IL sticks branded with a XB360/PS3 style PCB (I know nothing about Xbox one or PS4) would work nicely. And yes you need to go back to before 2004 to buy traditional high quality “Happ” Competition controllers, otherwise you need IL sticks. While the console side of things were always solid, the PC side of these types of controllers have been a complete JOKE, except for those that used I-pac PCBs or hacked 360/PS3 controllers.
The problem with the PC extended even to the old style MAS joysticks, which I had to angrily return (after Arguing with the manufacturer that they were unusable on the PC!) due to their INSISTENCE on following PERFECT USB keyboard protocol. This caused horrible worthless inputs like 4-6 key rollover, where 1) you couldn’t use two joysticks at once, 2) you couldn’t press diagonally and multiple buttons at the same time without the joystick freezing inputs or spazzing out. And these people back then were completely clueless about the PC, because N key rollover simply didn’t exist at that time, except over the PS/2 port, and even then, some devices didn’t use it. I’m not getting into the “PPP/KKK registration” on the PC, or lack of it (that has to do with differences in arcade and PC recognition of multiple inputs, and how arcade emulators with keyboard arcade controllers handled it, vs the real machines, which were different, but note that Xbox 360 controllers register PPP/KKK fine on Callus emulator (SF2 turbo). ), but I did a lot of work, and the first keyboard programmable device that supported full 12 key rollover (two 6 key keyboard devices) without freezing the joystick if more than 12 were somehow pressed) was the original I-pac, with a firmware chip update, and the Ipac/32 I think managed to get 18 inputs registered, after Andy and I found out about the bug with the Microsoft USB keyboard driver and 12 inputs (the bug with more than 11 inputs was the same bug that affected the Microsoft sidewinder x4/x6 keyboards, where the 13th input would ghost the 12th and make them repeat).
The Xarcade still had problems with multiple inputs, and I don’t know if that was ever resolved, as I had to stop messing with the insides of controllers and taking apart joysticks due to horrible and painful back problems and scoliosis (I don’t want to risk being paralyzed–yes I’m disabled).
Thankfully, these days, with the explosion of fighting sticks that are PC compatible, we don’t really need keyboard devices anymore, although there are still some uses for those devices, and SOME very old games won’t recognize “hat switch” inputs on Xbox dpads (Callus, for example) while they pick up analog inputs. This means the Qanba Q4 will work if you press the mode button to put the stick in analog mode, while the madcatz controllers won’t work, as the PC “madcatz neo” driver only has the hatswitch and buttons, with no driver to support the analog emulation (pretty big flaw, IMO). You can use joy to key to get callus to work on the joystick of a madcatz controller (or an xbox 360 dpad), to map the dpad into keyboard keys, but it’s annoying.
Sorry for the long sided rant, but it’s pretty pathetic that people had to deal with shitty keyboard emulation support on older controllers for so long, and now every new USB keyboard (Corsairs, Ducky Shine 5’s, etc) all support N key rollover without dropping inputs, which is what we could have used so long ago, before the I-pac/32 allowed more than 12 inputs.
P.S. The Xbox 360 controller (including the Qanba Q4 in PC mode) has no problems registering multiple buttons (e.g. KKK/PPP). It was the keyboard PCB devices that did. Just tested Zangief’s PPP/KKK in Callus. This also includes a madcatz TE controller using joy2key as well.
