Affordable joystick or gamepad for PC: suggestions?

[marurun]

Anyone know of a particularly affordable but relatively good quality pad or stick for PC? I have a number of retro titles, and a couple new ones (KOF XIII), that would benefit from something better than my little Logitech Precision. It's a decent pad, but I think I can do a lot better, as long as I can reasonably afford it.

What are the current standouts in price vs performance?

[noiseredux]

for a fightpad I just use a 360 SF4 pad. Works great for 2D titles.

[Pulsar_t]

[dunpeal2064]

Gamestop brand wired 360 controller

The analog stick is trash though, not sure if you plan on using that

[Pulsar_t]

Unless it comes with a transforming dpad don't bother

[dunpeal2064]

What, that little d=pad that twists and pops out?

I don't have one like that, mine is just the standard gamestop wired 360 controller. I think the pad on it is good.

[Pulsar_t]

Never was a fan of the stock 360 d-pad. Anyway for arcade games you're better off with a stick if you're willing to go that route.

[dunpeal2064]

gamestop 360 controller uses a different pad than the official controller though.

I disagree about using a stick, use what you are comfortable with. I almost exclusively play arcade games and I don't own an arcade stick.

[Hobie-wan]

PS1/2 to USB adapter then add decent PS stick of your choice.

[marurun]

The Logitech is a decent pad, but I do have certain problems with even the best pads. Take, for example, Ryo Sakazaki's fwd back fwd punch move. I usually end up getting a DP or, if I have meter, a hao no ken. They dumbed down that move, BTW. I remember the hao no ken being much harder to pull off back in the AOF days, and even in some of the KOF games.

Then again, I'm not sure a stick will make me reliably able to do a fwd back fwd without mangling it unless I'm standing up in front of an arcade machine.