controllers - wired vs. wireless

[Milamber Mage]

I find the wireless controller has a tiny amount of delay when compared with the wired version. Having played wired on the original xbox, and having been unable to deal with the delay of my Logitech wireless controllers (thus switching back almost immediately), I find exactly the same problem with the 360.

Now don't get me wrong, it works great for simple games like hexic or dig dug, and is extremely convenient, but it is completely unacceptable (to me) for fast action games like Halo or Gears of War.

It just seems like my brain needs to tune to the different response time, and it severely affects my gameplay. It does seem consistent though (the response time is always the same, slower than wired, but consistent), and very minor, but it's enough to really throw me off in a heated battle.


Has anyone else notice a difference between the two? Anyone use a wired controller at all?


- Mage

P.S. - I can't help but notice that MS folks seems to always have a wired controller in the various pics of them playing... (sorry about the huge images, the bbcode doesn't let you specify the size attributes to properly scale them the way an HTML img tag does)

from the "Pentathlon 2007" pics (the only pic with a controller in plain view), a wired controller:


From the 2006 year in review article, also the only controller in plain view is wired:


From "weekly update 10/20/06" (the guy in the back could have either, but I think I see a cord blending in with his jeans [opening for trajan here]):


Think they're just wireless with play-and-charge? Look again, then look at your play-and-charge adapter.
_________________

[ My Gamer Profile ]

[hudsmack]

There might be a little lag, but it's negligible. Your mind will begin to adjust for you the more you play with it. I'll have to do some testing though to see if it really makes a difference. The biggest thing I notice is WHO I am playing with. When I am playing with people I know and we are communicating, I do MUCH better than if I am playing with total strangers, especially in Gears.
_________________

[markilli0]

I have noticed that a wired controller in fast action games helps...
Halo 2 / Gears. Melee attacks are more successful in Halo 2.
Not a great deal but enought to notice as Mage said.

[trajan05]

[Milamber Mage]

I did a quick test with my wired and wireless-with-play-and-charge controllers, to see how they interacted with the USB bus.

I first installed the Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows driver so that my XP PC would recognize the controller.

When I plugged in the wired controller, XP showed it in device manager as an Xbox 360 controller.

I then unplugged it and plugged in the play-and-charge wireless.

Windows did recognize that the controller was plugged in, but it had no idea what type of device it was (i.e. Unknown Device is device manager).

I think the only reason XP even saw it was that the USB spec requires any USB device which wants to draw power (if it's going to draw more than 100mA) over the USB bus indicate to the bus how much it intends to draw, by sending a power request (in 100mA increments, up to 500mA). ref

So I'm pretty sure that the 360 controller with the play-and-charge kit is still a wireless controller, running on USB power instead of batteries.

I was pretty sure that was the case, but I had to check it out.

- Mage
_________________

[ My Gamer Profile ]

[Zephries]

I seem to be able to kick everyone