Technique, as mentioned by spl - Do you grip the stick from above? Side? Or do you 'wine glass hold' the stick - flicking/jamming/guiding as necessary ?

[cyprien]

The stick is fine - the problem is in your technique. You are just holding it too long in the one direction that's all - with practice you will be able to tap in very small increments and this will improve your accuracy. Try sort of "flicking" the ball top and see how much you move. Try different ways of holding the stick. It's just muscle memory in the end.

You can get very tight sticks like Happ stuff and Suzo parts but the Semitsu stick in your Futari hori stick does not need any modification - these are used in Japanese game centers everywhere with great success.

I figured it probably had something to do with my technique, I should try fine tuning it a little more before I go trying to mod my stick. I'll look around online and check out different methods for holding the stick and what-not.

hmm ...Indeed that stick should be ideal for relatively tight play... Perhaps a bit of experimentation/clarification is in order. 3 points:

1.
Without playing a game are you feeling this dead space? - ie. you can feel, hear and see when the stick engages a switch?

And how does this compare to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVNbMXzVn3U

Does it appear to have dead space? --- there is always an outside chance of some kind of fault or worn out micro switches.


2.
If this seems fine, but there appears to be deadspace when playing, is it possible you're mistaking joystick dead space for screen lag?

3.
Technique, as mentioned by spl - Do you grip the stick from above? Side? Or do you 'wine glass hold' the stick - flicking/jamming/guiding as necessary ?

1. Without any real effort on my part I can wiggle the stick back and forth about a quarter of an inch before something stops it. After that I have to push to make it click and actually move the characters. It's hard to tell but it doesn't seem too far off from the LS-32 in the video.

2. I haven't noticed lag with any other types of games, but that could just be me again. I'll have to do some more testing.

3. Like I said above I'll have to try some other ones out but normally I hold it like this:


As a conclusion: Try out some other methods. I haven't been using an arcade stick for too long and I think I was just really adjusted to the finer movements I was able to pull off with a controller. =\

Thanks for the help/tips, guys!

[dieKatze88]

It's an adjustment issue. The way I handle my joysticks (Lets not read into THAT too far...) the LS32 has an annoying bounce for me if I attempt to move too short of a distance (as I tend to let go and let the joystick recenter on its own power, Bear in mind that I also play a ton more Gradius than anything else, and more often than not that rebound puts you in the path of the bullet you're trying to avoid in Gradius, it doesn't seem to matter AS MUCH in other shooters...) This makes the JLF about a thousand times more accurate to me, and I have no problem doing twitch moves in Deathsmiles or Otomedius G on my Hyper Stick Pro or on any thousands of games on my New Astro (which has JLFs in it now, thank god, if nothing else because the LS32s that were in there had seen WAY better days.)

Long story short. Hold your joystick differently and try a different technique for movement. It might work for you. There are some games that some people will never be able to play on a joystick and you might have found one for yourself. I know for a fact that I can't play a variety of NES games on a joystick, even the ones that make sense to, like Contra or Jackal, but some NES games that make no sense to play on a Joystick (Getsu Fuuma Den) I can play no problem with a joystick and 2 buttons. I've seen it quite a bit, some people can't adjust to playing any specific on a joystick. I know I will probably never be as good at Gradius V on a joystick as I am on a Dualshock simply out of just thousands of hours of practice, if nothing else.

[gray117]

Hmm interesting indeed.

Do give the wine glass hold a go - you'll find it is surprisingly flexible and accurate.

If you ever played fighters with a joypad and always wondered why people recommended sticks over a joypad when you can't even get a fireballl off consistently (?) - you'll almost certainly find that with this grip your success with special moves, increases with the wine glass grip - due to accuracy.

[The only question with wine glass is if you fit 1/2/3 fingers between ball and faceplate - experiment - I can usually only fit 1, most use 2, some crazies fit 3... - some people switch this up constantly; most often for when playing on p1/p2 side of a fighter - this is sometimes the reason to mod a shaft for some people...]

^ Given that sf iv is so cheap I really recommend it as a practice tool for accuracy - yes its very different to many shmups - but it will help you see what/when you are accurate/fast/slow... A lot of people presume that they can move in all directions at equal speeds - but its not necessarily true!


As for lag - the thing with most other games - except perhaps platformers - that the ryhme and response of play is not as finite as shmups. Indeed with even with fighters you can often find that lag is not noticeable for most people in terms of executing an action, but only in defense as your denying yourself a fraction in reaction time; this is one of the reasons why ggpo (appears to) works so well as a network code for fighters.

Shmups is nearly all reaction based - hence the advice to compare the look and feel of the stick without playing a game and evaluating if this matches you're perception in game.

Since the tolerences are often so small with shmups and any lag; this is really a perception, something you feel rather than see, because it is so slight. [Unless you're extremely well practiced
at seeing such things, and playing individual games.

BUT beware... yes... although there's probably a frame or so of lag with most setups (usually perfectly acceptable for most players) - because this is all perception based, I might be making you paranoid, and all of this might simply be a case of getting used to the stick, rather than feeling something wrong

[dieKatze88]

Acer P244w -> It has no video lag, we tested with a CRT. I'll have to post the Camera pictures later.

But that brings up the double buffering issue and having one frame of lag built into the game.

And lets not even get into controllers, that's just asking for problems.