The Paddles

[hizzy]

This guy uses them with a 2600 and they looked great. Seeing your experience is making me think I should just get some paddles from Best electronics.

 

 

[VerminousCoot]

I have a ticket open with Atari, I bought my CX30+ driectly from them and they seem more reluctant to take a return than Amazon might be. In the meantime I picked up a second Ranger and the dumb adaptor to plug two of them in. At first I didn't like the Ranger's form factor but it's growing on me.

[radiohead]

1 hour ago, VerminousCoot said:

I have a ticket open with Atari, I bought my CX30+ driectly from them and they seem more reluctant to take a return than Amazon might be. In the meantime I picked up a second Ranger and the dumb adaptor to plug two of them in. At first I didn't like the Ranger's form factor but it's growing on me.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to take a chance on the Hyperkin Ranger paddle, but I noticed recently that I hold the Atari paddle sideways in my left hand and spin up and down with my right (instead of holding it up and spinning left to right). So maybe the Ranger paddle could be a good reliable replacement for my twice-repaired OG paddles.

 

Amazon may be the demise of civilization, but I almost never have a problem returning items including my faulty CX30+.

[hizzy]

4 hours ago, VerminousCoot said:

I have a ticket open with Atari, I bought my CX30+ driectly from them and they seem more reluctant to take a return than Amazon might be. In the meantime I picked up a second Ranger and the dumb adaptor to plug two of them in. At first I didn't like the Ranger's form factor but it's growing on me.

Best Electronics it is, then.

[+Living Room Arcade]

13 hours ago, VerminousCoot said:

I have a ticket open with Atari, I bought my CX30+ driectly from them and they seem more reluctant to take a return than Amazon might be. In the meantime I picked up a second Ranger and the dumb adaptor to plug two of them in. At first I didn't like the Ranger's form factor but it's growing on me.

I'm lovin' my Ranger.  It's so "erg."  It just fits into my hands perfectly.  And when I'm in the mood to play a mix of joystick and paddle games, you gotta love the ease of just moving the switch to change from joystick mode to paddle mode (without having to unplug a joystick and plug in a paddle).  If you're feeling lazy, it's a lazy person's dream.  My criticism is that the Ranger paddle has a smaller diameter than a CX30 paddle.  A significantly smaller diameter.  For some games like Jedi Arena, where you only wave your lightsaber back and forth a short distance, I find it doesn't matter.  But for a game like Kaboom! where you're moving your buckets back and forth across the full width of the screen at full speed, I find that the small paddle on the Ranger is inadequate.  I love the idea of the Ranger gamepad, I just would have liked a full sized paddle.  And a B button for 7800 games.  

Edited March 16 by Living Room Arcade

[VerminousCoot]

It's been 28 days since I opened the support ticket with Atari about my jittery CX30+ paddles and sent them the same video I posted here, no updates yet other than "We wanted to inform you that we are actively working on the issue you've shared with us. It's taking more time than usual, but please rest assured that we will share an update as soon as I receive it from our team."

Edited April 2 by VerminousCoot

[the_rogue_1]

I ordered the Paddle Pack along with my 2600+ and the two new games. After trying the paddles out, I nicely packed everything back up and returned them due to three main reasons:

1) Noticable input lag – e.g. when the ball gets really fast in breakout. (My TV has a pretty decent game mode with ALLM and all those new shenanigans, so the lag is definitely coming from the emulation.)
2) Bouncy, jittery paddles: no smooth motion when turning the dial slowly (this has been discussed in this thread already)

3) Uninteresting games: Why Breakout instead of Super Breakout? I found Night Driver kinda boring after three minutes of play. Video Olympics… well, that one was okay. But why include Canyon Bomber, where the majority of the game modes don‘t even make use of the paddles?

These three things combined made the decision to return the pack quite easy. I know that some of the issues might be addressed with a future firmware update, but when looking at all the other 2600 paddle games, the only one that really interests me is Kaboom! And that‘s not enough to justify the purchase for me.

[the_rogue_1]

To add to my previous post:

 

I know I should have put more time into checking the included games and all the other paddle games prior to ordering the pack… I guess FOMO kicked in while ordering the 2600+.

[+karri]

The paddles require very consistent time measures by the 2600/7800 in order to produce deterministic movements. If the time measurements in a game are varying because of gameplay or effects then the paddle movements are bad as well. The position of the paddle is equal to the time it takes to charge a capacitor through the resistor in the paddle. The actual paddle hardware is just a small part of the problem.

 

How they try to solve this for the 2600+ I don't know. There is a separate controller monitoring the paddles. And I assume the emulater tries to re-produce the capacitor + paddle potentiometer in software.

[hizzy]

Anyone using these on original hardware?

[VerminousCoot]

16 hours ago, hizzy said:

Anyone using these on original hardware?

On an original 7800: https://youtu.be/lkiD8bXR6uI

 

[hizzy]

59 minutes ago, VerminousCoot said:

On an original 7800: https://youtu.be/lkiD8bXR6uI

 

That's terrible!!

[+karri]

I just tried out the paddles on sale now with my 7800. No jitter smooth movement.

 And then I test my original paddles from years ago. There is a lot of dirt on the potentiometer causing jitter when the paddle moves.

 

 

 

 

[hizzy]

I wonder why people's experiences are so different?

[Gamemoose]

I have a good original pair of paddles and the new ones. I should be able to play some Kaboom! or Circus Atari this weekend to see if I have issues. I don't recall noticing any issues but I didn't do the "Pepsi Challenge" with my OG pair.

[+karri]

2 minutes ago, hizzy said:

I wonder why people's experiences are so different?

I just explained my findings a few posts back. You need good hardware and skilled programmers. My guess is that old paddles need service. And some games are just bad 

[+karri]

So I decided to have a look at the potentiometer and clean it.

 

After I cleaned the metal slider and the black potentiometer surface with IPA the jittery is completely gone. But now the old joypad has the same sensitivity as the new one. So the feeling of higher sensitivity was caused by the dirt and jitter. It was not real.

[JetmanUK]

27 minutes ago, karri said:

So I decided to have a look at the potentiometer and clean it.

 

After I cleaned the metal slider and the black potentiometer surface with IPA the jittery is completely gone. But now the old joypad has the same sensitivity as the new one. So the feeling of higher sensitivity was caused by the dirt and jitter. It was not real.

Quick! Go outside and rub it in the dirt!

[shane857]

On 4/3/2024 at 5:38 PM, karri said:

The paddles require very consistent time measures by the 2600/7800 in order to produce deterministic movements. If the time measurements in a game are varying because of gameplay or effects then the paddle movements are bad as well. The position of the paddle is equal to the time it takes to charge a capacitor through the resistor in the paddle. The actual paddle hardware is just a small part of the problem.

 

How they try to solve this for the 2600+ I don't know. There is a separate controller monitoring the paddles. And I assume the emulater tries to re-produce the capacitor + paddle potentiometer in software.

Maybe never...🤔

[Gabe]

On 1/4/2024 at 10:11 AM, remowilliams said:

  Confirmed. (2600 on the left, 2600+ on the right)

 

 

   

 

 

 

Great demonstration. I'm hoping they fix the paddle issues in the near future. While I can still play paddle games, they're definitely not as smooth as they should be. 

[OscarGungan]

I tried Demons to Diamonds with the new paddles and that worked completely fine. It does seem like mileage varies depending on game. 

[+Living Room Arcade]

Have you guys seen this?  A very helpful page of information about DIY paddle repair from the Best Electronics website.  

 

How to cure Atari CX30 Paddle Cursor shaking!  

[+karri]

Replacing the potentiometers is a bit overkill. During the years there was a lot of black gel that I assume had come from the carbon in the potentiometer. After washing all surfaces with IPA the unit was like new.

[fiudr]

So the issue with the resolution of the paddle movements being limited on the 1600+...Is this an issue with the new paddles they're selling, or the Atari 2600+ system itself? I'm considering buying a set of their paddles just to use with my Retron77 (using the community firmware and OG cable adapter for the paddles) and Stella on my PC. Are the new paddles themselves capable of performing as well as the original paddles, and it's the 2600+hardware/firmware at fault?

 

[Gabe]

13 minutes ago, fiudr said:

So the issue with the resolution of the paddle movements being limited on the 1600+...Is this an issue with the new paddles they're selling, or the Atari 2600+ system itself? I'm considering buying a set of their paddles just to use with my Retron77 (using the community firmware and OG cable adapter for the paddles) and Stella on my PC. Are the new paddles themselves capable of performing as well as the original paddles, and it's the 2600+hardware/firmware at fault?

 

From what I've seen, the problem is the emulation with the 2600+, not the paddles themselves. I don't have an original 2600 to test them on, but from videos I've seen they work great with it. Just like the originals.