Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: SF-Junky on August 18, 2013, 12:41:58 pm
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Good day.
I'm now finally sick of that Logtech 3D Pro crap and as grandma was, eh, generous today ;) I intend to buy a new joystick next week. The Thrustmaster T.Flight Stick X doesn't look too bad for me, heard much good of it: http://www.thrustmaster.com/en_US/products/tflight-stick-x
As I expect a lot of other joystick users to be here I wanted to hear more opinions, however. What would you suggest? If possible I would not want to spend more than, say, 80€ or so. It doesn't have to be a high end war machine, just a durable and accurate piece of work (like my beloved old Thrustmaster Top Gun afterburner - may it rest in peace).
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Incidentally this particular topic has been covered many times. Results from two first pages of forum search.
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=83288.0
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80924.0
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80474.0
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=79641.0
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=79159.0
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=77416.0
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=76385.0
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=65360.0
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=62326.0
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Well, I suggest what I suggested in all those other threads. CH Fighterstick. Throttle and pedals may be too pricey for you (worth every cent, though), but the stick by itself is reliable, has a lot of buttons and is very ergonomic, plus it looks really cool. As you can see in the other threads, it's a bit obscure, but often recommended by those who do have it.
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Thrustmaster T Flight stick X is what I used for quite a few years untill the potentiometers started becoming less accurate (and to be honest, at that price, replacing the stick is not all that big a bother). From my experience with joysticks, there's a few one can recommend:
T Flight stick X: Excellent joystick for the price.
T.1600 M: Thrustmaster joystick utilizing the same tech as the A-10 Warthog (The McLaren F1 of sticks) and other HOTAS systems, but only costing a little bit more then the T. Flight Stick X. It's also fully compatible with their programming software (Which is, along with CHs, the best on the market)
Saitek X52 (pro): Driver issues I reported on earlier have all but been resolved, making this a fairly reliable and highly functional HOTAS sytem. If you never tried an HOTAS before, try the Saitek series. They are a very good blend between price and functionality. They also look cool. I was able to find an X52 set for 100 euros, but if you have the money I suggest you buy the Pro series instead, as it is simply better in every way.
CH products: CH is a compnay that makes control equipment for heavy industry, and harbours, and all other jobs where the damage caused by a faulty stick are far greater then the costs of having one of those sticks in the first place. As a side project, they also make entertainment products. As a result, their sticks are extremely reliable and highly programmable, although they are not as fancy as the newer sticks (The stick is unchanged since the start of the USB era). For the full functionality, however, you need to buy three seperate components (stick, rudder pedals, throttle), which is rather expensive.
However, CH sells replacement parts, and their product reliability is legendary (see above).
Logitech G940: Reported to be not as reliable, but it is the only system on the market with Force feedback right now. People do love their Force Feedbacks.
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we should really just have a stickied joystick recommendation thread
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That would probably fall under advertising...
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Well, unless it becomes a string of posts praising CH controllers, I don't think so. Not everyone has had a CH stick, so they'll probably recommend something else. :) A sticky with joystick discussion would be really useful.
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Well I had CH Product in the past but last year I picked up a Saitek X52 Pro. Wow what a piece of junk. Wicked dead space in the stick (YouTube for fix that voids warranty). Glad I didn't do it as the stick went dead in 3 weeks and I returned it.
My wife then asked what the best one was and she proceeded to get it for me.
Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog
If you have the money... man this is an awesome stick/throttle
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Well I had CH Product in the past but last year I picked up a Saitek X52 Pro. Wow what a piece of junk. Wicked dead space in the stick (YouTube for fix that voids warranty). Glad I didn't do it as the stick went dead in 3 weeks and I returned it.
My wife then asked what the best one was and she proceeded to get it for me.
Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog
If you have the money... man this is an awesome stick/throttle
Are you sure it was the X52Pro or the regular X52? The X52Pro was supposed to have the deadzone issue fixed, as far as I know, so it's possible you had a faulty product out of the box.
Anyway, this is a good example why it's almost impossible to go down on the joystick hierarchy, once you know how a joystick SHOULD behave, trying to use an inferior product just makes you notice all the flaws and makes it impossible to concentrate. Coming from another direction, I remember how much better the X52 was compared to entry level sticks like Logitechs and Saitek's Cyborg Evo.
The deadzone fix I applied for X52 worked fine in the beginning but the stick just wasn't all that good in general, nowhere near CH build quality, and of course the Warthog is pure metal beast... I ended up going with CH because I heard the Warthog (like its predecessor, the Cougar) developes mechanical play in use, and the spring stiffness is fairly high which I don't personally like very much.
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I'd still use my MS Sidewinder 3D Pro for pretty much everything if it just had a few more buttons on it. Best stick movement I've ever felt.
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Oh it definitely was a Pro model... not cheap in price.
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Well I had CH Product in the past but last year I picked up a Saitek X52 Pro. Wow what a piece of junk. Wicked dead space in the stick (YouTube for fix that voids warranty). Glad I didn't do it as the stick went dead in 3 weeks and I returned it.
My wife then asked what the best one was and she proceeded to get it for me.
Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog
If you have the money... man this is an awesome stick/throttle
definitely want to check out the warthog. but my ch hardware just doesn't die. hard to justify a new stick when i already have one that does everything i need it to.
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Same with me, I was interested in Thrustmaster, but they don't seem to include pedals, not to mention my CH stick and throttle aren't showing any signs of wear. Oh, and I really don't feel like giving up the CM.
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Sneak into an aircraft boneyard and steal some hardware :P
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Won't be better than CH. :) Their sticks are already made to industrial standards, I wouldn't be surprised if the Fighterstick shared some parts with actual aircraft sticks (IIRC, CH makes those, too).
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They may come from same assembly line (although I seriously doubt it) but the QA requirements for aircraft components are FAR more rigorous than what could ever be expected of a consumer grade game controllers. Button switches may be possible, but you definitely don't want a spiking potentiometre in your aircraft's fly-by-wire control stick.
Or, I dunno, maybe they just exchange components as soon as diagnostic shows they're starting to be out of operating standards.
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Same with me, I was interested in Thrustmaster, but they don't seem to include pedals, not to mention my CH stick and throttle aren't showing any signs of wear. Oh, and I really don't feel like giving up the CM.
supposedly the warthog comes with some pretty good config software. it has features like scripting and virtual joysticks. but its meant for a stand alone product. ch's control manager is more general purpose since you use the same application for all ch hardware.
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What I love about CH CM is that it allows me to include pedals into games that wouldn't otherwise accept them. MW2, for example, it way too primitive to be convinced to accept pedals in addition to a HOTAS, but configuring my CH set as a single controller allowed me to pass the whole thing off as an MS Sidewinter variant, and it works (well, sort of. GBL broke torso twist).
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heres a good breakdown on what you can and cant do with each major hotas and their programming software:
http://www.simhq.com/_technology2/technology_094a.html
the warthog is probibly second most configurable to anything from ch. it can do virtual joysticks, but only one (i think ch does up to 16 virtual joysticks, but i only ever use 2 or 3 of them). thats the only major difference. both are highly configurable and scriptable. saitek and logitech sticks on the other hand have very limited config software, no scripting, no axis swapping and issues like that. article is a good read.
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Very good read. The Cougar seems rather interesting, because it has support for additional gameport pedals. I didn't heard about that before. I have no idea where to get such pedals, though, but they should be quite cheap, what with them being a previous-era gameport hardware. CH once made gameport devices, though they're probably going to be even harder to get in Europe. I wish Warthog supported pedal integration, this is quite a big deal to me.
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supposedly the cougar had a lot of problems and you needed to mod the stick to make it work the way you want. ive heard from people who have owned one that in its stock configuration it is very stiff, and that is a problem from me. as a ch user you know how perfect the spring tension is in a ch stick (it only gets better with age). as for the pedals i think a lot of cougar users get either the old skool gameport ch pedals, or retrofit the usb pedals with a gameport. supposidly you can plug any old skool passive joystick into that port and it will work. gameports are very simple, and you just need a ground, 5v, which connect to the outer pins on the pots (i think 100k, but since its essentially a voltage divider it doesnt matter), and the reading is taken from the center pin, each fed back through a pin in the gameport connector.
http://www.epanorama.net/documents/joystick/pc_joystick.html
now the problem with ch is that their sticks are not doing anything with cutting edge sensor technology. still using pots and 8-bit axes, all be it at a level of perfection unseen in other hardware. if you ever take apart your ch hardware, you find that every controller has the same mobo (which is about the size of an credit card) with the same 7400 series bank switching ic, and mcu (with a sticker identifying the model, in a dip socket), and a few passives and headers for wiring. nothing cutting edge there. actually i took apart an ms sidewinder from the late 90s and it was more advanced, with a larger complement of chips and full surface mount pcb construction. in the saitek x52 ive taken apart you got ratsnest wiring, through hole construction, multiple boards, and gobs of hot glue everywhere, unpopulated components on the pcb, just a general mess. both of those sticks were using exotic sensors. the sidewinder was optical and the x52 used hall sensors on x and y. warthog uses pure hall sensors, saitek is going from hall sensors to flex sensors, and ch is still using pots. ch never really tried to do anything like that. but it still manages to pewn.
i think my perfect joystick would have the warthog's all metal construction, with hall sensors with at least a 12 bit dac resolution, ch durability, spring tension, and software, sidewinder's pcb construction, and saitek's grips and lights, and it would also be wireless (hotas controllers are notable for being a wiring nightmare).
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Maybe the old tech is why CH sticks are so reliable. Like with a lot of Russian stuff, this tech may be old, but it's also proven and since it's been around for so long, it's been developed to near perfection. And yes, I've heard of Cougar's spring tension problems. There are mod kits developed to address this. My perfect HOTAS would've been similar to yours, except with Warthog or Cougar-style grips and buttons (I just love realistic-looking sticks), plus they'd be wired (I don't mind a lot of wires).
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ch takes a no bull**** approach and just gives you a good solid joystick that just works with everything.
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Yeah. That's why I'm probably going to stick with them. And from the looks of it, my children too. :) Especially since if something does somehow break in a CH stick, you can easily buy a quality replacement from their industrial offer. :) All those buttons and switches are common across their entire offer.
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I was thinking about the CH higher end stick but their throttle really sucks compared to Saitek or Thrustmaster. I owned one long ago and they have not changed any since then. Best thing would be to buy an X52 Pro throttle off Ebay and use it with the Fighterstick. I almost went that route. Can't do it with the X45 as the throttle plugs into the joystick. The X52 line the joystick plugs into the throttle so you can use the throttle as a stand alone. Also the CH rudder pedals (again which I owned) are much to close together for most people. I am seriously impressed with the Saitek Pro Rudder pedals. Well built and smooth. The toe brakes are nice as well. The one thing I heard about the Fighterstick is it seems to be designed for people with small hands and extra long fingers to reach the hats.
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what exactly sucks about the ch throttle? i actually prefer a linear slide instead of a rotating throttle. it could use some trim knobs (not that the fighter stick doesn't come with hardware trim knobs), but other than that is a pretty good unit.
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Well I guess it is a matter of taste. I have used 4 different throttles playing sims like BMS Falcon and I liked the X52 Pro one and the Warthog. The min-mouse and all the hats and switches come in handle on a more advanced flight sim. The CH Pro Throttle had a fair amount of hats but no analog hats. Also you almost had to velcro the base down to keep it from sliding with the horizontal movement of the throttle axis. The Wartog is the Cadillac og throttles with its dual throttle axises and a ton of switches and hats on the handles as well as on the base. Also it is solid as a brick and stays put where you place it. The stick and throttle weigh a lot.
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the irony is i actually have my throttle and stick attached to the desk with velcro. all joysticks kinda have this problem to some degree or another. the ch throttle's thumbstick can be configured as a mouse or a stick (or as both using cms scripting and modes).
the warthog is about the only stick id consider switching to. it has sexy features, like the ability to panel mount the whole thing, and the throttle is a huge block of metal covered with toggle switches. it would definately be an excuse to cut more holes in my desk.
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I remember years ago an employee of ch posted a render of a new throttle very similar to the cougar throttle on simhq
its a shame they never made it
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it may have been a thing from their industrial line.
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CH used to have top not customer service. My Flightstick Pro started to have a problem with one of the pots and I emailed them and they sent me a complete kit to replace all pots free of charge. That was back in the late 90's. Now you can't even get them to answer a simple question. Like all other companies they have chopped their support staff to nothing.
Actually I took my old CH Pro Throttle and created a custom FPS shooter controller for the left hand.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8236/8427756889_8078f33215_c.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8492/8428848980_f445f0c645_c.jpg
20 buttons at your fingertips
plus A W S D on stick
plus 4 push buttons on base
plus one toggle switch on the base to be used with Xpadder that can switch the set to a totally different set of key binds
I used a GP-Wiz40 for the interface