Gamepads: Don't do what I did

[TsunamiWombat]

Dude, you are funny. I wanna read more of your stuff

Then read my blog, it's my homepage under my profile. Not much there now besides another bit I wrote about League of Legends, and some marketing for a friends book. You can also find me on twitter where I generally shamelessly advertise as AZeddington

 

[Enrathi]

So I guess it's too late to tell you that all I bought was a $10 bluetooth adapter and downloaded some free drivers and my PS3 controller works perfectly on my PC?

 

[TsunamiWombat]

So I guess it's too late to tell you that all I bought was a $10 bluetooth adapter and downloaded some free drivers and my PS3 controller works perfectly on my PC?

Yes shhh THATS NOT HOW WE'RE REMEMBERING THINGS RIGHT NOW.

 

[HentMas]

Funny thing the very first XBOX 360 controller i got was the one that came bundled with HALO: Combat Evolved for PC, this was of course waaaay back before the 360 was even out yet (in my country at least, not sure about other places) the whole bundle was worth around 15 bucks because here any PC game is damn cheap, controller or not

lets just say i have never needed to use any other controller than that one, and when i got my 360 i already had 2 controllers, one wired and one wireless that came with the console, *glee*

and it works perfectly well with any game that has come out since then XD

 

[FalloutJack]

-Zipped!-

Well, I'm sorry to hear of your ordeal. Naturally, I certainly can't account for your controller distress, but here I am in the unique position to share with you a tale in the opposite direction. I wouldn't just blatantly shake your fists at Logitech entirely. Here, allow me to explain.

As a gift one year, I received a packet of a wireless keyboard, mouse, and stereos, all of which would very nicely compliment my flatscreen TV and PS3. (I did say this tale was in reverse, so bear with me.) I found it most convenient to have a keyboard for the PS3, since I obviously had one already with my computer. Around the time of PSN getting hacked, it stopped working.

No, that's not entirely true, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I checked batteries, replaced batteries, worked on the wireless signal device, made sure my USB ports were fine, reset my internet connection (You never know unless you try, and I hate leaving things to mystery.), and so on. No dice.

It was then that I decided to contact Logitech themselves - as this was their product - and ask about it. I explained my situation, thoroughly, and politely went through the employee's list of check-ups to make certain of things to do. And then, he asked me to check it against my computer, which produced evidence that the keyboard was not in fact broken. 'Twas my PS3 that was the culprit!

There was only one possible cause we could think of: The security patch! The updates must have rendered my now-older keyboard incapable of connectiong to it. It made sense, because it wasn't actually MEANT to operate with a PS3. It just did so, faithfully, for years. Well, the end of it was that I couldn't use my keyboard for the PS3 anymore.

That isn't the end of the story, however. This is the part that explains why the Logitech guys aren't so bad. Now, they couldn't just replace my keyboard with something more up-to-date, a model keyboard that is configured to work with a PS3. Different models, different levels of technical efficiency and so on, I see that. But they did give me a discount for my troubles.

The current keyboard works find and seems able to follow the functions of any game if I wanted to, though I am much better-suited to controllers.

 

[LordRoyal]

I must commend your talent for the dramatic. Truly you have a talent for making something as mundane as complaining about Microsoft seem like the battles in Lord of the Rings.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I finally buckled down and decided to get a game pad - after I determined I sadly, could not just use my ps3 controller that is.

It sounds like you need Divine Intervention [http://www.motioninjoy.com]. MotionJoy solved all of my problems and more, it even has different settings for emulating a 360 controller or being set up as a standard PS1, PS2 or PS3 controller.

No purchase of extra plasticy bits necessary.

By the way, did you look into something called MotionInJoy? It's an unofficial driver that should let you use your DS3 on your PC. I've been meaning to try it, but I've heard good things about it.

It's great! I bought Splinter Cell Conviction a while back and after fumbling around with it for a while I decided to get my PS3 control working no matter what! And MotionJoy does just that.

Personally, I had a terrible problem with the Motion Joy driver set. It worked perfectly fine for my PS3 controller but my 360 controller always caused instant blue screen. When I realized that I did not in fact care about using my PS3 controller, I simply removed the driver (which Motion Joy did not make easy, either through malice or incompetence) and went back to using my 360 controller which has worked fine since.

 

[]DustArma[]

If it hasn't been said before (skimmed through most of the thread) save money and get a Logitech F710, it's a Wireless XInput/DirectInput hybrid gamepad, with just a switch you can change to DirectInput for games that dislike XInput and XInput for games that hate DirectInput, I'm looking at you every single Unreal Engine 3 game.

If my Cordless Rumblepad 2 is anything to go by (it's the F710 without XInput) then that gamepad will go through hell and back for your games, with a nice battery life to boot too.

 

[Dissolve]

I'm definitely a huge fan of the wired Xbox 360 controller for gaming on my PC. The driver support is fantastic, and I play almost all my games with it. I suppose I'm in in that small camp of PC gamers who use gamepads over keyboard and mouse, even for FPS games. I might feel the other way if I always played on keyboard and mouse, but I came mostly out of the Halo generation, and I was a N64 kid.

Are there any other PC gamers out there who do the same?

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Personally, I had a terrible problem with the Motion Joy driver set. It worked perfectly fine for my PS3 controller but my 360 controller always caused instant blue screen. When I realized that I did not in fact care about using my PS3 controller, I simply removed the driver (which Motion Joy did not make easy, either through malice or incompetence) and went back to using my 360 controller which has worked fine since.

You know, for every good story like mine I've heard my fair share of horror stories about people trying to use it. Especially at the point where it assigns drivers for the controller and Bluetooth dongle, in some cases it's apparently overwritten the drivers for their keyboard and mice.

But I'm used to a PS3 remote... this stubborn young git is too set in his own way heh.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I played the first world of Super Meatboy entirely on keyboard. We will not speak of what occured.

I played the entire game on a keyboard, I don't get what everyone whines about. It's way easier with the keyboard.

 

[chronicfc]

Hmm... 60 dollars? I picked up an official wired controller for 7 pounds sterling, pre-owned, and in my local games retailer you can pick up a new one for £15... I guess I have it good

 

[NinjaDuckie]

I played the first world of Super Meatboy entirely on keyboard. We will not speak of what occured.

I can't tell whether this is sarcasm or not. Like SL33TBL1ND I also played the entire game all the way through on the keyboard. Sure, my laptop lagged occasionally due to the graphics card and CPU being sucky, but I got through the entire game.

I was also extremely pissed off by the end, caused primarily by the game's loading screens consistently insulting me for using the keyboard.

 

[DazZ.]

I use my PS2 controller with xpadder absolutely perfectly, Xpadder is awesome. The PS2 > USB thing I got cost me about £2 as well.

Xpadder means I can even use it for flash games that would never have any controller support whatsoever, you just map keyboard controls to your gamepad. Not going to get any games not detecting pads that way.

 

[WolfThomas]

I use an x-box 360 one, I got it because i only had two controllers for my x-box. It was pretty darn handy for the Witcher 2.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

Owning an xbox 360 as I do, and realising that sooner or later I may wish to own a controller for some PC games, such as the aforementioned Super Meat Boy, I had a search of all the shops in my home town to determine the cheapest way to do this.

For some strange, strange reason, xbox controllers for the xbox seem to be cheaper than xbox controllers for the PC. For presumably less strange reasons, the USB wired ones are cheaper than either. Especially when bought used. £15 later and I had a controller that would work for console or PC. Happiness ensued.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Because the Xbox for PC controller comes with a wireless reciever and a CDrom with the device drivers, Xbox for the Xbox just comes with the controller.

I'm not gonna deny the damn things way over priced though.

 

[teebeeohh]

i never had problems with any kind of logitech hardware. than again i also never had a bug in New Vegas or Alpha protocol so maybe i am just lucky.

 

[Dissolve]

Because the Xbox for PC controller comes with a wireless reciever and a CDrom with the device drivers, Xbox for the Xbox just comes with the controller.

I'm not gonna deny the damn things way over priced though.

You're forgetting about the wired controller, which is $40. So far as price is concerned, there is no better gamepad for the PC, so I feel like the high price is entirely justified.

There is no driver CD included in the package, but there is an official firmware release (works great) available here:
[link]http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/xbox-360-controller-for-windows#support[/link]

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I would've got a wired if the store had it