Budget Arcade Stick for TGM beginner.

Thread in 'Hardware' started by TarzanTGM, 8 Mar 2018.

?

What stick should I get?

Poll closed 9 Mar 2018.
  1. Qanba Carbon

    1 vote(s)
    100.0%
  2. Qanba Drone

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  3. Don’t even bother...

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  1. Ive been looking at some well known brands of fightsticks and the Qanba Carbon and the Qanba Drone seem to be pretty good sticks. I know the Carbon comes equipped with the 4 way restrictor gate. I’m also willing to consider modding the stick for a sanwa stick if possible on either of those models. Any other thoughts?
     
  2. Muf

    Muf

    The Carbon looks like a decent JLF clone, and is easily upgraded to the real deal if Qanba's imitation turns out to be lacking in any way. I'd say go for it.
     
  3. Not sure that's the best thing to do, cuz you're spending more money for the integrated parts that you won't be using.
    I'd suggest either modding a cheap stick, or buying one with sanwa parts outright; unless you want to buy a 4way non-sanwa stick to play for a few months and then mod it later...
     
  4. For a starter I suggest finding a used Madcatz Tournament Edition on Ebay. Probably a PS3 Version will do. (Can be found for around 50-60 euro in europe)
     
  5. I tried two different sticks recently. I got first a 30$ stick with USB from a Chinese website do see if there was any point for a noob to have a " good stick " . I really fast noticed that the " crap - basic " stick was just not playable. Some actions didn't register and things were not precise.

    So I finally got a Mayflash F500 (80€ with shipping to Germany) and bought a Sanwa JLF stick. Even if the stick inside the mayflash as got 1 ground per position connected, they share the ground so I connected only 1 ground to the board and I have to say that I feel the difference with movement.
    Now I at least feel what I'm doing is registered, and I don't have the frustration to have something not right happening.

    For reference I'm currently playing Mame on osx, not recompiled. My plan is to have a dedicated host for that (Raspi3, last version).

    Hope it helps.
     
  6. The only objective thing thats gonna go into deciding which Qanba to buy depends on whether you have a PS4 or not, since the Drone has DS4 support, while the Carbon has XInput. Both can work DirectInput. I don't think there's any noteworthy Tetris games out there that you couldn't work with one way or another through DirectInput, besides Puyo Puyo Tetris. Otherwise you can just look at which case design you like more and which is cheaper at the moment.

    If you can find one at a decent price ($40, and I've seen them go to $20-$30 before), I personally really enjoyed using the MadCatz Alpha for a light, portable beater stick.

    Never pay full price on an arcade stick. Keep your eyes peeled for sales on all brands, especially when theres a major fighting game tournament going on, and don't be afraid to get a stick secondhand. You're the perfect market for all the fighting game players pawning off their old PS3/360 sticks they can't use anymore.
     
  7. I've said this in every other thread on the subject. But I'd never waste money on a "mid-range" arcade stick.
    If you insist on not doing anything yourself I guess shelling out for any stick with a Sanwa JLF in them is viable, but I've always stuck to buying cheap ones and replacing the joystick with a Sanwa, which should end up costing about the same as any mid-range stick anyway.

    For this purpose, what you want to look out for with modern USB arcade sticks, is the input lag, not the quality of the (replaceable) joystick.
     

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