The Paddles

[Zooang]

My CX30+ paddles with the 4 in 1 cart arrived today from Amazon and I am having problems with them on original hardware. They work fine on my 2600+ but on my original 7800 and 2 2600 jrs they jitter back and forth rapidly when playing breakout and video olympics. Here is a video of the problem. In the video I am not touching the paddles, but it still happens when moving the cursor. They did this right out of the box. I am thinking I will return them.

[Aawon]

Is anyone having significant jitters with the new paddle controllers and the 2600+? Here is a video of me very slowly turning the paddle in Super Breakout and it is jumping all over. Kaboom does the same. I dont have old controllers or an original system to compare it to. I also have not installed the beta update. 

[Dave2600]

On 2/2/2024 at 6:47 AM, Zooang said:

My CX30+ paddles with the 4 in 1 cart arrived today from Amazon and I am having problems with them on original hardware. They work fine on my 2600+ but on my original 7800 and 2 2600 jrs they jitter back and forth rapidly when playing breakout and video olympics. Here is a video of the problem. In the video I am not touching the paddles, but it still happens when moving the cursor. They did this right out of the box. I am thinking I will return them.

Hi Zooang, it's possible that there is actually nothing wrong with your paddles.
I'm not sure where you are located, but assume you have PAL 2600s, since in another thread you mention that you also have a PAL 7800.

 

Here is an observation I made with a PAL 6 switch 2600 and the original CX30 paddles, but I imagine it is still relevant to your situation with the new CX30+ paddles.
I have 2 versions of the Circus Atari Cartridge. One is PAL the other. NTSC.
When I play the NTSC version on my PAL 2600 there is jitter, when I play the PAL version on my PAL 2600 there is no jitter; the paddles are smooth.
Notice that the 4-1 cartridge that comes with the CX30+ paddles has NTSC versions of the games. So what you are experiencing is probably the same thing I am, NTSC game on PAL hardware induces jitter.
I don't know why this is, possibly a timing issue, but it's definitely a thing.

Just tried it out with my NTSC Breakout cartridge on my PAL 2600 and I have the same jitter as you. With PAL Breakout the paddle is stable.
If you have a harmony cart and ROM Hunters ROM collection you can compare other NTSC vs PAL version paddle games too.
 

[chad5200]

2 hours ago, Dave2600 said:

When I play the NTSC version on my PAL 2600 there is jitter, when I play the PAL version on my PAL 2600 there is no jitter; the paddles are smooth.
Notice that the 4-1 cartridge that comes with the CX30+ paddles has NTSC versions of the games. So what you are experiencing is probably the same thing I am, NTSC game on PAL hardware induces jitter.
I don't know why this is, possibly a timing issue, but it's definitely a thing.

It's really too bad that Atari/Plaion did not include both NTSC and PAL versions of the games on the paddle multicart.  They certainly had enough room and DIP switches for it.

 

 

[Glorkbot]

@Aawon I'm not getting jitter like that with the new paddles on my Atari 2600+. It doesn't happen with the games on my 4-in-1 cart or on Kaboom. I am also on firmware 1.0, the original firmware the unit shipped with. However I do have a problem with the Atari 2600+ not reading as small as steps of movement as the original 2600 does.

 

Using the same paddles on my computer with the Stella Atari emulator, they are much much smoother than on the 2600+. But no jitter on either. (Or not much. There's a little jitter in Kaboom. Paddles in Kaboom are definitely more jittery than other games, even if you play on original hardware, I've found. And I don't have Super Breakout on cart, so I can't check that one on Atari 2600+. I kinda hate Super Breakout though, lol. I find the original much better, mostly because of the sound.)

 

edit: all my carts are NTSC

Edited February 8 by Glorkbot

[Rajule]

On 2/7/2024 at 2:43 PM, Aawon said:

Is anyone having significant jitters with the new paddle controllers and the 2600+? Here is a video of me very slowly turning the paddle in Super Breakout and it is jumping all over. Kaboom does the same. I dont have old controllers or an original system to compare it to. I also have not installed the beta update. 

Yes, I am having similar issues. I noticed it pretty quickly but wasn't bothered by it. However the more I played the more noticeable and severe it seemed. Maybe not quite as bad as what I see in your video but pretty close. I actually haven't played I  several weeks because of it. Really hoping it's something that can be fixed with the firmware. Aside from this issue I'm really happy with my 2600+

[Thomas Jentzsch]

It looks like the paddle resolution is lower than it should be. And it still jitters. These two combined could result into such jumps.

 

Or the paddle is broken. Do both act the same way?

[DEANJIMMY]

On 2/8/2024 at 3:59 PM, Dave2600 said:

Hi Zooang, it's possible that there is actually nothing wrong with your paddles.
I'm not sure where you are located, but assume you have PAL 2600s, since in another thread you mention that you also have a PAL 7800.

 

Here is an observation I made with a PAL 6 switch 2600 and the original CX30 paddles, but I imagine it is still relevant to your situation with the new CX30+ paddles.
I have 2 versions of the Circus Atari Cartridge. One is PAL the other. NTSC.
When I play the NTSC version on my PAL 2600 there is jitter, when I play the PAL version on my PAL 2600 there is no jitter; the paddles are smooth.
Notice that the 4-1 cartridge that comes with the CX30+ paddles has NTSC versions of the games. So what you are experiencing is probably the same thing I am, NTSC game on PAL hardware induces jitter.
I don't know why this is, possibly a timing issue, but it's definitely a thing.

Just tried it out with my NTSC Breakout cartridge on my PAL 2600 and I have the same jitter as you. With PAL Breakout the paddle is stable.
If you have a harmony cart and ROM Hunters ROM collection you can compare other NTSC vs PAL version paddle games too.
 

This theory sounds good to me...

 

Summary of my findings and thoughts:

 

Superbreakout and Kaboom have slightly jumpy paddles per software on any platform.

 

On the 2600+ this gets more visible, as the resolution is less due to retroarch.

 

If it is PAL cart inserted in a 2600+, it is even worse, if you are on V1.0 or V1.1 Rev2 due to 60Hz hdmi outout?

 

I have no evidence for the last assumption. But on V1.1 Rev1 with 50Hz it was less jumpy from my memories. That would underline what was written above.

 

Overall the 60Hz hdmi output from Rev2 is the better approach, so I want to keep it for now!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 hour ago, DEANJIMMY said:

Superbreakout and Kaboom have slightly jumpy paddles per software on any platform.

Not for me.

 

I tried my old and the new paddles with Super Breakout on my original PAL Darth Vader. They only jitter slightly when they are positioned between two pixels. And my old, really good paddles jitter slightly more.

[Pac-Man Senior]

I'm glad to see this discussion. I've got paddle jitter depending on the moment or the day. And I'm not talking about emulation. I bought these new paddles with the four game cartridge for my old Atari 2600. I was really happy to see that they were sliding nearly perfectly - on my PAL 2600 and playing the PAL Super Breakout. A few days later I saw the paddles jittering even without touching them - like one post here described. I thought what the hell is this? That cannot be a dust issue after this short period of usage. Another day the problem was gone. And then it returned. I tested a few minutes before my post here and there was no jitter. This is very strange. I will keep an eye on the contacts of the cable. But I don't think this is the problem. So this seems to be more of a task for Scully and Mulder.

 

Whenever the problem with these new paddles was there I took the paddles from the Atari Flashback 11 Gold. They are a bit stiff compared to the new Atari Paddles. But I never noticed the described jitter with them on my original hardware. 

 

On the 2600+ the new Atari Paddles are not jittery but "jumpy". They don't act as smooth as on original hardware. I was prepared by the Atari Flashback 11. The Paddles behaviour was a bit fixed on this 11th version of the Flashbacks (compared to the version x which never got a paddle patch) but they still aren't smooth. The problem on the 2600+ is more intense when I play my PAL Super Breakout on it. I hope one day the 2600+ can deliver 50 hz. But focusing Super Breakout I don't think the gaming experience on emulation devices will ever reach the level of the original hardware. So many devices and enterprises tried to, but failed. Perhaps there are limits in the transformation from analog to digital. The best emulation of a paddle game I remember is Pong on my Nintendo 2ds where I use a pen scratching on my display instead of a paddle controller.

 

On the other side there are games that seem to be less prone to paddle jitter - despite being very similar to Super Breakout. For example Breakout. I've never seen extreme paddle jitter in Breakout on my original console. Don't know why. So for me the paddle jitter topic is nothing but a great mystery.

[DEANJIMMY]

2 hours ago, Pac-Man Senior said:

I'm glad to see this discussion. I've got paddle jitter depending on the moment or the day. And I'm not talking about emulation. I bought these new paddles with the four game cartridge for my old Atari 2600. I was really happy to see that they were sliding nearly perfectly - on my PAL 2600 and playing the PAL Super Breakout. A few days later I saw the paddles jittering even without touching them - like one post here described. I thought what the hell is this? That cannot be a dust issue after this short period of usage. Another day the problem was gone. And then it returned. I tested a few minutes before my post here and there was no jitter. This is very strange. I will keep an eye on the contacts of the cable. But I don't think this is the problem. So this seems to be more of a task for Scully and Mulder.

 

Whenever the problem with these new paddles was there I took the paddles from the Atari Flashback 11 Gold. They are a bit stiff compared to the new Atari Paddles. But I never noticed the described jitter with them on my original hardware. 

 

On the 2600+ the new Atari Paddles are not jittery but "jumpy". They don't act as smooth as on original hardware. I was prepared by the Atari Flashback 11. The Paddles behaviour was a bit fixed on this 11th version of the Flashbacks (compared to the version x which never got a paddle patch) but they still aren't smooth. The problem on the 2600+ is more intense when I play my PAL Super Breakout on it. I hope one day the 2600+ can deliver 50 hz. But focusing Super Breakout I don't think the gaming experience on emulation devices will ever reach the level of the original hardware. So many devices and enterprises tried to, but failed. Perhaps there are limits in the transformation from analog to digital. The best emulation of a paddle game I remember is Pong on my Nintendo 2ds where I use a pen scratching on my display instead of a paddle controller.

 

On the other side there are games that seem to be less prone to paddle jitter - despite being very similar to Super Breakout. For example Breakout. I've never seen extreme paddle jitter in Breakout on my original console. Don't know why. So for me the paddle jitter topic is nothing but a great mystery.

Yes, regarding the 2600+ we talk about jumpy! Jitter is just individual to your personal paddles.

And Kaboom and Super Breakout feel more jumpy even on original HW with perfect paddles than other games. So, less resolution on the 2600+ makes it just obvious.

Games with better paddle input like Video Olympics or Solar Storm play fine on the 2600+, even with less resolution.

[Zooang]

On 2/9/2024 at 1:59 AM, Dave2600 said:

Hi Zooang, it's possible that there is actually nothing wrong with your paddles.
I'm not sure where you are located, but assume you have PAL 2600s, since in another thread you mention that you also have a PAL 7800.

 

Here is an observation I made with a PAL 6 switch 2600 and the original CX30 paddles, but I imagine it is still relevant to your situation with the new CX30+ paddles.
I have 2 versions of the Circus Atari Cartridge. One is PAL the other. NTSC.
When I play the NTSC version on my PAL 2600 there is jitter, when I play the PAL version on my PAL 2600 there is no jitter; the paddles are smooth.
Notice that the 4-1 cartridge that comes with the CX30+ paddles has NTSC versions of the games. So what you are experiencing is probably the same thing I am, NTSC game on PAL hardware induces jitter.
I don't know why this is, possibly a timing issue, but it's definitely a thing.

Just tried it out with my NTSC Breakout cartridge on my PAL 2600 and I have the same jitter as you. With PAL Breakout the paddle is stable.
If you have a harmony cart and ROM Hunters ROM collection you can compare other NTSC vs PAL version paddle games too.
 

Yes my 7800 and 2600 Jrs are Pal consoles. That makes a lot of sense why it is happening on the original pal consoles and not on the 2600+. I tried the Pal version of Breakout using my Unocart on my 7800 and it is much better. There is still a tiny amount of jitter when the paddles are not moving but otherwise it is perfectly playable.

[Aawon]

On 2/8/2024 at 2:00 PM, Glorkbot said:

@Aawon I'm not getting jitter like that with the new paddles on my Atari 2600+. It doesn't happen with the games on my 4-in-1 cart or on Kaboom. I am also on firmware 1.0, the original firmware the unit shipped with. However I do have a problem with the Atari 2600+ not reading as small as steps of movement as the original 2600 does.

 

Using the same paddles on my computer with the Stella Atari emulator, they are much much smoother than on the 2600+. But no jitter on either. (Or not much. There's a little jitter in Kaboom. Paddles in Kaboom are definitely more jittery than other games, even if you play on original hardware, I've found. And I don't have Super Breakout on cart, so I can't check that one on Atari 2600+. I kinda hate Super Breakout though, lol. I find the original much better, mostly because of the sound.)

 

edit: all my carts are NTSC

It doesn't matter what game I play, the paddles jump around. I do think regular breakout is less jittery but not by much. If I quickly rotate them back and forth several times it will lessen the jitter for a short while. Perhaps they need to br broken in? NTSC versions of carts.

[Pac-Man Senior]

I have to correct what I said about Breakout and jitter on original hardware. Yesterday I played Breakout NTSC - one of the four games on the new paddle games cartridge - with the paddles that came with Flashback 11 Gold on my PAL Atari Junior and there was jitter without touching the paddles. When playing it was a bit less jittery. Very strange all in all.

[DEANJIMMY]

2 hours ago, Pac-Man Senior said:

I have to correct what I said about Breakout and jitter on original hardware. Yesterday I played Breakout NTSC - one of the four games on the new paddle games cartridge - with the paddles that came with Flashback 11 Gold on my PAL Atari Junior and there was jitter without touching the paddles. When playing it was a bit less jittery. Very strange all in all.

I guess all these issues are not related to paddle hardware. 

 

The 4:1 NTSC cartridge might cause your issue if run on PAL hardware ?

 

Do you have a PAL cartridge to compare?

 

On the 2600+ some games play jumpy due to less resolution for the input scan. That gets more noticable in games you can move over long distance, which is a different issue.

[Beatley82]

On 2/7/2024 at 10:43 PM, Aawon said:

Is anyone having significant jitters with the new paddle controllers and the 2600+? Here is a video of me very slowly turning the paddle in Super Breakout and it is jumping all over. Kaboom does the same. I dont have old controllers or an original system to compare it to. I also have not installed the beta update. 

Yep mine started doing that after about a week. Only the player 1 paddle.

[Pac-Man Senior]

2 hours ago, DEANJIMMY said:

I guess all these issues are not related to paddle hardware. 

I guess so too. I've got two pairs of paddles. And the phenomenon was seen on both. I've got two old Ataris (Junior and 4-Switch). And the phenomenon was seen on both.

 

2 hours ago, DEANJIMMY said:

The 4:1 NTSC cartridge might cause your issue if run on PAL hardware ?

 

Do you have a PAL cartridge to compare?

I'm not sure. At the beginning I thougt the NTSC 4in1 causes even less rf quality on my old 2600. But I tested with the only game I have in PAL and NTSC (video pinball). Both versions are fine on the old hardware. I've got the intention to buy a Breakout PAL Cartridge on ebay or wherever. Then I can compare and will report. At the moment there is only one theory left to explain this strange paddle behaviour: Perhaps this old rf based 2600 hardware is very sensible concerning our modern radiation overkill that surrounds us (wlan, bt, dvb-t, dab-t, lan over power, neighbour's alexa, communicating fridges, ...)? This is an inexpert point of view. But that's what I think from time to time.

 

2 hours ago, DEANJIMMY said:

On the 2600+ some games play jumpy due to less resolution for the input scan. That gets more noticable in games you can move over long distance, which is a different issue.

I noticed that too. For example Night Driver causes no problem at all - except my bad reactions or driving skills. Super Breakout and Breakout have the long distances and are often jittery. But on the other side in Circus Atari I have this long distance too and I don't feel jitter at all. Perhaps it's more the size of the moving objekt. In the Breakout games it's like one pixel in height. And then you have the big car in Night Driver or the man on the seesaw in Circus Atari.

[BassGuitari]

I don't have jittering with my CX30+, but in my limited playing they seem less responsive than original paddles. The action feels "floaty." In Breakout, Video Olympics, and Sea Bomber (the Canyon Bomber B-side) it's like the paddles have inertia when they're moved, which makes it really hard to play at high speed. It's less noticeable on Night Driver, though. 

 

The resolution also seems to be slightly lower at low speed than I remember with original CX30s, but I could be imagining that. 

 

I've only used them on my 2600+ (which hasn't had its firmware updated yet), and only with the 4-in-1 cartridge. I haven't observed their behavior on original hardware or cartridges (though I don't see why it would be different with original carts).

[Aawon]

On 2/12/2024 at 5:48 AM, Beatley82 said:

Yep mine started doing that after about a week. Only the player 1 paddle.

I just realized that it is also only player one that does it. Player 2 works great...

[radiohead]

I also bought the Atari 4-1 Paddle pack a few weeks ago at the end of January and I'm having jitter issues as well. But I'm not using them on an Atari 2600+.

 

I'm using the new paddles on a Retropie 3B running the Stella emulator 6.7 with the 2600-daptor. Out of the box the paddles worked terrifically, virtually no jitter.

 

Now after only using them maybe 4 times, I notice significant jitter in fast player games like Breakout, Kaboom, Astroblast and Solar Storm, while considerably less jitter in other slower action games like Warlords, Street Racer, Canyon Bomber, etc. All my game roms are NTSC.

 

It seems the paddle I use most has the jitter while the another less used paddle not so much.

 

I've only recently began using paddles again in the last 6 months after the purchase of the 2600-daptor for Stella on the PC & Retropie. Prior to that, I haven't played paddle games in years and I don't remember paddle games being this jittery. 

 

I experienced the same jitter before with another pair of paddles which were bought "used", but I suspected they were old after cleaning them a number of times and still found noticeable jitter.

 

Has this always been an issue with all Atari paddles? Is this a paddle construction issue from Plaion or is it a Stella emulator issue?

 

 

[Glorkbot]

1 hour ago, radiohead said:

Is this a paddle construction issue from Plaion or is it a Stella emulator issue?

 

 

It could also be a retroarch issue. Do both Retropie and Atari 2600+ use retroarch as their underlying interface?

 

I don't get much jitter using the paddles on Stella on my computer (or on my 2600+ either for that matter, actually. Although they are not as smooth on the Atari 2600+ as they move in bigger steps, they don't particularly jitter.) I haven't tried them on my Raspberry Pi yet.

Edited February 14 by Glorkbot

[radiohead]

1 hour ago, Glorkbot said:

It could also be a retroarch issue. Do both Retropie and Atari 2600+ use retroarch as their underlying interface?

 

I don't get much jitter using the paddles on Stella on my computer (or on my 2600+ either for that matter, actually. Although they are not as smooth on the Atari 2600+ as they move in bigger steps, they don't particularly jitter.) I haven't tried them on my Raspberry Pi yet.

I'll try the new paddles on the PC Stella software. On the retropie, I'm not using the lr-stella emulator that comes with Emulation Station, just the actual downloaded Stella 6.7 (I've mapped the controllers and access game properties via Stella's setting) so I don't know how much influence retroarch has in my setup. I can't imagine the new paddles "get dirty" this fast after only 4 game sessions. 

[Glorkbot]

1 hour ago, radiohead said:

I can't imagine the new paddles "get dirty" this fast after only 4 game sessions. 

I've had mine for a few weeks and they haven't changed in performance at all.

[Rodney Hester]

8 hours ago, radiohead said:

I've only recently began using paddles again in the last 6 months after the purchase of the 2600-daptor for Stella on the PC & Retropie. Prior to that, I haven't played paddle games in years and I don't remember paddle games being this jittery. 

You are probably experiencing a floating ground issue.  I suspect you're using the D9 adapter with a two-prong power supply?

 

This issue does not exist on the 2600-daptor II nor the specially-made PDL adapter (created exactly to solve that problem).

[radiohead]

4 hours ago, Rodney Hester said:

You are probably experiencing a floating ground issue.  I suspect you're using the D9 adapter with a two-prong power supply?

 

This issue does not exist on the 2600-daptor II nor the specially-made PDL adapter (created exactly to solve that problem).

Interesting. I have the 2600-daptor PDL plugged in with a USB B cord. I bought it last summer and I see the latest firmware update was on 5/23. Don't know if the latest firmware is on my PDL. The right paddle I've been using jitters more than the left, less used paddle. Same jitter on both the Raspberry Pi and PC. So maybe I should try to update the firmware?

 

UPDATE: The 2600-daptor PDL may be the culprit. I swapped USB cables and I tested all the dip switches settings (2600 Paddle / Commodore / Maximum Range / MiSTER 7600-2600) and Maximum Range setting seemed to be the best at reducing the jitter instead of the default 2600 Paddle setting when used on both PC and Raspberry Pi (don't really know why). I will experiment some more and look in to possibly updating the PDL firmware, but so far I'm encouraged with the results. 

 

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, Rodney!

Edited February 15 by radiohead