Review of the HORI Real Arcade Pro VX SA (Xbox)

With the recent crapping out of my HORI EX.Pro I was about to purchase the pricey HORI VLX Taito equivalent. The main reason is because I want a stick that I can play both VF with and Street Fighter. My main gripe with the EX.Pro and any other stick HORI makes is that the right six buttons are not straight across. For some reason I have a hard time playing Street Fighter because of this. Then I noticed that the VX SA has the exact same button layout that the VLX Taito model does. Also the guts of the VX SA are identical to the EX.Pro so I figured how could I go wrong.

After only a short time playing with my new VX SA I am surprised that the stick seems better than the EX.Pro. It almost seems a little looser and easier to move. I'm not saying that the EX.Pro was at all hard to move. I always thought that stick was exceptional! But there is something about the VX SA that I immediately fell in love with. I wish I could be more precise, but all I'm saying is it's 100% worth the money.

On the other hand, while it does supplement my need for Street Fighter with how the buttons are laid out, I find myself doing things that shouldn't be happening. Over the years I have gotten used to playing Street Fighter with Japanese sticks, but I still prefer american joysticks for that game. The VX SA maybe is too loose for me for Street Fighter, but on the other hand maybe I'll get used to it.

I have only two small quibbles about the VX SA.

1) The amount of space from the stick to the bottom of the panel is less so the bottom of your hand can't really rest on it anymore. I think I've gotten used to it and maybe this helps in proper posture for your hands. Heck, maybe this reason alone is why I'm liking the stick better.

2) For some reason they decided to put the start button to the right of all the buttons instead of on top. This doesn't affect VF at all, but already several times I have accidentally paused online Street Fighter matches with my pinky. Not sure why they decided to put it there.


All things considered it's a phenominal stick!! Go get yourself one! =)

 

Jhow,

What is the advantage of getting the VX SA over the TE?

They look scarily similar. while the HRAP EX has got the typical Hori shape, the VX seems just a copy of the TE. what made you choose it? is it superior to the TE in your opinion?

BTW, a stick lever is just an accessory IMO, you can change the spring type or the microswitch and it will feel as hard or soft as you want it, so more or less its just a matter of aesthetics.

 

i like the fact that it doesn't come with a plastic/plexi panel cover, personally. that, and i've never really liked the feel of the te; it just seems so... hallow.

and, assuming this test isn't bullshit...

 

Both sticks were opened and outfitted with Y-splitters. A Y-splitter was used for the joystick and the buttons so that both sticks receive inputs at the same time from the same set of buttons and a joystick. So you press a button, or move the joystick, and it sends a signal to both PCBs at the same time. This is how NKI tested the original arcade and CCC2 console versions of Super Turbo for input delay side-by-side.

However, the wiring might have caused an input delay on one of the PCBs. Maybe the 360 has input delay on one of the USB ports and not the other, so that might skew the results. Maybe the 2P side lags one frame behind the 1P side even on certain 360 models. There are so many factors to control for when testing input delay that it is very difficult to get a perfect test.

That being said, someone from South Korea tested the Round 1 TE stick when it came out and said that it lagged at least 1 frame behind the stock Hori PCBs. And people on SRK were saying that using a TE for GGPO would set you a frame behind compared to using other sticks. And people were accusing the TE stick of dropping inputs as well. So this isn't the first time that I've seen someone accuse the TE PCB of having delay built into it. And I stopped using Madcatz TE/SE PCBs when my inputs kept getting obviously dropped or delayed when I was playing games with 1 frame timing like SFII.

http://shoryuken.com/f177/madcatz-pcb-%3D-lag-256855/#post9807145

Here's a post where Toodles calls the Madcatz TE/SE PCB a "piece of shit" as well in response to that video.

 

hori ftw

 

I didn't even know about the TE. I got the VX SA mainly because of the button layout and also because I knew the guts were identical to my old Pro.EX. So far I'm still loving it!

 

Good choice of joystick JHow77; I'm happy with my recently acquired Hori V3-SA version also, and would recommend a VX or V3 to anyone looking for a new stick. The girth and quality of the 3m cable and USB plug instantly told me this was a high grade product .

The input lag testing and dropped inputs is a really interesting subject. Although I imagine anyone doing those tests would have retested 1P and 2P reversed and used an independently powered USB2.0 hub to eliminate any voltage regulation issues or noise bias from one single usb port on the 360.

I agree with you EmpNova, one joystick PCB might be less affected by the test; the introduction of external electrical noise(EMFs & reflections) or the changed impedance from the Y-splitter being connected. Which is a pity that it would sort of invalidate the integrity of the test, just by being tested.

However, I too have experienced much craziness with other joysticks, like my Hori FS3(3m long cheap USB cable & connector) and my previously owned Madcatz SF Ed (360) stick (decent 3m cable but was a two parter, and had a cheapish USB plug).

The main problems I've had with them were lost inputs; particularly when hitting buttons fast & hard. On the Hori FS3, it had some crazy lag issues experienced fully in Vf4Evo (PS2 b/c on ps3) as it couldn't do the 1frame Akira knee(for love of god) or the fuzzy guard training. Yet any one of my friends budget SubSonic joysticks(with cheap 1.5m cable & plug) were all fine with it.

Anyway getting to my comment for the lag discussion.

I think many people, including myself have assumed that USB (& hdmi, etc) being digital signals (to analogue and back to digital) always meant that cables were about the same; they either worked or they didn't. When in fact cable quality in USB at lengths above 2.0 metres seems very important to me now, particularly because 5 metres is the specification limit (according to the usb 2.0 wiki) for data packet round trip time; time-to-live. Hence if a error happens, the packet gets lost on a long cable, so you need to have a shorter or very high grade cable to allow for zero errors or error recovery time (<2.5m to send twice).

Quickly talking hdmi which has lag relevance for fighting game also.
For hdmi cables it is standard certification (by hdmi.org) that is the really important hallmark for cables (hdmi 1.4 Neet cables I use), but above 5metres build quality (SnR/error rate) will be critical. Although it won't corrupt your image visibly, it will just increase image lag while the TVs (good or poor) hdmi receiver chips tries to error correct the jitter in real-time.

Anyway, using a powered hub with the Hori FS3 does seem to result in less lost inputs so maybe voltage regulation is an issue too, and I'm still meaning to replace the FS3's cable with a newer 1.5m one to see if that eliminates the input lag which I suspect it will.

But after buying a Hori V*-SA joystick to play VF5 with, I'm probably more likely to throw the FS3 in the bin now.

 

Just got my hands on the Horipad EX2 Turbo and it has greatly improved my skills! Leggo!

 

If I'm not mistaken, this is the same stick I played on at the Atlus booth at PAX (playing KOF XIII). One of the station had two of these and the other station had Mad Catz TEs.

I was really confused about the Start button (now a big sanwa button it seems) being positioned as if it was the 9th action button on the layout.

Otherwise, I liked playing with the sticks. But that Start button is just messed up and only asking for trouble.

I say that even though I play on the left side of the layout.