I recently sold my PS3 for a PS4 so my shiny Madcatz TE Fight stick was cast to one side for 6 months. I haven’t play SF for a while but decided ill pick it up on my PC. I did some research beforehand and found out the madcatz ps3 fightstick has compatibility issues, particularly with AMD chipsets which I have. After a lot of googling I saw some advice on certain forums that said ill need to install an internal USB PCI board with a VIA chipset to get it to work. So I promptly bought the following device…
The device came today, i installed it no problem, Windows detected the device and installed the drivers. I got a driver disk with it and installed the USB 2.0 driver as well. I plugged my stick in the new usb slot, windows detected it and installed it.
Thing is I’m having the exact same issue as before which is Windows recognises the device but the inputs aren’t recognised either in Windows device manager or in game. When i load SF in steam and go to button settings, i can arrow across to the fight stick, it even says MADCATZ TE FIGHTSTICK across the top of the screen but I cant bind the buttons. i’ve tried using the LS, DP, and RS switch on the joystick but no luck.
Im using Windows 7 64 bit, i can post the exact model of my motherboard if that helps later. I cant right now because im posting this on my iPad.
Can any of you helpful people tell me if i have missed a step or is there another solution available?
The VIA chipset is supposed to work, I had all kinds of problems with it and in the end just opted to change the sticks PCB. The Toodles Cthulhu seems to get the best recognition but for ease of installation and affordability I plucked for the zero delay encoder at about $20 and a piece of cake to install. It has compatibility with PC, PS3 and some also with PS2. It just made more sense than screwing around trying to get the Madcatz stick to work.
Thanks for the reply, I’m a complete noob so does your solution mean opening my stick up and installing a new board? Does this involve soldering as well? Is there a guide or maybe you tube video i can find.
Why does it not work with the via chipset do you know?
If you scroll down it gives you information about what is involved and how to install it. The Cthulhu requires you to solder and and also acquire the correct cables etc, the ZD comes with everything you need, you basically just unplug the cables leading to the madcatz PCB and plug them in to the ZD PCB, its really easy to do but you might want to wait to hear if anyone else knows why the VIA chipset isn’t working for you, I honestly couldn’t say why that is.
Just looking at the link, does the encoder completely replace the existing pcb inside my stick? I just disconnect and reconmect all the wires to the encoder?
Im assuming this means it will just work on pc through normal usb connection??
It says on the ebay listing…
Attention:This product is 2pin port for Happ Joystick prots,Not 5pin port for Sanwa Joystick !The follow picture will show you the difference of these two.
This is the one that I bought for a Madcatz SE, while I was at it I replaced the buttons and stick for authentic Sanwa parts and then swapped out the Sanwa stick for a Seimitsu (just a preference, I find them to be better sticks).
As far as I was aware the VIA chipset should work, that is general consensus on the internet - I did try the option but the PCI express card I bought wasn’t very good and I had all kinds of driver problems (it was a very cheap card), instead of messing around trying find better components I decided to just go the PCB route instead.
The PCB can completely replace your existing one and works with any USB slot (USB 1.1 and above). The PCB does support turbo and home button functions but the turbo board wasn’t working on my stick (I got it second hand) so I went ahead and removed that and drilled a home button in to the case. I’m not too familiar with the TE case so I don’t know if you would have to do any hard modding with the USB pass-through cable and I didn’t bother to look in to wiring the existing home button (as I had removed it) so I’m not sure how that is done. I’m sure one of the pro modders on this site knows more about modding the TE model specifically, I think there are also guides on the focus attack website and. The early Madcatz sticks did seem to suffer from a few problems, particularly with the PS3 model with PC compatibility - it wasn’t designed for PC afterall but the TE is a good stick so there should be advice around.
Thanks for all the advice mate. Funnily enough i found that listing on eBay this evening before reading your post. I sent the seller an email just to make sure it works, I’m sure it does. I’ve also watched some videos on you tube and it seems pretty straightforward although I’ve never done this before. I have built my own PCs in the past so it cant be too difficult!
Make sure you keep your old PCB and remember how to set it up if you want to roll back. The one thing I will say that I wasn’t sure about was that I found that I needed to install the home button for it to be even picked up on the PS3, but it just works anyway without that button on PC. It does state as much in the instructions but the english is a little broken as to be a little confusing - just in the event you pick up another PS3 (the online for SF4 is apparently a lag-fest since it moved from gfwl to steam), then again, perhaps you’ll be modding it in future when the PS4 PCB’s turn up - no use in letting a good stick go to waste!
PS, you will probably need to rotate your JLF’s microswitch PCB by 90 degrees because it seems to be orientated differently.
its the small board that contains the four directional switches on your joystick. It simply slides off when you unclip the bottom restrictor plate. You might notice that some of the directions are messed up on the default position such as pushing the stick left and right actually moves up and down.
Thanks to elfergos for the advice in this thread. i’ve since bough the zero delay encoder off eBay.
I know which ports are for the 12 buttons on the encoder but how do I know which button on the encoder maps to the relevant buttons on my stick. My stick is the PS3 Madcatz fight stick so the buttons are labelled with square, triangle, circle etc??
I have looked online but cant really find any suitable advice. Do I assume light punch, top left button on my stick is button 1 on the encoder and then assume button 2 is medium punch and so on??
Next problem is my joystick doesn’t work. My pc is only recognises down and down left? Ive wired the joystick to the USB joystick pin (5 pins). I have up, down, left, right inputs on the encoder but cant see how these get wired back to the joystick, if i need to do that at all?
Elfergos suggested rotating the JLF microswitch which I’ve done but my issue is slightly different to what he described so a bit clueless.
Im a complete novice at this so any help greatly appreciated!
Fixed it! I had the pin in the wrong way round! Woohoo my stick works! Cant believe I’ve done it. Thanks to both you guys who helped me in this thread.