Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

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Disposable Ninja
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Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Disposable Ninja » Thu Jan 23, 2014 10:54 pm

So a few weeks ago I went to Best Buy to get a PC gamepad. I was having a bit of trouble finding one, so I went to an employee and asked if he knew where the gamepads were. He proceeded to take me to where the peripherals were, very kindly, and handed me a mouse pad for gaming.

I didn't think much of it at the time, because, hey, I was where I wanted to be. Looking back, I am now in awe of the mundane absurdity and the disconnect between weird old me and this kid. Am I an old nerd, now? I'm using what is apparently archaic language to describe video game controllers.

I should note, by the way, that the reason I bought this gamepad is because I wanted to play twenty-year-old games.
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patito
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby patito » Fri Jan 24, 2014 12:25 am

There's no other logical pad to play games on a PC as everyone knows that mouse and keyboard is the superior control scheme. Had I been in his place I would have done the same, all hail the PC master race.

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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Thad » Fri Jan 24, 2014 1:22 am

Wait, are you sure you mean mousepad?

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ocksi
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby ocksi » Fri Jan 24, 2014 1:34 am

Presumably the over-sized, over-priced "frictionless" gaming type.

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Z%rø
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Z%rø » Fri Jan 24, 2014 5:25 am

I bought one of those.

It's kind of nice.

Absolutely not worth what I paid for it, but still nice.
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby zaratustra » Fri Jan 24, 2014 6:11 am

20-year-old games are nothing to be shamed about. As technology stops being the bottleneck in videogame quality, people's game libraries will just get older on average.

(yes i'm old too)

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Cthulhu-chan
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Cthulhu-chan » Fri Jan 24, 2014 1:01 pm

The 360 and PS4 pads are pretty much the best choice for a PC gamepad at this point, with many saying the new PS4 pad edges out the 360 as king, due to having a crosspad that isn't complete dicks.

I'll add my voice to this assessment. PS4 pad on PC rules the roost. Go here for the xinput wrapper. It works as a direct input device just fine, otherwise.

Oh, you'll need a USB to miniUSb cable. Controller doesn't come with one.
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Disposable Ninja » Fri Jan 24, 2014 7:56 pm

Today I was in downtown Houston, and as I was wandering down the sidewalk, a pigeon just up and died in a tree and fell on my head. If I were a religious man, I might take that as some sort of omen or sign. As it is, I'm just happy that I had my jacket hood up.
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Thad » Fri Jan 24, 2014 9:51 pm

Cthulhu-chan wrote:I'll add my voice to this assessment. PS4 pad on PC rules the roost. Go here for the xinput wrapper. It works as a direct input device just fine, otherwise.


Good to know. I've been keeping an eye out for when MS releases XB1 controller drivers for Windows, since its D-pad looks better than the 360's and maybe better than my trusty ol' Rumblepad 2's. Then again, they fucking burned me with the 360 controller dongle, which worked once and then died.

Rumblepad's still working mostly fine, but there seems to be an increasing number of games where X360ce doesn't quite work right, and I'm getting inconsistent behavior from Big Picture's compatibility layer (works fine on my desktop, does not work on my HTPC for some reason even though it's the same controller, dongle, and OS).

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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Büge » Fri Jan 24, 2014 10:22 pm

Disposable Ninja wrote:Today I was in downtown Houston, and as I was wandering down the sidewalk, a pigeon just up and died in a tree and fell on my head. If I were a religious man, I might take that as some sort of omen or sign. As it is, I'm just happy that I had my jacket hood up.


Are you saying you didn't take it home and slice it open to perform a divination?
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby IGNORE ME » Fri Jan 24, 2014 10:56 pm

The PS3 pad is pretty much the platonic form of a modern controller in my mind and the xinput wrapper actually works very well for it. Haven't tried the PS4 pad yet on PC but there are things about it that innately bother me (the giant useless touchpad in the middle and the glaring useless blue light in the back), so unless xinput does something fancy with the touchpad I'm gonna pass.

Unfortunately Bluetooth support on a PC is still universally dicks, so even though the PS3 pad works I tend to still use the Logitech F710 on PC even though it's kind of a flimsy imitation just because I'm too used to being wireless these days. So that's my (direct) input.

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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Cthulhu-chan » Sat Jan 25, 2014 1:35 am

The xinput wrapper allows you to toggle the touchpad on/off as a trackpad mouse. Also, don't need shoulder pads for the triggers.
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Disposable Ninja » Sat Jan 25, 2014 2:18 am

Büge wrote:Are you saying you didn't take it home and slice it open to perform a divination?


I had shit to do.

Also this one time I created a thread for the little absurdities in life and everybody just kept talking about pc gamepads.
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby beatbandito » Sat Jan 25, 2014 11:22 am

Brentai wrote:Unfortunately Bluetooth support on a PC is still universally dicks

It's not amazing, but I was able to get a $4 receiver that works fine across my room (~10 feet and under a table).

Cthulhu-chan wrote:The xinput wrapper allows you to toggle the touchpad on/off as a trackpad mouse. Also, don't need shoulder pads for the triggers.

That's not quite enough to have me drop my PS3 controllers right now, but definitely enough that I'm upgrading to PS4 next time I need a replacement.

Thad wrote:Then again, they fucking burned me with the 360 controller dongle, which worked once and then died.

Three dongles and four controllers and I only ever got one combo to work for about a week. I don't know how Microsoft could blow Windows / Xbox compatibility so hard but I don't plan on ever going back to them, no matter what their new controllers are like.
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Thad » Sat Jan 25, 2014 12:01 pm

Disposable Ninja wrote:Also this one time I created a thread for the little absurdities in life and everybody just kept talking about pc gamepads.


Yeah when I read Brent's post on PS3 pads I actually was briefly confused and wondered if he'd posted it in the wrong thread.

Might be a good idea to rename the thread, maybe split off your pigeon post.

beatbandito wrote:
Brentai wrote:Unfortunately Bluetooth support on a PC is still universally dicks

It's not amazing, but I was able to get a $4 receiver that works fine across my room (~10 feet and under a table).


Yeah, I've got a Bluetooth dongle and my Wii remotes work okay.

(Oh hey, I have a Classic Controller; I could totally try using that on the games that aren't working right with my Logitech controller, or just need a better D-pad. Kind of a pain in the ass to set up every time I want to use it, but worth a try.)

Hm, that reminds me:

Brentai wrote:The PS3 pad is pretty much the platonic form of a modern controller in my mind and the xinput wrapper actually works very well for it.


I remember Sei (I think it was Sei) saying awhile back that it took some jumping through hoops to get it working. Anything more complicated than enabling unsigned drivers? Because I've already done that for the Wii remote.

beatbandito wrote:Three dongles and four controllers and I only ever got one combo to work for about a week. I don't know how Microsoft could blow Windows / Xbox compatibility so hard but I don't plan on ever going back to them, no matter what their new controllers are like.


Yeah, good point. I still might get a cheap third-party dongle for the controllers I've already got (because hey, at least then it has a good excuse to immediately die on me), but if I'm going to go buying a controller for a console I don't even own, I'm better off going with Bluetooth than some proprietary wireless interface.

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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Wheels » Sat Jan 25, 2014 6:41 pm

Thad wrote:
Cthulhu-chan wrote:I'll add my voice to this assessment. PS4 pad on PC rules the roost. Go here for the xinput wrapper. It works as a direct input device just fine, otherwise.


Good to know. I've been keeping an eye out for when MS releases XB1 controller drivers for Windows, since its D-pad looks better than the 360's and maybe better than my trusty ol' Rumblepad 2's. Then again, they fucking burned me with the 360 controller dongle, which worked once and then died.

Rumblepad's still working mostly fine, but there seems to be an increasing number of games where X360ce doesn't quite work right, and I'm getting inconsistent behavior from Big Picture's compatibility layer (works fine on my desktop, does not work on my HTPC for some reason even though it's the same controller, dongle, and OS).

From the hands on I've had with a XB1 controller, it seems like the Dpad has 4 microswitches at each end, which would make it by far the best Dpad. However, it was a store display where it specifically said "Nonfunctioning hardware"
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Cthulhu-chan
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Cthulhu-chan » Sun Jan 26, 2014 5:18 am

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that there's no way the bonetroller is using microswitches in the dpad. That would cause drastic price increase on parts for marginal gains to a limited audience. They probably just have poppier membrane switches.

In fact... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0JZLd8MUcg#t=384

The idea of crinkly dpads makes me cringe.

edit: continuing to shit up this thread while adhering to the letter, if not the spirit, of the topic.
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Wheels » Sun Jan 26, 2014 6:48 am

You know, that's still drastically better than the floating disc shit.
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Cthulhu-chan » Sun Jan 26, 2014 7:08 am

I think the Nintendo dpad patent expired recently, so that's why MS isn't still using their horrid revision.
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Re: Thread for Existential Crisises and Meaningless Problems

Postby Thad » Mon Jan 27, 2014 12:45 am

Cthulhu-chan wrote:I think the Nintendo dpad patent expired recently, so that's why MS isn't still using their horrid revision.


Doubt it's that; US patents expire at 20 years. (There are options for review and extension, but only for patents filed after 1995.) If I'm not mistaken, Nintendo first used the plus-shaped D-pad in the Game and Watch version of Donkey Kong (1982). If Nintendo filed a patent in 1982, it expired more than a decade ago. And I'm guessing it expired even earlier, because the Dreamcast had a plus-shaped D-pad and was released in the US in 1999.

And even patent fears wouldn't explain why the 360's D-pad design was so legitimately awful. Sega did just fine with its circle-and-plus design in the 16-bit generation, and while I've heard people gripe about Sony's segmented style, I can't say I've ever had an issue with it myself.

But this talk of diagonals reminds me of something: can anybody who's using the PS3 pad on a PC tell me if the diagonals work with the Arkham games? Because they don't on my Logitech controller; it registers a diagonal as a cardinal direction and so I have to keep a keyboard handy if I want to be able to select half my weapons.

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