Whilst waiting for the last few joysticks to arrive, I thought I'd share some info on what I'm hoping to achieve, and also show some progress in the setup.
The point of this is for me to get to know a bunch of 4-way sticks and figure out (mainly for myself) which ones I like best for which types of games. I understand that this will be highly subjective, but perhaps some commonalities of feel will present themselves, and if people end up using this as at least a starting point then I will be glad I helped someone. The aim is not to find one or two "winning" sticks that suit all 4-way games, but I will probably end up recommending one or two for those that just want a single 4-way for, say, a vertical classics cab.
As I've said before, I'm planning on doing this as a video. I'll start by looking at each of the 12 sticks in detail one by one, then will go through a number of 4-way games, one at a time, playtesting every stick before moving onto the next game. I am no expert in the chosen games, so this will more be a "layman" comparison about what feels good and what doesn't, highlighting any problems any sticks have with certain games along the way. For each individial game, I'll try to rank the sticks in order of how suitable they are. I may also enlist the help of my boy to test the sticks, and (pandemic permitting) maybe another gamer friend or two.
As I plan on building a vertical classics cab in the near future, I'll use the bits I have already for that: a Ryzen 5 3600 Groovymame PC connecting via an Ultimarc J-Pac to a Hantarex Polo/3 CRT. I'll be using as high a frame-delay as possible to minimise any input lag. My supergun recently died so I have ended up making a custom jamma harness just for the bits I need for this test (video, gnd, coin/start/button1/button2/up/down/left/right). I'll connect all the individual joystick directions together using a stripboard, then connect that to the jamma direction inputs on the harness. This'll mean I can use all the joysticks as if they were one. Once the joysticks are mounted in the panel, I'll wire them all up to the stripboard.
I've cut all the shaft holes for each of the joysticks, and the mounting holes for the joysticks that I have. 3 more to come soon. I've also made some basic CP mounting blocks from some 2x4 and put some button holes in: 3 sets of 2 buttons for ease of reaching when moving from stick to stick, and 3 buttons at the top for coin, start and exit.
Will be really interesting testing out all the sticks, figuring out what feels best for specific types of games. I'll post another update when the remaining sticks come and I've got it all wired up and ready to test.