Been looking for about 6 months for a decent square gate gamepad for pc. Any suggestion/recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Which controllers have you tried and not liked ? You want a pad and not a stick? Reason I ask is I can only think of one āpadā that had a type of āstickā on it, and that is the Neo Geo (https://smile.amazon.com/NEOGEO-mini-PAD-Black/dp/B07H7ZBXCV/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537025544&sr=8-1&keywords=neo%2Bgeo%2Bpad&th=1) 2 issues I see with that is only 4 face buttons and you may have to wait for someone to make a PC driver if it isnāt recognized. (this is the new one coming out in October for the mini)
As far as I know, a āsquare gateā with an analog joystick on a gamepad doesnāt exist.
Gamepads donāt have āgatesā on their analog sticks; itās just simply limited by the shape of the opening.
The one I used for years was a logitech g-uf13a which to my knowledge had a square restrictor design. The one I tried after that was a logitech f310 which I despised as it the diagonal direction gaps are way smaller than the g-uf13a which leads me to believe that it is a octagonal restrictor.
Gamepads are more of a comfort zone for me. Iāve never gotten used to 6 button layout design that arcade sticks have.
Hmmm. Youāre right with the Logitech G-UF13A. I stand corrected.
However, unless games interpret things a specific way, wouldnāt a square ārestrictorā shape for an analog joystick have odd functionality in the corners?
Analog joysticks use changes in the X-Y coordinates to determine how far you are from center/neutral; ie, radially. A square shape would then logically have longer radii at the corners than at the cardinal directions; do games interpret that properly? Or are the corners just additional deadzones?
Iām no expert on modern gamepads, but Iād say 99%+ of them have circular or octagonal cutouts for the analog sticks.
Why not try to get another G-UF13A?
Iāve considered grabbing another g-uf13a but it seems they have terminated the production of those. Iāve seen some on ebay but Iām sketchy about making purchases from a third party source. As you mentioned most gamepads seems to use more octagonal and circle restrictors over square and Iāve yet to find another square or at the very least a diagonal sensitive designed gamepad.
Logitech made other (d input) controllers with rounded square guide, namely the wingman series which were relatively sturdy All except the most basic one had āfrontā 6 action buttons a bit like the modern hori and madcatz fighting controllers. . In the series, there was a model with only one thumbstick, two models had none. The rumble model and the wireless one had 2 analog thumbsticks.
A problem with those analog sticks was the big throw, as the thumb plastic part had a diameter too small. that could be modded of course.
The problem with analog sticks is that the square āgatedā ones have deeper corners and too much throw.
You would be better off adding something to an existing analog stick to restrict movement for the cardinal directions. Basically, making a square inside of the circle of a normal analog stickās movement range. You just need to make sure you can still pass the deadzone of the game you want to use it on.
If there is enough demand, Iām sure someone could 3D print something that could snap onto a DS4 or whatever.
As a huge fan of Square Gates on sticks, the moment i saw Square Gate in the title i was like, āyeaahhh!!!ā and then i saw Analog gamepad and was like, āWTF?ā lol.
Why would you want this? The whole point of Square Gates is to help with and guide execution on controllers with a limited directional range. Aka: Arcade sticks with simple 8-way input directions.
An analog stick on a gamepad has tons more sensitivity and range. Putting a gate on it, particularly a square one, would just hinder it.
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Iām assuming itās for playing fighting games that just map digital inputs to zones on the analog stick. A gate would make it easier to hit diagonals and restrict the cardinal movement to speed up execution.
Sounds like an inexperienced gamer that doesnāt know any better. When it comes to fighters AND gamepads, you NEVER use the frigginā analog stick! lol. Youāre supposed to use the D-Pad instead, and a good D-pad is 100x more execution friendly and comfortable, than trying to make the analog stick work through willpower. If you want so badly to use a āstickā of sorts, then use an ACTUAL arcade stick.
Either get a gamepad with a good D-pad or grab an arcade stick. One or the other. The analog stick is simply not a suitable āmiddle groundā option between the two lol.
Also the majority of analog stick designs donāt have a gate for a reason. The very thought of putting a gate onto analog defeats the purpose of using an analog stick to begin with, as it restricts your range of motion. The whole point of the analog stick is having that wide range and freedom of movement. I mean, imagine playing an FPS shooter with a square gate on your analog.
Sounds like iām beating a dead horse here but, i know thereās bound to be some idiot showing up and saying, āDuh! Personal preference!ā and iām just trying to cover all my bases lol. No sir, this is not an issue of preference. Analog stick is a great device with itās uses but, fighting games are one playstyle it fails horribly at and was never meant for.
Yeah, itās probably not a great idea, but I donāt think itās any worse than a stock XBOX360 dpad. If you can limit the range of motion to a small enough area, it might be alright.
Most analog sticks actually do have a sort of āgateā within the faceplate of the controller that makes them move within a circular area. If you open up most modern controllers and expose the analog mechanism, youāll see that you can actually hit the corners which would normally be unreachable.