Joysticks.

Whatever happened to the joystick? I can't think of a game made in 20 years that gets improved by using one? Maybe micro$oft flight sim shit? What happened to the old space combat sim's like X-Wing/Tie Fighter?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    consonles

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    they still exist but
    >they are expensive
    the cheapest ones are twice the price of a new xbox controller and are widely regarded as the most chinkshit crap you can get
    >they have poor build quality
    the mid range items like the logitech X56 and x52 both have severe flaws
    >they dont adhere to x-input standards
    its always directinput or some other custom drivers, which is ancient as all frick, but thats only because xinput refuses to acknowledge that there might be a controller out there thats not a generic ABXY+dpad twin stick twin trigger piece of shit.
    >its easier to support a game controller
    xinput just does it all for you: port assignment, rumble, etc etc. directinput, you're expected to do 90% of the work.
    >no support on consoles, and you need per-device support per platform
    thats like 80% of the market gone
    >no games to play it with
    you get microsoft flight sim, some really expensive israeli milsim games, and elite dangerous. That's it. And all these games support alternative input methods. So it's a niche subset of already a niche community looking to use HOTAS/Flight sticks.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >the cheapest ones are twice the price of a new xbox controller and are widely regarded as the most chinkshit crap you can get
      The cheapest shit I could find was 30€, OP's pic is 56€, and an Xbox controller is 67€ where I live. Price really isn't the issue.
      Also it's very easy to use Steam's controller support or an external application to map it into a fake xinput controller.
      Your other points are valid though.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        actually ops picture is the cheapest I've found to be available in australia at about $110 from memory, and still priced higher than an xbox controller at about $80 from memory. I owned the logitech extreme 3d pro

        And yeah, you can get steam to act as the middleman. But then it becomes a tedious issue of going "i have 36 buttons but the game only supports 10 and doesn't support hot switching between kb+m and controller". or some other shit.

        Source: Owned extreme3d, Logitech X52, and 3 individual X56 sets (dont get them, they're ass, the throttle doesnt adhere to usb spec and spams ghost inputs, i have to run vjoy and joystick gremlin to filter out 1 frame inputs)

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Sounds like an Australia thing. Here are the cheap ones available here in Finland. Ignore the switch panel, it's in the same category of "flight controllers".
          I currently have the T.16000M because I got tired of logishit buttons breaking after a couple of years, had a couple of Attack 3s (cheaper but now discontinued version of the Extreme 3D) before and both got the same issue.

          >doesn't support hot switching between kb+m and controller"
          Man I really hate that shit, it limits what I can do on my Steam Controller.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Beware. Logitech joysticks have blatantly obvious planned obsolescence. The axes are controlled by potentiometers, and those potentiometers are built in a way that ensures that they break.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Logitech haven't made a product worth using in 20 odd years. Even their recent stuff that seems alright at first glance is still cheap garbage internally.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Yeah like I said I moved away from logitech, not because of that issue but because the buttons stop working properly after a while.
              My current T.16000M uses hall effect sensors instead of potentiometers which is nice.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                I bought a 16000M as well after my Attack3 broke due to those potentiometer breakages. I still haven't used the throttle controller. Elite Dangerous has like 200 buttons and it's more intuitive to use a keyboard for them.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >Legendary Warthog uses the same design
              just why?

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >Legendary Warthog uses the same design
              just why?

              >why
              planned obsolescence.
              why make one $300 device that will last 10 years, when you can make 10 $200 devices that will each last a year.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Logitech Extreme 3D Pro has been 70 to 90 AUD for the longest time if you aren't looking at big box stores. Amazon is currently 70AUD, most online storefronts are about 65-80, I think the only places that charge over 100 for it are JB Hi Fi, PLE Computers, EB Games, the sort of places that are selling it as a convenience buy to people who don't know better.
          I do remember buying my first E3DP from Harvey Norman in mid 2005 to play Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3, I never would have expected it to still be the mainstay entry level joystick nearly two decades after it was released. Fricking wild as it has never been a very good joystick, but it seems like it is just good enough in every aspect and that has allowed it to dominate the "casual" joystick market (as far as joysticks can have a casual market to begin with).

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Who buys a 3D Pro new?
            You can get half a dozen of them used from cashies any day of the week for the cost of half a meat pie.
            They're 20 years old and they're cluttering cupboards everywhere.

            3D Pro = cheap shit. It's fine for getting used to the idea of using a joystick
            Other Logitech shit = expensive shit. It's logitech plastic nonsense. Mightve been good when they were saitek branded, but now logitech has infested them.
            Once you realise that, it's onto proper premium joystick brands like virpi, winwing and vkb.
            There's also thrustmaster in the middle and their hotas pack is considered a decent mid range (although many people swap the included joystick for a premium one). the TWCS throttle alone is pretty naff when paired with a shiny stick.

            Just don't get tricked by the cheap t-flight ""hotas"" sticks with 3 buttons and a crappy throttle, they're just remapped gamepads.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              I agree, my point was to the guy who said he couldn't find them under 120 or something.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              people who dont want to touch people's coom sticks and get contaminated with their incel dna

              no mount of soap and alcohol will clean used hardware that's been in someone's anus

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          I got a tflight hotas 4 for $80 from a friend and never had any issues, granted I only used it to play elite dangerous for a few hours

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      im making a mech game that uses two of them like steel batallion, except in vr

      >the cheapest ones are twice the price of a new xbox controller and are widely regarded as the most chinkshit crap you can get
      logitech joystick is about the same price as a xbox controller

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      what's wrong with direct?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        not as widely supported, from a developer standpoint its like a 3 line solution to implement controller support with xinput but with directinput you gotta figure out what controller you're looking at, what buttons/sliders/knobs/etcetc that you've got, figure out how you wanna map them, just a fricking headache so devs because they're lazier than ever they just go "frick it, we'll add xinput"

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I play Mechwarrior 5 and Star Citizen in VR with my HOTAS setup.

      Both are very immersive with the HOTAS set up. I'd play ED if it weren't so boring and the VR hadn't been borked by Odyssey.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Have you tried mapping it to a non-vehicle game?
    They are only really good for those.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Everyone using them plays DCS

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >buy that particular joystick
    >half of the buttons stop working after a month
    They don't do anything that controllers or mouse and keyboard don't do better, except maybe immersion.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >They don't do anything that controllers or mouse and keyboard don't do better
      this is factually wrong

      controller has a maximum of 6 axis, 2 on each thumbstick; and 2 on the triggers (pushing it), and you have to be off an axis to press a button.

      it's not enough axis for full 6dof.
      each joystick has 3 axis + thumbstick/hat(2) for 5 total.
      which means you need 2 joysticks or 1 joystick + throttle/thumbstick minimum to fully control in 6 degrees of freedom a spacecraft.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        you need

        pitch
        roll
        yaw
        up
        down
        left
        right
        forward
        back
        9 axis total for full control
        + assorted buttons for firing etc

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          so basically kb+m?
          basic setup wins again

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Vehicles require analog control, esp. with steering. You get no precision with a keyboard and mouse steering is cancer.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Yet they somehow manage with only four analog axles.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            You only need 6dof if you're in a zero-g environment. For the drone in your pic, up and down is handled by gravity and throttle control, pitch/roll introduces instability that cause the drone to tumble out of control, so those kind of controls are handled by a computer and gyro sensors.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              > pitch/roll introduces instability that cause the drone to tumble out of control
              > handled by a computer and gyro sensors
              > what is acro mode
              You have no idea what are you talking about.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        you need

        pitch
        roll
        yaw
        up
        down
        left
        right
        forward
        back
        9 axis total for full control
        + assorted buttons for firing etc

        Sadly this isn't reality of space games outside if evochron. There is a reason why KB+M is meta in Elite Dangerous it's WW2 fighter but in real space game you don't need roll

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        You forgot to mention gate shape. Flight sticks have square gates to allow full x×y positioning. Game pads are curcular so that maximum x position is reduced as maximum y position is increased and vice versa.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Thinking about playing a flight game with kb+m gives me nausea

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Gamepad with gyro is very good for DCS/BMS as poorgay option.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    they're kino, and we can't have that nowadays.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I'm planning to buy one of the steering wheel controller, which one should I get?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You really shouldn't. They are fun for a few hours and then they just collect dust — taking too much space when they set up; and take too much to set up/move out of the way if you go that route. Unless you're a simgay, in that case you already know what to get.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It's a total waste of time to get one without FFB.

      It's the same with joysticks, but because there are basically no FFB joysticks on the market anymore, most people overpaid for junk and will try and justify it to themselves.

      The T300 is generally the best "cheap" option. The lower price wheels like Logitech shit are okay if you really don't have a lot of money to spend, you can enjoy an old DFGT no problem. If you're made of money you can get direct drive.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        You really shouldn't. They are fun for a few hours and then they just collect dust — taking too much space when they set up; and take too much to set up/move out of the way if you go that route. Unless you're a simgay, in that case you already know what to get.

        alright, got it, thank you boyos

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I bought an x56 and the weight of the throttle pulled on itself so that if I set it to 75% after a few minutes it would creep up toward 80%. This made straight and level flights miserable. So I said frick it and started playing microshit flight sim with an xbox controller.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The joystick still exists.

    It's just called a thumb-stick on controllers after evolving into a superior controller.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I wouldn't call gamepads superior. They're the jack of all trades, master of none controller.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I own one for the rare occasion I play a game with piloting.
    One is a must for Elite: Dangerous

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Some games are unplayable without them
    I have tried dogfighting in DCS with different controller setups and none of them were as precise as a joystick

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    What a moronic thread.
    >Whatever happened to the joystick?
    Nothing? Feedback joystick are back on the menu in 2023.
    >I can't think of a game made in 20 years that gets improved by using one?
    What the frick does it mean? You can use them even in Battlefield of consoles
    >What happened to the old space combat sim's like X-Wing/Tie Fighter?
    Arcade games? Tons of them exist right now and you can use your joystick if you want.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    People who argue that joysticks make no difference in flight games have never used a joystick for a flight game
    It's like when poorgays say 60fps makes no difference

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    xinput happened

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Playing namco's snoopy ace combat has been comfy as of late, another alternative is sky crawlers on wii and other such gyro games on wii lend themselves well to the sidewinder dragon dildo layout. Dreamcast has a lot of plane games, and rez series which are awesome with these frickers. Also pls forget microwiener gay sim, may i instead interest you in the xplane series of sims? Alternatively if an N64 or early 3d accelerated sci fi racing game on pc or arcade features d&b and has some form of flying or floaty ass controls then you know what to use it for. Finally monkey ball and virtual-on are other good options if you want to somehow justify owning these hulking sex toys. OH and mech games like armored core and mech assault. you have to get creative when using these craps and fortunately they dont conflict much with keyboards during normal gameplay. Also i need more recommendations.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Gonna add more if anyone still cares.
      Marble mania
      Kirby's tilt & tumble
      Rogue squadron series
      Battlefront II
      Starfox 64/assault/command (with alternative input patch ofc)
      Tube slider
      FAST
      Sin & punishment
      The world ends with you
      Audiosurf
      Luigi's mansion series
      No man's sky
      Ex-zodiac
      MDK
      Propeller arena

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Ax:El
        Total eclipse
        Defender (gamecube)
        Gravitass (idk if it Came out only on PowerPC macs or if its available anywhere else)
        Darker
        Jumping flash
        Hellbender
        Megaman legends
        Panorama cotton
        Space harrier (this one's nearly imposible but fun)
        Ghost in the shell (ps1)
        Heavy gear
        Panzer dragoon
        Incoming
        Buck bumble
        N20
        Gotcha force
        Frame gride
        Lander

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Controlers and gamepads are just better and more comfortable, unless you're playing simulators of course.

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I miss rotary encoders in joysticks, when is the last time a joystick or analog stick had one? Still mad that potentiometers won out in the common market, although I understand with why Halls are the go to for higher budget stuff.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >rotary encoders
      You know they've got shit resolution without gearing, right? At least at the kind of sizes you could fit in a joystick.

      Honestly, given the hall effect jitter, I wonder why we've never seen anyone try and use optical sensors in anything outside of mice. They're objectively better. You just need to power an LED to light up the background, no touching parts.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        True, I guess I'm thinking about some frickoff big based stick that would have room to fit sufficient gearing to provide granularity. I have some weird memory of something in the 90s using them, back in the wild west era of joysticks and gamepads, but it escapes me right now.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >rotary encoders
          You know they've got shit resolution without gearing, right? At least at the kind of sizes you could fit in a joystick.

          Honestly, given the hall effect jitter, I wonder why we've never seen anyone try and use optical sensors in anything outside of mice. They're objectively better. You just need to power an LED to light up the background, no touching parts.

          Actually come to think of it, didn't the N64 use an optical encoder for its analog stick? Still can't think of the joystick model I'm thinking of, but food for thought considering that the N64 stick was one of the most pleasant input sticks ever on a controller (when new, pity they cheaped out on the parts and they degraded like dogshit).

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            The N64 did, but they were geared to improve the resolution, and it was still atrocious. All the sticks back then were pretty shit though.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Indeed. I still think that it would be interesting to explore with improved components these days. Note that I am talking in comparison to the cheap arse chinkshit potentiometers put in every budget stick and every gamepad in general these days, not applications for the higher end stuff. I would still take a (new, working) N64 stick over a Gamecube/Wii stick any day, for example.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >I wonder why we've never seen anyone try and use optical sensors in anything outside of mice.
        That would probably be difficult to do in a joystick. A mouse only needs to measure relative movement, but a stick's position should always be absolute. No sensor is perfectly precise, so you need some sort of system to compensate for the error that will inevitably accumulate and distort the "center" position of the stick.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Centering is based on the spring. Basically every controller ever made understood that centering can be misaligned, which is why most controllers initialise the sticks at boot and assume they're at zero. This is why if you hold forward on the sticks on pretty much any console at launch, you frick up the centering.

          It's very rare for a stick to be set up as absolute, and when it is, it's likely configured at the factory because tolerances aren't perfect, and most arcade machines let you adjust the configuration to compensate.

          The reasoning behind not using optical sensors is probably space constraints. The chips have tended to be quite bulky, and directing light into them takes up more space. For a joystick it might be doable, but for something like a controller joystick it's just too small an area.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Yeah but the problem is that the optical sensors in mice don't measure position, only movement.
            For example, when you plug in a joystick with a potentiometer, it takes the initial reading and notes that "X volts means the stick is centered". You can then keep playing as long as you want, and when you center the stick again the potentiometer will give the same X volts output.
            A mouse on the other hand can't do this because its sensor doesn't measure position. There is no starting position it can take note of, and it doesn't know where the mouse is at any time, only how much it has moved since the last measurement. All of these measurements contain tiny errors, so you can't simply add them all up to figure out if the mouse has returned to its starting position.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              It's a reasonable point, but given the expected speed of a joystick, I don't think it's reasonable to assume tracking errors. That's what fricks up optical tracking, going beyond speed limitations of the sensor. Potentiometers and hall effect sensors don't update X on the fly, after all.

              Indeed. I still think that it would be interesting to explore with improved components these days. Note that I am talking in comparison to the cheap arse chinkshit potentiometers put in every budget stick and every gamepad in general these days, not applications for the higher end stuff. I would still take a (new, working) N64 stick over a Gamecube/Wii stick any day, for example.

              The N64 sticks were mainly a failure in terms of materials. There's nothing wrong with gearing, although it does make the analog stick fairly bulky as a unit, which is probably why they went for the 3 prong design. Rotary encoders are essentially just a simpler form of optical tracking that's just looking for a grate pattern of light/dark instead of tracking the whole surrounding. I wouldn't mind one of those steel replacements but the price is probably fricking moronic now all the zoomers jumped on the retro bandwagon.

              I think hall effect is probably the best option for controller joysticks given they don't require much space, but even potentiometers are fine if you build them properly and don't farm them out to chinks who have been looking for new ways to save a fraction of a cent per unit for 30+ years and have now gotten really good at building something that barely works for a few months, meanwhile I've still got old PS1 pads that work fine.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                There's always at least some degree of error, if only because digital systems have limited precision. Not sure if it would ever be relevant, but after a couple of hours you would've accumulated a million extremely tiny errors or so.
                Also even if it was relevant, it would probably be pretty easy to work around by using some sort of secondary system, something as simple as detecting when the stick hits the edges or the center position to reset the axis would probably be enough.

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    USB and Bluetooth controllers became more common, allowing better fidelity of control in a more compact form that people often had as a byproduct of owning a console

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    thoughts on Virpil?

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >takes up a lot of room
    >usually sucks unless you buy a 100+ dollar one
    >only useful for flight games
    >a gamepad does 90% of what a joystick does

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    they were replaced by painsticks

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