Mid-range USB joypads for retro use?

um7y1h83ge06nx

My brother wants me to configure a Raspberry Pi 3 with Retropie as his Christmas present (he loves my setup) along with all the accessories.

What would be a good USB joypad to buy? I think a Playstation style pad with dual analogue sticks would be good, would cover most situations.

Myself I have a PS2 pad with a converter and an old Logitech which is great so I'm swaying towards a Logitech again but all opinions welcome.

Retr0gamer

Roger Ancient Summerhouse wrote: »

My brother wants me to configure a Raspberry Pi 3 with Retropie as his Christmas present (he loves my setup) along with all the accessories.

What would be a good USB joypad to buy? I think a Playstation style pad with dual analogue sticks would be good, would cover most situations.

Myself I have a PS2 pad with a converter and an old Logitech which is great so I'm swaying towards a Logitech again but all opinions welcome.

USB Saturn pad. Any console that needs dual analogue is emulated horribly on a pi I imagine

5rtytry56

Gamestop joypad.
I've a spare lying around doing nothing.
PM if you're interested...

pasta-solo

Retr0gamer wrote: »

USB Saturn pad. Any console that needs dual analogue is emulated horribly on a pi I imagine

Playstation games work well in my experience, definitely playable anyway.

Alcoheda

I think the Playstation dualshock3 / SixAxis controllers are of a very high quality for a very good price.

Bluetooth works beautifully with linux, very good accuracy and durability.
The internal battery lasts for many hours and charges very quickly.
You can also play and charge at the same time.
You can make the system see it as an xbox 360 controller which is widely supported by games and can save you the headache of changing default settings in a lot of cases.

Watch out for fake ones if buying second hand, they look almost identical but are of terrible quality.

Retr0gamer

I'd totally recommend against a dualshock 3 controller. You need to use motioninjoy drivers which is Chinese spyware masquerading as an unofficial driver.

A PS4 pad is better as it works out of the box and has official drivers.

Alcoheda

This is for the Raspberry pi no?
There are great open source drivers available by default on most Linux distros.

Here is an open source project that claims to work on windows.
https://github.com/nefarius/ScpToolkit

The PS4 controller is quite expensive.

Skerries

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd totally recommend against a dualshock 3 controller. You need to use motioninjoy drivers which is Chinese spyware masquerading as an unofficial driver.

has no one made an alternative or removed the spyware yet?

mcmoustache

The wired xbox 360 controller is excellect. It's about 30 or 35 quid in argos.

Retr0gamer

Skerries wrote: »

has no one made an alternative or removed the spyware yet?

There were Japanese ones but not sure if they support newer operating systems and were impossible to find at the time. Probably worse now.

Alcoheda

Skerries wrote: »

has no one made an alternative or removed the spyware yet?

Alcoheda wrote: »

https://github.com/nefarius/ScpToolkit

It's open source so I'd say it's about a safe as you can get.

Alcoheda

Edit: Double post. Can't delete for some reason.

um7y1h83ge06nx

In the end I decided to keep it simple and went for the Logitech F310.

link

Emulation of consoles like the N64 aren't bad on the Pi 2 (some occasional slow-down) so I reckon the Pi 3 will be better. the N64 will probably be the only console he will be interested in that requires an analogue stick, reckon he will mainly stick to the 16-Bit era.

An advantage of going for wired USB for me is that I'm less likely to have to provide support if something goes wrong!

Glenster

there's a specific purpose foundation controller now. it's snes style. buttons are a bit sticky though.