TLDR: What is the best trackball for arcade like GT experience? Ultimarc? Happ? X-gaming? Others? What is the best one that will mount directly to a 3/4" ply without having to rout it down to 1/4"?
I recently purchased the x-gaming BYO kit and have everything mocked up on a thin 1/4" mdf board. I have been very pleased with everything with the exception of the trackball. The problem I am seeing is that the trackball is very inconsistent in how it plays GT. I am moving from a dedicated Arcade GT to a MAME GT, because I thought it would be cool to have the other games in the same cab. The problem is that the game play on the x-gaming does not live up to my expectations. I have seen some incredibly inconsistent shots. Sometimes the drive goes 300 yards and other times it goes 100 yards. To a point where it is unplayable by anyone that wants to keep score. I also don't like having to rout out my control panel down to 1/4". I am worried that the 1/4" requirement for the x-gaming trackball could potentially split or break the wood. I also saw a note on the x-gaming site that all trackballs veer to the left. While this is hard to believe that they all do this, I did verify that their trackball does indeed veer to the left. The x-gaming trackball is fine most of the time if you plan to use it as a mouse or navigate some games, but I don't think that it is the best option for me being that I wil be playing GT most of the time.