SPEEDLINK Competition Pro USB PC Joystick lags?

[turrican9]

I have real Amigas and use them quite often and I also have a Competition PRO USB Speedlink (SL-6603-TWT) which I owned for probably 3 or 4 years now. I never noticed any lag on it before I started to use real Amigas again one year ago or so. The USB stick has very noticeable input lag in WinUAE when compared to playing on my real Amigas. There is no problem playing the games because the input lag is not severe enough, but I can really feel the difference from real Amiga to this USB stick.

I think people claiming it has no input lag don't use real Amigas regularly or something. Gaming on real Amiga is just a better experience. I can imagine playing on a MIST unit would be about the same as real Amiga.

[sigma63]

Originally Posted by hexaae

For those interested is still available (SL-6603-SPORTS-EU) on http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...3&currency=EUR

I would like to buy this Stick. If i go to this Link i can still see this article and it tells me it is in Stock, but if i click on the Button (ad to cart) nothing happens. What is wrong? Probably because i'm a European Customer?

[DamienD]

Just tested and same thing happened to me (I'm located in London).

My guess is it's because I haven't setup an account and then logged in prior to adding to cart.

[Chrille]

Some more infos about the Competition Pro USB and lags based on some real numbers:
All Competion Pro USB which are produced before or in 2018 are lagging. E.g. SL-6602 or SL 6603. The only exception is the new Competition Pro USB SL-650212 which is produced since end of 2018.

The old model has a USB Polling rate of 125 Hz (8) (standard usb HID frequency). But the input values are only changed every 10th frame. Therefore you have a query rate of 12,5 Hz. You can check this by using autofire of the joystick, you fire at a rate of 6,25 per second. In games like R-Type this is also the maximum shot rate when you press manually the fire button, but is more likely that your fire rate is slower as some input has disapeared.

If you you want to verify my thesis, you can use a usb-sniffer and check when there is a input change.

Therefore the maximum input lag is at 80ms and there is an average lag of 40 ms.

The new Competition Pro USB (SL-650212) is at 125 Hz (It has also an USB polling interval of 8). Some USB to 9 Pol Joyststick Adapter have a slightly better query frequency, for example 250 Hz (4) or 500 Hz (2). AFAIK everything which is not a power of 2 will be rounded to the next higher value, e.g. 5 (200 Hz) will be rounded to 4 (250 Hz). On MS Windows the highest usb polling frequency without special drivers is 2 (500 Hz). Higher frequencies have for example gaming mice with a polling interval of 1 (1000 Hz). These gaming mice might be also interesting for emulation for example for a jerky-free movement of the bat in Mega Ball AGA.

When do you notice input lags:
- Battle Squadron - try to activate the super weapon / missile, activated by holding down the fire button and move the joystick in a circle. This is nearly impossible on the old competion pro usb.
- jump'n'run games or action games - the control of the player is not as exact as it should be. Therefore when you have to jump from the end of a platform, it is more likely to fall off. For example (not Amiga but C64), it is impossible to master the New Great Giana Sisters II - no chance with the old Competion Pro USB
- games like summer games and decathlon on c64 where you have to wobble the joystick fast.

I informed the producer about this 2006 already ... and now the they have improved the joystick

[hexaae]

BTW, I got the old one and bought the new one… but I'm deluded by new model: now recognized in Win10 as Android Gamepad with 15 buttons (??) and the worse part is that fire 0 button is now on the right for lefties players
I'm used to grab the stick with right hand and this is annoying for those few emulators where you can't redefine buttons...

[protek]

The new version seems to go by the name of Competition Pro Extra Anniversary Edition.

[hexaae]

Speedlink SL-650212-BKRD Competition PRO Extra

[protek]

I think I’m going to replace the encoder chip of my SL 6603 with an Arduino Micro.
I’ll also get the extra buttons required by the C64 Mini.

https://www.tsb.space/projects/c64-m...usb-converter/

[hexaae]

Speedlink sucks… New model is wrongly detected by Windows as Game Controller for Android with 15 buttons + rotating axis (???).
Old model was correctly detected as SPEEDLINK COMPETITION PRO with 4 buttons.

[prezi]

Originally Posted by hexaae

Speedlink sucks… New model is wrongly detected by Windows as Game Controller for Android with 15 buttons + rotating axis (???).
Old model was correctly detected as SPEEDLINK COMPETITION PRO with 4 buttons.

I confirm that.
IMHO the ultimate solution is to develop this project:
http://kair.us/projects/jakadapter/index.html

It has 1ms delay (like very good gaming stuff for current PC's) -- polling rate is 1000hz. It means absolutely no lags.


All what should be done is replacing db9 socket with pins for HAPP/SANWA joysticks and pins for 2 buttons (with possibility using eg. 4 button as one fire) and adding rapidfire pins (and rapidfire support in firmware). It would be the final solution for emulator without necessity of buying 30 years old joysticks or using speedlink usb crap.

JAKADAPTER seems to be opensource (anyway all materials, schematic, firmware source code are available) and 90% of job is already done. Is there anyone with skills and will to improve emulation of Amiga?

[hexaae]

Annoyed by the Speedlink issues and poor quality (will degrade lever directions in a few months) I've bought just a few days ago this new one:
Hori Fighting Stick Mini 4



from Amazon at 27 Euro, and... is surprisingly good and precise (ignore unjust reviews by too young players saying it's cheap and only a 150€ Joystick of 4Kg is "good", I got a Hori Fighting Stick Real Arcade Pro One Kai and believe it or not I returned it, in comparison...). MUCH better than Speedlink Comp Pro . Highly recommended. Works fine with WinUAE, MAME, Steam retro-arcade games like the Raiden series, DOSBox...

[prezi]

Originally Posted by hexaae

Annoyed by the Speedlink issues and poor quality (will degrade lever directions in a few months) I've bought just a few days ago this new one:
Hori Fighting Stick Mini 4

Actually my idea of diy joystick with arcade parts and developed kair.us board has its beginning in arcade controllers.


This is technically oversized PlayStation gamepad (12 buttons). And please correct me if I'm wrong but it has two-tier rapidfire mode (you set turbo mode for specific button and afterwards you have to "clear" button of this mode), quite different with what we deal with in case of db9 atari-style joysticks. I bought even a kit to build it by myself (with only two buttons and smaller case) and this what I found. And the lever (stick) is at left - this is not I'm used to.

[hexaae]

Originally Posted by prezi

This is technically oversized PlayStation gamepad (12 buttons).

Not at all: is a real microswitched (4) joystick, and a quite good one (1 year ago was priced over 50€). Very precise and with very good feeling.
Unfortunately the 8 buttons DON'T have microswitches... but are good enough in their category and sensitive (you can squash them brutally or press them gently and don't need to push them fully to bottom). Would have been a "perfect" joystick with gentle microswitches in the buttons too in my taste of old arcade player...

And please correct me if I'm wrong but it has two-tier rapidfire mode (you set turbo mode for specific button and afterwards you have to "clear" button of this mode),

No. Has no rapid/auto fire unfortunately (but all good emulators have software autofire emulation anyway).