Controllers: D-Pads or Sticks

[QuikThumbs]

I bought a wireless SNES style controller for Switch awhile ago and am doing MUCH better in the arcade games from Hamster. I practice DK and Mario Bros. on the cabinets of course, but as a console games, I find I play a lot better with a directional pad.

What does everyone else here prefer to use for their leisure gaming.

[rayfinkel]

This is a really good question. For a while while I was pursuing 1.1 million in DK, I was using a PS3 controller. During that time, I experimented with several different kinds of pads - NES (with NES to USB conversion), iBuffalo Classic (SNES-type controller), PS1, PS2 and PS4 controllers, the 8BitDo M30 and Hori's Pokken Tournament DX controller. I even tried the Mayflash F300 Fight Stick.

The most difficult part of using a controller for DK was trying to make sure you never accidentally pressed in a direction you didn't want to go (i.e., when moving right or left over a ladder and you accidentally press up to go up it instead of through it). For reasons like this, I found any of the PS controllers to be, by far, the best. The PS3 won out for me due to its comfort over the originals. The PS4 has up/down/left/right integrity issues, so I can't use that. For all of the easy-to-open controllers (NES, iBuffalo, 8BitDo M30), I even went as far as to add black tape to the insides of each direction on the dpad circuit to prevent errant directionals. This helped but still, nothing beat the PS3 controller, which I actually ended up getting my first million on.

I will say that throughout my whole journey, my left and right thumbs began to ache terribly. I started putting all kinds of creams/ointments on my hand joints practically every night just so I could grind the next day. For this reason, I would say a keyboard is probably the best fit for MAME DK. I got myself a Hyper X Alloy RGB mechanical keyboard and I haven't looked back. But to each their own!

[elbee85]

I started with a keyboard then went to a PS3 controller. I hated it. The thumb stick wasn?t accurate for me and I kept dying at the top of ladders getting stuck. And yeah it gets uncomfortable after a while. The D-pad was better than the thumb stick though. I get the same problem playing pacman and metal slug on the Xbox with the thumb stick, have to use d-pad. I ended up buying one of those plastic case arcade sticks from ebay and put a four way stick in. Personally I prefer a stick for MAME but everyone will have their personal preference.

[Lyriell]

A good 4 way joystick works for me....
But a keyboard is pretty good too. (Just not my preference)

On the switch, i prefer the NES offical nintendo gamepad.  The dpad on that thing is rad.

Be careful when using anything thats 'wireless' as they are usually pretty laggy. 

You can even look into changing the polling on your usb to 1000 if you want to be hardcore.

Even wired fightsticks vary in response times.