Dpads, Whats The Difference (No Flame Please)

[God Ginrai]

With this in mind, my natural grip is fairly close to that optimal angle for the Sony d-pad, so I've not a problem with it. One thing, though... the Dreamcast d-pad is nearly identical to the 360's d-pad both in terms of how loose it is, and how it reads the directions... so God Ginrai, how exactly do you find the Dreamcast's d-pad to be that high on the list, while its little brother is the bottom? Granted, the Dreamcast's D-pad is slightly easier to work with, but slightly above the worst is still pretty far down. Maybe you didn't use a first-party controller?

The 4 Dreamcast controllers I have all seem to have what seems to be a compromise between a Nintendo-style plus pad and a Saturn-style float pad, and have not felt anything like the 360 pad. I've never had any problems with it. I rated it higher than the Genesis dpad only because the clicking of the Genesis dpad has started to get to me as of late. The reason it is so high on the list is because while I don't hate the Nintendo cross pads, I've never really felt much for them either, and the Duke's dpad while it is not bad just does not seem out of place below Nintendo's cross pads.

Damn, nobody ever mentions NEC's D-Pads.

They've always been my favorites.

I've never tried them, but I've seen some people post on these forums that they were pretty good. I also seem to remember some people really liking some NeoGeo stick on one of their handhelds, IIRC.

-God Ginrai

 

[nem]

I'm definitely a D-pad nut, so here's my thoughts on different controllers and their pads

There's two official pad designs for the Saturn. One is junk, the other one is arguably the best pad ever (so called Model two, even though it's the older design). The latter one is pretty much the same as the official six button pad for the Megadrive/Saturn, so if you're a fan of that, you have good taste.

The PlayStation cross is fine for four way movement. RPG's, racing games, Pacman. For anything that needs diagonals, it is worse than, say, a SNES controller.

Dreamcast and 360 controllers both have awful D-pads. They feel mushy and imprecise. All of the Dreamcast controllers I've owned (a ton) have had identical D-pads. The design is small and sits up much too high. It's a huge shame, since the Dreamcast controller is an evolution from the analog Saturn pad, but unfortunately, instead of improving, they cocked it right up. An analog stick with a convex top, four face buttons instead of six, junky D-pad, ugh. They didn't even fix the ergonomics of that thing.

The NeoGeo clicky stick on the NeoGeo pad and the NeoGeo Pocket handheld is similar to the one on the GP32. It is very good, but failure prone due to the microswitches. Every second hand NeoGeo pad I've owned has had problems with at least one direction. When it works, it is very good though.

 

[Vlynndar]

I've had no problems with the D-Pad on the GBA sp or the NDS. And I have always played racing games with a keyboard.

I don't think I'll have a lot of trouble with what the Pandora can offer me.

 

[SoleGrave]

Im the only one that liked the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis D-pad.

Au contraire, the Genesis/Saturn raised-circular design is very well received, and is in fact the inspiration behind the Pandora d-pad.

It makes me happy to hear that and makes the wait that much more enduring.




.

 

[verm71]

Years ago I had a Gravis Gamepad.

It was built like a tank and lasted me something ridiculous like 5 years or something. Then when it finally started being unresponsive, I went out and bought the Gravis GamePad of the time.

The new one was nothing like the first one. The DPad rattled when you shook the whole thing, it felt light and was generally garbage. Everything has its heyday. And everything eventually has its downfall.

 

[Prometheus]

Gravis Gamepad! The official gamepad of Jazz Jackrabbit, as the demo that they packaged in with the pads told us.

Was there actually any reason that the game (both demo and full version) asked if you were using one, when you set up a gamepad/joystick? I don't recall any difference either way, whether I was or wasn't using one.

 

[verm71]

Not sure I remember. I could be mixing up the Gamepad and Gamepad Pro. The Gravis Gamepads had 4 buttons. This was somewhat new for gameport gamepads. Nowadays more than 2 buttons is common place, but for USB gamepads. There was a switch at the bottom of the Gamepad that allowed you to select whether it behaved as a standard joystick with 2 buttons, or as a Gamepad with 4 buttons. When you chose 2, the extra two buttons acted as turbo of the other two. When you chose 4, I think you had to use a Gamepad-specific driver. Also, the Gamepad Pro had "piggy back" connectors so you could connect up to 4 gamepads. For this to work, you had to flip another switch to put it in "GrIP" mode, as they called it.

That's about as much as my memory can bring back into cache. I'm sure more details are out there. I'd rather reminisce than be pedantic.

 

[Steve F]

I really like the genesis/Saturn D-pad. It's very nice for platformers, space shooters, and anything else you throw at it, and more than good enough for fighters. Though, I have to say the Neo Geo Pocket Color's clicky nub thing works wonders for fighters, and that would surely be my preferred method of control, if it was possible.

 

[WizardStan]

That's about as much as my memory can bring back into cache. I'm sure more details are out there. I'd rather reminisce than be pedantic.

I can be pedantic enough for both of us.
The standard PC gameport, back in the day, had 4 analog and 4 digital channels. That is, it had lines to handle two joysticks with two directions and two buttons each. You could use a Y adapter and plug two two-button joysticks into the same port. You could also have four one-button paddles attached, if you felt like doing so.
When you plugged in the Gravis gamepad and switched it to gamepad mode, it actually signaled on all four button, thus it was impossible to use two gamepads at the same time if either was operating in gamepad mode. This is why some (dos) games asked whether you had a gamepad or a joystick, so it could figure out if those extra two buttons belonged to a single input, or if they were second player buttons.
With the introduction of DirectInput, future generations of multibutton gamepads (not counting USB, the ones that still plugged into the standard gameport) used those four buttons as binary command switches. If a button is pressed, it would pulse the four button lines in a sequence that the driver would detect as "button 1 pressed". When you released it, it would send the sequence meaning "button 1 released". And in this way, they could add a lot more buttons AND maintain two player capabilities.
And then, of course, once joysticks went USB, they were able to package up the signals anyway they wanted, and the idea of "these button lines for player one, these for player two" disappeared completely.

 

[Ayla]

Dreamcast and 360 controllers both have awful D-pads. They feel mushy and imprecise. All of the Dreamcast controllers I've owned (a ton) have had identical D-pads. The design is small and sits up much too high. It's a huge shame, since the Dreamcast controller is an evolution from the analog Saturn pad, but unfortunately, instead of improving, they cocked it right up. An analog stick with a convex top, four face buttons instead of six, junky D-pad, ugh. They didn't even fix the ergonomics of that thing.

360 controllers have awful d-pads, okay ; but I have to disagree about dreamcast ones. They are great (at least for me).

 

[verm71]

[ great technical details on gameport Gravis Gamepad and USB ]

That is neat. I remembered the 2/4 button thing. I can remember when one of the two players had the switch wrong, he would be firing off on behalf of the 2nd player. Yes, it's all coming back to me now...! I didn't know Direct Input worked that way to harness the 4 digital lines (which I guess technically could amount to 16 independent buttons, if used in a binary fashion).

 

[Gricey]

I *love* the PS3 controller. But what I think people are forgetting is that you rarely use the dpad in PS3 games, it's all walky walky with the dual sticks and the d-pad invariably gets used as a secondary set of buttons.

 

[Alpha2]

Depends, if it's a classic SF style fighting game or something that still has 8bit - 16bit characteristics like 2d sidescrolling it's still easier to use the Dpad in those situations.

 

[Fzero]

Yep the ps3 pad gets my vote too

do the pandora nubs have that gradual pressure sensitivity like ps3 analogue sticks do?
So you can press lightly to move slow, I'd guess they do as you use it for the mouse and that would require it I think

 

[LeChuck87]

Years ago I had a Gravis Gamepad.

It was built like a tank and lasted me something ridiculous like 5 years or something.

oh man... i bought it 1994 with jazz jackrabbit. it was really rock solid..

 

[Prometheus]

do the pandora nubs have that gradual pressure sensitivity like ps3 analogue sticks do?
So you can press lightly to move slow, I'd guess they do as you use it for the mouse and that would require it I think

All analogue sticks have that. It is by no means something pioneered by the PlayStation 3 control pads.

 

[SirAileron]

Years ago I had a Gravis Gamepad.

Shiiiiiiiiit, I remember playing Commander Keen and Duke Nukem with that thing! Oh man, the memories!