Am I the only one who thinks most of the current gamepads are crap?

My first gamepad was a PS1 gamepad which I used constantly for around 20 years not only on the Playstation but also on PC using an adapter was absolutely great. But every gamepad I had since then broke down within 6 to 24 months.

Well, they weren't completely nonfunctioning but had all sorts of defects that made continue using them impossible like joystick drift on the slightest touch (or even without being touched) or the bumpers would trigger on the slightest touch, or wouldn't trigger fully, in other words they only registered about 50-70% pull on a fully pulled trigger, or the joystick wouldn't register being fully pushed but also only register about 50-70%, the mini usb port that connects the gamepad to the cable gets a loose connection, etc.

And I tried various different ones, from original PS4 gamepads to Logitech to cheap China clones.

What I look for in a gamepad:

*) Should not exhibit above or similar signs within a few years of use.
*) Cabled.
*) Support XImput and DirectInput.

Everything else (even vibration) is just a bonus. In other words, nice to have but not necessary.

So, can anyone recommend a gamepad that doesn't exhibit such signs after less than two years of use? I'm well aware that nothing will stay perfect forever and that frequent use will wear anything down in time but the quality of the gamepads that I had since my old and trusty PS1 is downright abysmal.

Playstation pads are the worst, in my opinion...

I bought a wired Xbox 360 gamepad back in 2011, and I still using it now without any issues. And I used it A LOT on different types of games, like platforming, fighting (Street Fighters ...), racing, TPS etc...

Forget about the Xbox One pad, it is as weak as Playstation.

My Xbox Series X controller from launch is still working perfectly after almost 3 years. Build quality feels really great.

YMMV, but I've also had Xbone controllers for many years that still work perfectly. I had one original launch controller from 2014 that got a bad bumper, and the micro-USB connector can get bad connection after a while if you use it wired, but other than that I've had few issues. I think the Series X is worth it just for the convenience of USB-C alone though.

I've used 8Bitdo controllers on my Switch pretty much since I got it in 2019, and I've been very happy with them. Solid build quality, great battery life, and USB-C on everything. I have all the functionality of a Switch Pro controller for half the price. I've used these on PC too, and IIRC they have both Dinput and Xinput.

My two preferred controllers on PC are:

- XBox 360 Controller (cabled version/ works under DirectInput with certain limitations)
- Logitech F310 (cabled version/ comes with a switch for choosing between XInput-DirectInput)

Never had any quality issues with those two.

Well, I have many different ones, one for each purpose and game style.

But I guess it's about at least half modern casual platformers and open world games.
For most of these games, in the past I would only use the cabled XBox360 pad, which is one of the best ones ever created I think.

But now I switched to the EasySMX ESM 9110 mostly. It has a good grip (and is slightly smaller than the XBox one, but not too small), different connection modes, easily accessible auto fire for each button and some programmable ones on the bottom, which I never use however.
It has better compatibility to older (~2000) games, since the movement externally is round, but internally is square with rounded corners. Old games (the original Lego Star Wars, Ultimate Spider-man, Tomb Raider) requite square movement to work correctly. It's not expensive (~40€) and absolutely worth a look.

You mean those 160euro+ pro toys?

I imagine you can't go wrong with either.....

I'm on my 5th 8bitdo gamepad.

Bought a Pro+ controller a few years back at release, and still works flawlessly but had to change the rubber dome ABXY buttons due to wear and "mushy feel", partially my fault as playing fighting games can wreck any controller pretty fast. This is the swiss knife of controllers since it works in a plethora of modes wired and bluetooth. Analog precision is fantastic. Xinput, Dinput, Switch and Adroid? selectable modes.

Soon after got myself a Zero controller. This is a miniature Bluetooth controller. Dinput only.

Got one Ultimate (non X-Box) wired version as a gift for a friend, they are pretty cheap at 35 Euros and well built. This was 9 months ago and is still fine. The software is pretty good. Xinput(not really xinput but GIP, see below) and Dinput selectable.
It appears the bluetooth version of this controller has hall effect analogs.

Then, what I call the holy grail of the cheap controllers, the Ultimate C Wire version, is costs a grand total of 20 Euros! It's pretty much a simpler version of the Ultimate (non-C) and doesn't support any kind of software. Do what is suppose to do, simple and effective. D-pad is a bit stiff for my liking but not bad and analogs are precise but still prefer the feeling of the old pro+.
Note that Ultimate controllers support Dinput but not Xinput, it support the newer Microsoft Game Input Protocol (GIP), wich doesn't have a native driver on older Windows versions (7 and below) and since it's new-ish, not all Linux distros support it, you can however use Dinput in this case. Works fine on Batocera 36+ and Steam Deck since a few months ago, though.

Can't really recomend a quality, long lasting gamepad but all of my gamepads (including the quite expensive Razer Raion) benefited from a little DIY by applying some WD-40 to the ABXY buttons, as all of them seem to suffer from plastic-to-plastic "rubbing" feel.

Edit: the XBox 360 controller has the worst D-pad I ever used, to the point of being hard to navigate menu's.
Edit n2: Some of the 8bitdo controllers have BAYX (for Nintendo) instead of ABXY (for Windows) like the crappy picture below

Expecting DirectInput support with modern gamepads seems weird, considering it has been replaced by XInput quite a long time ago, I think?

I personally just think about it as that all PC games that play best on a gamepad, are from the XInput era anyway, and the games from the DirectInput era are probably better to be played with mouse+keyboard instead.

Sure there are driving and flying games from the DirectInput era, but for them you really need a joystick/flightstick, not a gamepad.

EDIT: Wait what?!? Is XInput also considered a "legacy API" nowadays, and Microsoft expects developers to now use something called "GameInput"? My how time flies, I can't wrap my head around the everchanging APIs... I have two of those too.

On one of them, the battery seems almost dead, probably for not using it (ie. the battery was empty for too long, killing it). You are supposed to be able to replace it with mere AA batteries (two of them)... but when I tried that, it didn't seem to work.

Are you able to get it to work with AA batteries? I am not even sure if I inserted the batteries the right way, but they did fit.

Ultimate Spider-man and Lego Star Wars with keyboard / mouse? nah. For these I use old style gamepad from Logitech.

Also many games for Windows 8 and 10 were made for DInput.
The shift to XInput only began recently really, even if it exists for quite a while.
Remember how Tellgale games crashed when the Windows 10 dinput dll was used and a XBox360 pad was connected?

Just read the forums how often people can't use their XBoxOne pad for games that are only a few years old.

However ... this is a pure software problems, there are drivers that convert one format to the other.

There is no such thing as a "quality" gamepad. All modern gamepads are made using crap parts and will suffer from stick drift and and other fatal problems like that sooner or later (often sooner).

And if you get plastic thumbsticks, which most controllers have, then they will wear out and disintegrate over time.

The ones without plastic thumbsticks are colossal ripoffs (and so too are regular gamepads, just not to quite the same degree), and even those uber-expensive ones that don't use plastic thumbsticks, they too will also will suffer from stick drift sooner or later.

I'm using my PS4 controller, it's 6 years old and still going without issues.

Edit: I have to use a gamepad emulator for some games, but that isn't a problem in my eyes.

I like the PlayStation-style gamepads most (above all for their ergonomic design), I'm on my second official PS2 one - they hold up pretty well. Connected to my laptop via a Hongkong-sourced adapter. Sometimes I need to use JoyToKey to make it work.

It seems the new API? is a bit more powerfull and flexible, including stuff like gyro etc. My first contact was because pluging the Ultimate C on a Linux machine (Xinput mode) yeld a blinking light, meaning it wont connect. After a truck load of meaninfull search, I came across a Reddit post talking about it.
On Windows is pretty transparent and it works just like any XInput gamepad. Just tried and work just fine on a pair of fresh alkaline cells (IKEA brand, now discontinued). A bit hard to see in the photo below but both XInput lights are on.
Edit: tried on a semi-charged pair or rechargeable ni-mh batteries and worked as well. Ni-MH have lower voltage than a typical non-rechargeable Alkaline, so I wan't sure it works.

For whats worth, most consumer lithium batteries have a protection circuit to not overchrge or overdischrge. Like cellphones, this circuit limits the charge to a very small amount if the battery has been overdischarged, try to charge it overnight/full day toi see if it improves.
Also, in the past 8bitdo sent me some repair parts free of charge but they now sell repair kits and stuff on the website, including new batteries.

I guess you are looking for analog pad, i.e. with analog thumbstick or two and possibly triggers as well.

That's not really my field of expertise, I play most of those 3d gamepad-only games on kb/m anyway, or I go all the way to a profi flight stick, pedals and/or a steering wheel.

I would vouch for pads made by 8BitDo as well, they are pretty decent all around. As Dark_art_ said, Ultimate wired and Ultimate C wired are probably your best bets for a very decent allrounder. I personally like the Pro and Pro2 wired, for their oldschool playstation look. Also wired-only pads suits me the most because of their lower latency, having least amount of redundancies, lower cost and overall simplicity for repairs/maintanence.

I do have Xbox 360 wired pad since the beginning and when I got it, right after checking if it works I tore it apart and modded the dpad. It is insufferably bad in the stock form. I've never in my life played on anything with a worse dpad... the shape is fine, but the mushy, imprecise floaty feel to it is just gross. Someone at Macrosoft was stoned and probably just rubbed some mushroom cap with their thumb and thought it would be great to have a dpad with such feel. to it... Anyway, I'm on my second or third set of membranes. Also the cheap potentiometers wore out eventually, I had to replace the whole left thumbstick assembly and triggers required a squirt of contact cleaner/lubricant for their respective L and R pots. I really have no idea why manufacturers still use those cheap pots, while analog hall sensors are similarly priced nowadays and I've converted my flightstick to hall effect with analog input (even analog hall has about 20x finer resolution than analog pot used in gamepads). There are also controller assemblies that support fully digital hall effect sensors with their respective controllers that are able to differentiate between 65000+ positions in each direction, but that is way more than anyone would need for gaming. But I digress...


If you are in for some digital-only pad though, e.g. for a pad with dpad only, well now that's my game! In fact I've just unpacked 8BitDo Neogeo pad (35-40 bucks), it's unfortunately not wired-only as I would prefer, but otherwise it's great so far. It's a pretty faithful recreation of the legendary NeoGeo CD pad, with a clicky microswitched dpad that acts like a mini arcade stick, has xinput/dinput switch, programmable turbo/rapidfire, all the good stuff. If you are into fighting games, or arcade games in general, that's one of 3 pads to get imo. There is a knockoff version supplied with neogeo mini, it only looks similar, but it's a complete junk.

Then we have a remake of Sega saturn pad, retro-bit made it (~15 bucks) and the slate gray wired version is particularly alright. Great for arcade games, has 6 face buttons + 2 shoulders. Tho it's kinda hard to find as they are not making them anymore I hear, so there's hope for another batch in the future. Some Robotniks managed to crush the dpad under their thumb, so I can't say if it would work for you, but it works for me. Honorable mention as an alternative would be 8BitDo M30, it's wireless+wired, but a great alternative to Sega genesis/megadrive pads.

Third one would be PDP versus pad (~15 bucks during clearances back then), either for ps3 or xbox360. More than a decade out of production, hard to find outside of US, clicky microswitched dpad, 6 face buttons + 2 shoulders, asymmetrical design for fighting games. The backside of the pad has softened plastic coating and it starts to peel off from age, regardless of usage. So one has to rub off that soft coat on the backside.

Honorable mentions are your hori fighting commanders and whatnot, or more expensive stuff like various elite 2 controllers, razer raions, etc.

P.S. In regards to xinput and dpinut. Xinput, while newer, has limited and simplified rumble support and I think it fully lacks force-feedback compared to dinput. Dinput allows you to program your own rumble profiles to a much finer detail/resolution than xinput, which is useful for various diy gadgets or when using a custom driver for your device that has rumble or FF. E.g. a rumble seat/rumble cushion etc... they are all dinput from what I remember.