Ben from Plaion Posted June 25 Share Posted June 25 5 minutes ago, Gabe said: How long do you think it will be before the CX30+ paddles with these new potentiometers actually reach the market? (apologies if this has been asked before and I've missed it) Though I do currently have a pair of CX30+ on order from Amazon, they're actually an extra pair to use in place of the inferior ones that my Flashback 12 came with. I already have CX30+ for my 2600+, having gotten the four game paddle pack when I got the console. Because I don't really 'need' them, I'm thinking of holding off on the current order for the time being and waiting for these new ones to be released, then order a pair. October 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabe Posted June 25 Share Posted June 25 38 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: October Not that far off, really. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Living Room Arcade Posted June 26 Share Posted June 26 @Ben from Plaion BTW, Mr. Ben, just received my CX30+ paddles today (unbundled) and gave them a quick try on Breakout, Kaboom!, Warlords, Night Driver and loving them! So far they're working great! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 New paddles with different potentiometer turned up. Played for about an hour and Paddles feel and play the same, as they should. I'll contact people this afternoon via DM that offered to test them. Thanks 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magic Knight Posted July 8 Share Posted July 8 On 7/2/2024 at 1:46 PM, Ben from Plaion said: New paddles with different potentiometer turned up. Played for about an hour and Paddles feel and play the same, as they should. I'll contact people this afternoon via DM that offered to test them. Thanks Hi Ben, What is the new resistance value for the new experimental paddles? Keen to test myself with my knowledge of changing the existing resistor on my own cx30+ units. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted July 8 Share Posted July 8 31 minutes ago, Magic Knight said: Hi Ben, What is the new resistance value for the new experimental paddles? Keen to test myself with my knowledge of changing the existing resistor on my own cx30+ units. Not sure but I'll ask. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magic Knight Posted July 8 Share Posted July 8 2 hours ago, Ben from Plaion said: Not sure but I'll ask. Thank you, much appreciated :0) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Fred_M Posted July 8 Share Posted July 8 (edited) I am just catching up about the paddles, sorry 😉 Together with a good friend of mine we developed a Pong like game for the Atari 8-bit computer last year. That game supported a.o. joystick, driving controllers, paddles and the (ST) mouse. In my opinion all paddles are a bit jittery, but cleaning/lubricating them definitely helps. How much jitter a game shows is also dependent on the game itself. Every potentiometer jitters a bit and in the game code the programmer creates a margin to compensate for that. But that margin is not the same in every game. For example Kaboom uses a very small margin, so the paddle is showing more jitter than in other games. You will need the perfect potentiometer to completely get rid of the jitter, I don't know if such a potentiometer excists (hopefully Atari/Plain will surprise us 😉). What also has been mentioned is the voltage that flows throug the potentiometer. In my opinion this is correct too. When a capacitor has gone bad the voltage can be fluctuating. This will cause jitter too. For example when I tried to repair my Super Pong I cleaned the potentiometers of the paddles multiple times without any result. After I replaced the capacitor in the console the paddles were working perfectly. So if the new paddles are used on an old Atari there can be a capacitor problem because of old age, but also a (cheap simple) power supply can create this problem too. So I always use a good stabilized power supply. By the way, in my opinion driving controllers are just an old novelty. The resolution of these "paddles" is unbelievably low (16). Atari released only 1 game for the driving controlers so I guess that they also saw no future in them. When we tried to support the driving controllers in the Atari 8-bit game, we found out that these controller can practically only be used for making one left or right turn. Similar to a joystick. It is not possible to create a fluent movement with them, when you for example want to drive in a circle you have to turn the driving controller over and over again (so rotating the knob 360 degrees over and over again). Edited July 8 by Fred_M 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 On 6/19/2024 at 10:09 AM, Ben from Plaion said: Hello all. I have been looking at changing the potentiometer for new manufacturing runs of the CX30+ paddles. A new potentiometer has been sourced and I have some samples being made to test. I'll have 5 pairs spare, so if anyone would like to test this revised CX30+ please post your interest in the thread below. I'll send you the sample free of charge, all I ask is that you give them a damn good play session repeatedly on a 2600+ and an original 2600 if you have one and report back your feedback. Purpose of this test is to see if any new CX30+s develop jitter. Thanks Ben Hello Ben, I received the set of paddles with the new potentiometers today! I just tried Super Breakout, they work fine, no jitter. I’ll be testing other paddle games as well. And I’ll be playing paddle games for quite some time. I’ll post periodically on results Thank You for the opportunity to test these paddles. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 (edited) The paddle testing has begun! Now I know which is player 1 and player 2. I just have to remember which color I picked as player 1. lol. Edited July 9 by MrChickenz 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 10 hours ago, MrChickenz said: Hello Ben, I received the set of paddles with the new potentiometers today! I just tried Super Breakout, they work fine, no jitter. I’ll be testing other paddle games as well. And I’ll be playing paddle games for quite some time. I’ll post periodically on results Thank You for the opportunity to test these paddles. Rated for 100,000 turns! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEANJIMMY Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 4 hours ago, MrChickenz said: The paddle testing has begun! Now I know which is player 1 and player 2. I just have to remember which color I picked as player 1. lol. You should have made a decission first which pill you would have taken in Matrix and that would have been player one 🤔 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 Unfortunately the paddles with the new potentiometers has developed a bad case of jitters. Sorry to report these results. I was really hopeful these would hold up. Hopefully the other paddle testers have better results. IMG_1105.mov 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 The below settings are available for tweaking under Stella, although not user facing for the 2600+, they may need to be adjusted on the backend to account for differences in Analog Paddle design: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 57 minutes ago, Trebor said: The below settings are available for tweaking under Stella, although not user facing for the 2600+, they may need to be adjusted on the backend to account for differences in Analog Paddle design: The only issue I see with this, is I had a few hours of play before the jitter started. And I have other sets of paddles CX30+ and original sets that perform well. But these are different potentiometers inside this set. I do appreciate your information on this. Maybe it’s possible this is the cause. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 This is my set of CX30+ paddles that I received in February, they developed jitter about a month ago. This is the set I used Spray and Stay lubricant in the potentiometers and they work great! IMG_1106.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 1 hour ago, Trebor said: The below settings are available for tweaking under Stella, although not user facing for the 2600+, they may need to be adjusted on the backend to account for differences in Analog Paddle design: I apologize, I should have the debug Firmware version installed. I will install it and take new clips. Not sure if that would help or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 Here’s an idea for 1 player 2 player paddles. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Intellivision Master Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 16 hours ago, MrChickenz said: Here’s an idea for 1 player 2 player paddles. This is good. That way you know which one is which. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 @Marc Fiorillo hopefully your paddles go the distance! How are they working so far? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Fiorillo Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 @MrChickenzBeen dealing with the death of a friend, so I just started testing them out this evening. I've played them on four games so far on the 2600+, and this is what I found. I started with Street Racer. The paddles seem to have a tight feel to them, I don't know how to really explain it better than that. But, the on-screen movement was smooth, and I played it as badly as I did back in the day! I tried Super Breakout next. I see what everyone has been saying about the on-screen movement looking choppy. I haven't played this one in years, so I don't know if that was normal or not. However, it honestly didn't detract in any way, and I was able to play the game as badly as I ever have! Next up was Breakout. Another game I could never play (sense a theme here, yet? In reality I don't play the paddle games that often, but I have about twenty of them to go through). The paddle movement on screen was smooth as silk, though. Still feel very tight. Finally, I tried Star Wars Jedi Arena. Picked it up at a consignment shop today. OK, this game just plain sucks. However, I had no issue with the feel or movement on this one at all. Even though the feel is tight, it's not bad so far. I'm not using debugging firmware. I'm not an engineer, and while I love tech, I'm not good with the nuts and bolts of it. I'm using these with the eye of a typical end user, as that's what I am. Once I get through all the games on the plus, then I'll turn my attention to running them on original hardware. This will also give me an excuse to see if my supercharger works, along with a portable cd player and my never used copy of Stella Gets a New Brain! I've got about twenty paddle games total, and a couple of Bob DeCrescenzo games I can try on the 7800. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 3 hours ago, Marc Fiorillo said: I tried Super Breakout next. I see what everyone has been saying about the on-screen movement looking choppy. I haven't played this one in years, so I don't know if that was normal or not. However, it honestly didn't detract in any way, and I was able to play the game as badly as I ever have! Next up was Breakout. Another game I could never play (sense a theme here, yet? In reality I don't play the paddle games that often, but I have about twenty of them to go through). The paddle movement on screen was smooth as silk, though. Still feel very tight. Sorry for your loss. I went through all my paddle games as well. I had same results with Super Breakout and Breakout. All my paddle games worked without any jitter for a few hours. After that the jitter appeared. Hopefully yours hold up, Maybe I just had a defective set of paddles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danny_galaga Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 Just received mine (I guess you would call it version 1?) from Amazon backorder yesterday. Haven't tried them out yet. Got two pairs basically just to play Mediaeval Mayhem on an original Atari at retro events from time to time. I don't I have any other game that uses them so hopefully they last a while 😄 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabe Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 15 hours ago, Marc Fiorillo said: @MrChickenzBeen dealing with the death of a friend, so I just started testing them out this evening. I tried Super Breakout next. I see what everyone has been saying about the on-screen movement looking choppy. I haven't played this one in years, so I don't know if that was normal or not. However, it honestly didn't detract in any way, and I was able to play the game as badly as I ever have! First, I'm very sorry for your loss. Though I see a bit of jitter in all six of the paddle games I've tried, which are Super Breakout, Kaboom! and the games on the "4 in 1" cart included with the paddle pack, it's Super Breakout where it's the most prominent. The difference is notable. I think it has something to do with the game itself though, as trying those same six games on both my Gamestation Pro and Flashback 12 Gold produced the same result, with Super Breakout having noticeably more jitter. This is also with trying the paddles that came with the FB12G on that system as well as the 2600+. I know getting the paddle movement as smooth as on the original system is probably impossible with emulation, but hopefully a future firmware update for the 2600+ will include at least some improvement. Even so, as it stands now, with the possible exception of Super Breakout, the paddle games are still very enjoyable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tradyblix Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 It's long been established on here that the jitter on super breakout is the game itself and not the hardware as it's also a problem with alternative paddles like the one on the hyperkin ranger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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