Has anyone tried the Gamer Finger buttons? How would you say they compare to Sanwa or Hori’s Kuro buttons? You have to pay a premium for them, so I wouldnt want to invest in anything thats priced double over the competition if the product really isn’t that much better.
Ive never used Kuro’s. Just Sanwa and Gamerfinger. I love Gamerfinger buttons, I have them in my Fightstick Pro, HitBox, and soon my Panzer Hitbox. Gamerfingers stock are completely silent and have a certain smooth squishiness to them compared to Sanwa’s. They also use Cherry MX switches which are used in High end Mechanical keyboards. they make different variations so you can customize the feel and sound of the buttons. I think they’re worth the money personally. I have yet to try any other switches out but the black have been tempting me pretty good!
@silentbob wrote this in the Hitbox thread and he nailed it I think:
“I don’t know if you’ve ever used a mechanical keyboard, but the GamerFinger buttons use the Cherry MX switches that most mechanical keyboards use. The great thing about mechanical keyboards is that each button feels less “sticky” due to the spring inside each switch and depending on the type of switch you use, you get tactile feedback when the switch registers the input. These two things make mechanical keyboards far, far more efficient for typists and is a proven fact that it increases your number of words typed per minute, or actions per minute if you’re a gamer, drastically because you don’t need to bottom out each key to know you’ve registered the input. This can be a benefit in arcade buttons because if you can feel the input without pressing the button down completely, you’re not wasting any finger movement and the spring tension gives more “weight” to each button so you release it much faster.”
Tactile feedback depends on the type of switch, and even the amount itself varies. Reds and Blacks have a very linear press where the amount of resistance you face as you press downwards is constant and lack any form of tactile feedback. Greens and Blues have an audible click and very slight feedback as well, where browns and clears have a defined tactile bump more akin to a softer and somewhat mushier feel than a basic snap action switch. On click and bump variants the actual point of actuation where the two lines are connected is below the point of feedback, which displeases some.
As for the button comparison the build quality is very strong, and you will notice this when you try to install them the first time around without shaving down the small tabs on the rim. The ability to swap out switches is the main feature of the button so thats why you’re paying a premium. As mentioned above there are several variants including many which i didn’t mention that are typically categorized into tactile click, tactile bump, and linear at varying minimum force requirements. Because of this amount of variance and due to opinion in general it’s hard to say whats better. IMO feel has a ton to do with it, while they do have tactile click buttons they don’t feel the same as Happ or IL buttons, but come close. As the user above mentioned, with stock reds they are much softer and mushier, personally I dislike it since I like my buttons to have some sort of feel. So they may have similar characteristics yet feel completely different, which makes it hard to compare.
It shouldn’t be what we think but what you want in a button. So with that being said, what are you looking for in a button? What kind of feel? And as a random question y u no mention seimitsu?
I just customized a new stick and I almost bought these buttons, but instead I went with some silent sanwas. I wish I would have just gotten the gamerfinger buttons instead because these sanwas do feel a little soft or something, it’s hard to describe. I am gonna just order some gamerfingers and try them out and see how they feel.
Did you check out my official review.
They feel quite nice. The silencing works and, more importantly, they don’t feel as vague as the silenced Sanwas.
I tried some of these out at EVO. They feel most similar to a Sanwa RG if you’re using the red switches. If you’ve tried one of those, that should give a good idea on how they feel. I liked how the red switches felt but cosmetically they are not my thing.
Ive used both Sanwa and GamerFinger(Blue and Red). The silencing in the GF buttons is alot better than Sanwa but it does feel a little soft( not mushy though) I preferred the blue because of the click and the extra force required to depress them. I like the GF buttons but I went back to good ol’ Sanwas (unsilenced) as my execution was better (I think the sound of the Sanwa helped my rhythm with combos).
Something thats a bit less sensitive than my current Kuro and Sanwa buttons, but sensitive enough that I dont have to press all the way down to get an input. The biggest thing I hate about my buttons is that I sometimes get accidental inputs because my big ass hand will slightly glide over a button and I get an unwanted input. I like the fact that they have different types, especially the ones that give some type of feedback so you know that you’ve input a button successfully. Of course theres the added benefit of the buttons being silent as well.
If they were round, I would buy them.
I think their current shape they have might lend itself better to unique designs, but a round option would be pretty nice as well. I guess it depends on what you wanna put them in.
I haven’t tried GamerFingers yet, but I would tentatively warn you against getting any of the Kuros. I’ve never had a problem with any of the dozens of Sanwas I’ve bought over the years, but of the 8 Kuros I bought (a couple months before EVO), one of them was defective. The slot in the plunger of the button and the plunger of the actual switch didn’t quite fit each other and the switch would always stay closed. I ended up filing the tab on the switch so it was thin enough to fit in the slot freely and after that the button worked fine. It wasn’t really a huge problem, but it’s enough to turn me off of buying them in the future.
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but in general the actuation point for cherry mx switches is 2mm deep from the point of origin or 4mm from the base. So sensitivity in terms of actuation point all the swiches are similar. If you wan’t reds feel like lighter sanwas to me, and blacks are closer to seimitsus. Those are both easily found online, as well as blues and browns. I’ve used clears but my favorites are blues and greens, where greens are 80g variants of blue, which is rated at 55g.
wrote a review of them here: http://www.reddit.com/r/SF4/comments/1ymcy8/hbfs_30_mx_red_review/
Now after trying both Sanwa and Seimitsu buttons, I still think they are far superior. Id advice to try the Mx Red switches first, since both Mx Brown and Mx Blue would make a lot of noise.
MX Blue was designed to make alot of noise, Browns are intended to provide tactile feedback. The MX cherry switch series was intended for keyboards not arcade buttons.