I want to replace my old GameSir G3s with a controller preferably under €70-75. Initially I wanted an european gamepad but the only 2 options (ready2gaming and snakebyte) was so non existent or questionable that I had to swallow my EU nationalism.
Gaming style:
- Only use controllers where it’s highly recommended
- Preferred genre for controllers would be arcade racing and JRPGs mostly
- Will only play on wireless (2.4ghz)
Preferences:
- Either TMR or high quality HE sticks
- Doesn’t look boring (preferably it has some amounts of LED / RGB)
- Xbox stick position layout (I want to try it out)
- Linux compatibility (don’t care about consöles)
- Doesn’t have a shit QC (8bitdo’s are apparently like that)
- I have larger hands, so maybe not a small controller
Currently these are some controllers that seems to be in my range. I’m interested if you know about even better controllers.
- GameSir Cyclone 2
- GameSir Supernova
- FlyDigi Direwolf 4?
Throwing a fun one in comments:
Stadia Controller.
I just got a 8bitdo ultimate 2c they go for 30 bucks and I swear it is better than my Xbox gamepad, thy come in fun colors have extra triggers amazing hall effect sticks good face buttons. Bluetooth AND dongle. I can’t stress this enough it is purple.
8bitdo, no other better answer
I’m still a huge fan if my DualShock 4. I’ve been using it for a long time now, and the battery life is still good. The track pad also comes in handy shockingly often since it acts like a normal track pad for the mouse.
Just an xbox controller?
It just works
Gulikit ES Pro is easily my favorite Xbox-style controller. It’s almost identical to the Xbox Series controller, but everything about it is a little better. The dpad is as accurate and tactile, and not as loud. It uses tmr sticks.
It uses bluetooth for wireless, but it’s kind of miraculously low latency for being bluetooth, and rivals most 2.4 controllers in latency tests.
But to be fair I have never been able to bring myself to spend $200+ on a controller. This one is only $30.
I have larger hands and have the Cyclone 2. Fantastic controller and my daily driver. I didn’t like the clicky face buttons but they’ve grown on me. Happy to answer any questions. No real issues across Linux or Windows.
My main controller is a RetroFighters BattlerGC Pro. At $60 it has hall effect sticks and triggers, a GameCube button layout (my personal favorite of all time for ergonomics) and it comes with both Bluetooth and 2.4GHz support, plus it can be used wired for the lowest possible latency.
I use it for both Switch and PC. On PC you can set it to register as an Xbox controller so you can get full analog trigger support.
Anyhow, the brand has the best controllers for the money IMO, I’d recommend checking out their offerings.
My second favorite controller is my 8bitdo Pro 2, but the clicky d-pad on the Retrofighters controller is so much nicer IMO
I love what RetroFighters does, but I wish they would design their Dreamcast controller to fit a vmu, and add a second analog stick while they’re at it. Dreamcast still has so much homebrew potential, but the lack of dual analog inouts holds it back.
Will only play on wireless (2.4ghz)
Why are you married to that specific frequency?
It’s a common frequency used by wireless controllers. Anytime a gamepad is using 2.4ghz, its most of the time a proprietary connection and often better than Bluetooth. I also prefer 2.4ghz and don’t want to mess around with Bluetooth anymore.
I see. It’s a weird way to describe that, though, because Bluetooth is on 2.4 GHz, while non-Bluetooth controllers aren’t required to be on 2.4 GHz.
I would have understood if they just said they want to avoid Bluetooth.
It may be a weird way to describe it, but it’s the standard in the industry. Example: my mouse supports both Bluetooth and USB dongle, and look at what it says on the toggle switch:
It might be weird if you are not used to this. It’s a common way to distinguish the propietary dongles from Bluetooth. Even all controllers itself that support both modes, has the setting labelled as
Bluetooth <> 2.4gtoggle, and marketing and data specs always use this notion too. No Bluetooth device of any kind will connect to 2.4g type of devices, if they do not support Bluetooth.So it’s not that weird from the person who said it, because that is industry standard way of distinguishing it. I give you that, that the industry should have adopted a distinct name for this kind of connection. But you can’t fault him saying that this way, in my opinion off course.
I think it’s more to differentiate from Bluetooth (which amusingly also uses 2.4ghz)
I have the GameSir Cyclone 2 and love it.
I’ve owned 3 different 8bitdos, and they have some of the best QC on the market.
With that, the ultimate 2 is a brilliant wireless 2.4g controller with a dock. Works out of the box, no config required.
In love with my SN30Pro, unfortunately it’s the old version with resistive joysticks instead of hall effect.
I was unfortunate enough to order an 8bitdo pro 3 and get a defective unit which had connection issues over the 2.4GHz (something I’ve encountered with Logitech wireless gamepads before), and I took it as a sign to wait for the Steam controller and been holding back, but seeing the price of the steam controller I should just go for the 8bitdo
May I ask what QC means? I have the ultimate 2 with dock too, pretty good. Only issue is how the modes are handled, as it does not remember last mode change.
Quality control
Really? My 8bitdo outlived any other controllers I have owned, minus some features lacking
Not necessarily, I might have been just misinformed or got influenced by the negativity bias. It might actually be good in QC.
Aren’t they Bluetooth rather than 2.4ghz? Not sure why you would want that instead though, isn’t Bluetooth a better choice?
8bitdo does both. Even though bluetooth is also 2.4ghz and combined with the wifi board these days, I find it struggles more with physical objects worsening the signal or being far or in different rooms like when I used to have my office on the opposite side of the wall the tv is mounted to and used one pc for everything.
Their quality control has gotten worse though. I have an ‘ultimate’ that had the back paddles crack and fall off, and a pro 3 that had the face buttons shatter right before the end of a perfect attempt at the last berserker fight in god of war ragnarok
Yeah I had a button shatter on my pro 3 too playing hades. Hit up 8 bitdo and they sent me a new set of buttons in the mail quickly.
Oh I’ll have to contact them. I forgot not every company is as bullshit as dell. With them even the bot gives you the runaround and makes you wait for it to ‘asses the case file’ multiple times when literally nothing changed.
Yeah I was impressed as it was during Chinese holidays at the start of the year. The guy replied and said it would be a few weeks as there was no one in the office and they came in the mail a short time after that.
I have a Gulikit KK3 Pro (NS38) and a KK2T (NS09), both are great and while I got them for free in giveaways, they go around 40€.
The KK2T is Bluetooth only, the KK3 Pro came with a dedicated 2.4GHz dongle (but Bluetooth is available as well)
Both have the Xbox stick layout, but the button layout is Nintendo (they are also switch compatible). Apparently, the buttons can be replaced, but I couldn’t find a place that has the Xbox button layout in stock - at least not in my specific colorways.
The KK2T is plain black without any LEDs, the KK3 Pro I got is DMG Gameboy themed: Beige plastic, pink buttons and LED rings around the sticks that have different lighting modes (reactive to stick movement, solid, reacting to trigger pulls etc.)
It looks kinda smöll tho
omg it’s so cute
I do like their hall effect sticks
Doesn’t have a shit QC (8bitdo’s are apparently like that)
Can’t confirm. I own 3 controllers, a keyboard, a numpad and a mouse by 8bitdo. None of them have any hardware issues. Only issue is that the software is meh and Windows/Mac-only. But it’s a plug-and-play controller, so you really don’t need the software unless you want to do stuff like define macros (which you can just use Steam input for).
I have one of the not new Ultimate controllers, and it has rear buttons. Sadly, it looks like the only way to use them really is to do some weird macro stuff in their software. Currently Steam doesn’t let you rebind them. The solution people have come up with it creating a macro for them to mimic a stick press in, and make the real stick press activate it twice, then you can bind those actions through Steam Input. I’ve yet to find a way to do this on Linux.
Yeah, 8bitdo’s also have official SteamOS support too, which is a plus point.
Be warned it only seems to work in Bluetooth mode for some reason, via the dongle I don’t get the back paddles to show up. That being said I want to echo the fact that I also have an 8BitDo and has had great quality. Also they work out of the box in Linux, so no worries there.
I have two 8bitdo controllers and they’re both great. I’m not sure what makes you think they are shit. I’ve only ever heard good things and that’s been my experience. I intend to get a third one to replace my dying ps3 controllers.
Well you may be right, I’ve just read comparably more complaints on faulty 8bitdo Ultimate 2 controllers compared to the Cyclone 2 (these 2 controllers are frequently being compared to eachother) and whilst I don’t trust too much in TrustPilot but the ratings of these 2 brands are far away (2.2 and 4.0 basically) which was sus. So it seemed to me that their QC isn’t as strict as GameSir’s is.
Chiming in. I have several 8bitdo products including the Ultimate 2. Love them all.
Maybe it is one of those “victim of their own success” situations. Hey have more complaints than some other brands because they sold so many more products that theres bound to be someone with a problem somewhere by statistics alone.
I owned both GameSir and 8bitdo controllers. All my GameSir ones have fallen apart (stick drift, trigger broke off), while the 8bitdo ones are still alive despite my kids’ best efforts.
Is that all of them or just some? Got a couple of the wireless 2C currently and probably going to get a few more at some point. Not sure how others compare.
Hmm do you mean other possible controller alternatives that I was able to find? If you care about latency you can check out this site, which lists off a lot of controllers and you can search for only TMR and HE controllers too. https://gamepadla.com/
I have two 8bitdo ultimate 2c controllers (the cheaper Xbox style controllers) and they’ve been great. The only thing they’re missing is RGB, other than that they tick every box. I use them for my steam deck and on my bazzite PC and they work flawlessly, have held up very well in the ~8 months of regular use they’ve seen. My one (minor) gripe is battery life. A charge lasts several days, but my Xbox one controllers lasted about a week, sometimes more when I was using them. They’re USB-C, charge pretty quick, and you can use them while they’re charging so it’s not a big deal but still worth mentioning
Ultimate 2 actually fits all of the boxes if I’m lucky with QC because it has some tasteful RGBs in there and it looks beautiful honestly. Battery life isn’t a problem if you use the dock tho. Did you buy it without the dock?
Those led rings were part of the selling point for me, but honestly I turn them off all the time. It’s nice that they’re there, but they’re so bright and, well, I’m not looking at my hands when playing.
The 2C doesn’t have the connection points for a dock, that’s part of the features they cut back on for the budget option. It also doesn’t have the RGB or the buttons on the underside of the controller. I’m happy with my choice but I’ve also been tempted for the higher end version for all of that stuff too
On the QC thing, the 8bitdo controllers are less “refined” than a dual shock or an Xbox controller. The abxy buttons have a little play side to side in them and minor stuff like that. They’re slightly lower build quality than the big name controllers, but not in any way that will affect gameplay or responsiveness. The joysticks have tuneable dead zones, you can test the pressure sensitivity in the triggers, and fully configure the layout to suit your needs. They connect without a hitch and the 2.4g is very low latency. I watched a few vidoes comparing controllers when I was looking and the QC thing came up too. I was a bit apprehensive but pulled the trigger and, with the experience I’ve had (on cheaper controllers no less) I feel that a lot of professional reviews place an undue emphasis on their QC. They may have been lower quality in the past, but I genuinely haven’t had an issue with them and they’ve held up great so far
Also came here to suggest 8bitdo, it is genuinely higher quality than any official Xbox or PS controller I’ve owned. Not sure what OP is on about.
They have software? Had a couple of them for a while and never even considered a need for any software.
+1 on that. I own an old SN30 pro+ and a new ultimate 2c (which has amazing value for 30$). Both are flawless.
I have a SN30 Pro and i havent used it much since probably '18 or '19 but the rubberized sticks completly dissolved already. I have 30 year old PS1 controllers in the basement where the rubber held up better. You can buy replacements for a few bucks though! Not too happy about it but its okay i guess all things considered.
I own a couple of 8bitdo Ultimate 2, they’re excellent and seem to tick all the boxes, but they’re on the smaller end I guess.
Do you feel that it’s a bit too small for you?
Oh, and I can’t speak for Linux compatibility personally, I’ve only read that it works fine.
They work great, both USB and Bluetooth
No, it’s perfect for me, but I don’t have particularly big hands. For a point of comparison, it’s every so slightly tinier than my Xbox Series controller, and holds better than it. I always found that one tends to slowly slip forward out of my grip (=towards my belly) because of its tapered shape.
In contrast the Ultimate reminds me a little of the Gamecube controller, because it’s slightly more concave below, where the ring fingers come to rest, and that helps stabilize it.My single gripe with it is the dpad, which coming from the Xbox Series feels like a bit of a downgrade : not clicky, a tad mushy. I’ve known worse, but it’s not the best. Fortunately that’s not a dealbreaker for me as I don’t use it often
