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Another joystick thread...yes I know

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Tiger-Heli:


--- Quote from: countchocula8 on April 01, 2005, 07:07:08 am ---From what i've been reading, these are the top choices for my needs: happs perfect 360, happs super, happs comp, t-stik, and j-stik. Many people endorse the P360s but I think these are a bit out of my price range. People say t-stiks have "short throw" to them... i'm not quite sure what this means (short response time???) or if this is good for the type of games I will be playing.

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Toonces explains it well, but "Throw" is basically the total amount of travel of the stick.  Dead zone is the amount of travel before the stick contacts a microswitch (basically the same for most of the sticks) and this plus the amount of travel until the stick stops is the total throw.

Sticks are digital, so while long throw would be useful in an analog stick (b/c theres a difference between fully forward, halfway forward, and barely forward), in a standard arcdade joystick, forward is forward regardless of how far you push the stick.

Short throw is better for games like Pac-man, where you might need to wiggle the stick quickly from right to left and back (or Galaga), because since there is less travel, there is less distance between one direction and the next.  OTOH, short throw is probably worse for some fighters where you have to carefully hit corners and position the stick, b/c with less travel, it is easier to hit an unintended direction.

In the real world, I have only used the Prodigy joysticks - outside of whatever was on the arcade machines (probably Happ Ultimates, or Monroes, or Wico Leafs).  These (Prodigies) work well in both 4- and 8- way modes.  The throw is notably shorter than I remember from the arcades (and bothers me when I just try to mess with the stick), but in gameplay, the stick is very responsive and you don't notice the short throw as much (and in PacMan, it helps).  The springs are not annoyingly stiff either.

--- Quote ---A person I know is planning to order a few items from overseas and he can get sanwa joysticks (are these same as j-stiks?) for relatively cheap. This fact has me leaning towards getting the sanwas, but i'm confused as to how these would perform compared to the t-stiks, comps, and supers.  Toonces mentioned sanwa knockoffs...are ultimarc's j-stiks authentic sanwas?

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J-stiks are authentic Sanwa's, although I think Ultimarc modifies them slightly.  Without having tried them I think the Sanwa's would be a good choice.  To sum up what I have heard from others and to summarize for you -

Happ Super - Long throw, medium spring.  Good for round motions like Capcom fighters and time pilot.  Tend to be a little diagonal-happy.

Happ Comps - Good for the other style of fighters where you have to hit the diagonals.  Similar spring and throw to the Happ Super.

Sanwa's - Probably a good compromise stick - shorter throw than the Happs, but longer than the Prodigy or T-Stick.  Very lightly sprung, so takes some getting used to, but good if you like or adjust to that.

Prodigies/Omni's/Suzo 500's - see above - short throw and moderate spring pressure.  Very accurate if the short throw doesn't bother you.

T-Stiks - about the same short throw as the Prodigies, but much stiffer springs.  People either tend to love or hate these with very little middle ground.

Hope this helps - someone advise if I made any glaring errors.

Stingray:


--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on April 01, 2005, 03:20:30 pm ---
Happ Super - Long throw, medium spring.  Good for round motions like Capcom fighters and time pilot.  Tend to be a little diagonal-happy.


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Long throw? Only when compared to Prodigies. I'd call Wicos long throw and Supers medium, with Prodigies being very short. I might be splitting hairs here. :)

-S

Tiger-Heli:


--- Quote from: Stingray on April 01, 2005, 03:40:30 pm ---
--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on April 01, 2005, 03:20:30 pm ---Happ Super - Long throw, medium spring.  Good for round motions like Capcom fighters and time pilot.  Tend to be a little diagonal-happy.

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Long throw? Only when compared to Prodigies. I'd call Wicos long throw and Supers medium, with Prodigies being very short. I might be splitting hairs here. :)
-S

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Fair comment - I've never used Wico's and CountChoucula8 didn't ask about them.  If I didn't miss anything else, I did pretty good.

Thanks for clarifying, though!

crashwg:


--- Quote from: Lilwolf on March 30, 2005, 06:12:17 pm ---360s ARE 8way joysticks and the best that happs delivers.  But you need +5 voltage... but very very nice clean actions and no worries about broken microswitchs (uses magnets)

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P360 are an optical joy not magnetic (digital hall effect?). 
They basically use a light and a camera of sorts to tell when the joystick is moved in a certain direction.

It's kinda like when you step into an elevator that's doors are closing... Ya know, as soon as it senses something between the emitter and reciever it triggers a connection that tells the eleveator "open the doors"  Same idea, just alot smaller and x4!

monkeybomb:


--- Quote from: Toonces on April 01, 2005, 10:47:02 am ---I have been thinking of a way to compare it but unless you have something to compare it's just not the same. The closest, non feel based comparison I could think of would be to draw 2 circles on a piece of paper. 1 5mm and 1 10mm. Put a dot in the center. Now move the dot straight up and when you hit the edge of the circle, stop. The 5mm circle represents the t-stick and the 10mm represents a Happ Super.

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I teach for a living...that's brilliant.

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