I firmly believe the drift issues with all modern controllers started around 2016 and that it's absolutely, without a doubt intentional. I have PS3 controllers from 2012 that are 100% drift-free and I bought one in 2016 just before they stopped production that began drifting within the first month of use.
@@SterkeYerke5555 Interesting, I must have been very lucky indeed, I was convinced this problem started later than that, but I'm not surprised to hear it was even earlier than I thought. These garbage potentiometers shouldn't even be legal.
@@dylanwillyams bullshit, that isn't what drift is. N64 controller sticks were not prone to drift but to a different kind of mechanical failure completely unrelated to drift. I can't speak about 360 controllers as I never owned a 360, but I've heard from many people that 360 controllers were made extremely durably and some people are still using theirs now. Only complaints I hear about 360 controllers are about the poor D-Pads and the fact that the plastic is very slippery.
@@KissyKaede That could still be true! Even though the hall effect sticks are inherently better than pots, not all pots are necessarily terrible. I've seen two original PS3 controllers with pots, one being a very late model DS3 that was basically brand new - which obviously worked fine - and the other being my 2006 Sixaxis which seems to have been used a lot. The Sixaxis does have a bit of a dead spot when pushing the left stick to the left, but there's absolutely no drift at all. Tbf, even hall effect sticks will wear out mechanically after a lot of use, so I'd say the pots on some PS3 controllers can be fine. They might well've started using pots in 2012/2013, but only started using the terrible ones in 2015/2016. I believe the sticks that were used on late DS3's were identical to the DS4's of the time.
oh, so Sony used hall effect before and switched to whatever crap they use right now and literally made controller a consumable item for no reason but profit? And their new super duper PRO edge model still uses crap, but has easily replaceable stick modules for a pretty penny when it could have been a good hall effect stick in the first place. Create a problem and sell a solution, classic.
I was so pissed off about not being able to use PS3 controllers on PS4, no game even requires the touchpad, light bar or speaker. Same with PS5 and it's even worse dualsense. This sort of peripheral blocking should be illegal, just shows how much our so called "leaders" actually care about the environment with how much e waste they allow companies to create
@@talibong9518 Until Dawn and a few other did, but other than that, yeah. The Console has Controller ID so it would have been able to inform you that its an unsupported controller for that game.
@@mightyhadi6132Wrong. The first analog drift was still introduced by Sony on ps vita slim because they aren't using hall effect like vita 1000 anymore
@@eijutretze6463 Probably you are correct, but it's not famous due to very small unit having the defect plus because it's only small units were sold compared to Nintendo Switch unit's. Either way It's not just Sony alone, every industries following suits even valve . It's just a matter of how many percentage of them based on their sales unit's.
You know what is crazy ? That PS one (or PSX) OG Dual Shock started it all. I have like 29 year old Dual Shock One and it still not just works, but works perfectly. No drift whatsoever. Despite not using hall effect, the joysticks are designed to last forever, as those "calibrate" on the fly. What is funny is that analogue sticks are very flimsy and have very little resistance when you move them (years of usage), but no drift. This controller was build like a tank. Also, since it is wired, it will never have battery problems, and wire itself is long & durable (back then controllers had very long weirs & very solid connector). It outlasted every other controller I had that after like 2 - 5 years started drifting or required battery replacement. They could have done it 30 years ago, but not today ? Well, hall effect is pretty much same price as regular joystick, and yet non on the major brand (MS, Sony, Nin) use those in their most expensive controllers. I think it is done on purpose, so that we would keep buying new controllers. Kinda sad.
Considering that I've seen consoles be sold under "cost" with games and accessories being used to recoup profit... makes sense to me. Also, just about everyone will just assume "Oh, you're a gamer. Stop being so rough on your controllers and maybe they'll last". Sounds kinda like some companies moving to exceedingly 'soft' brake pads on econocars. They don't last as long, brake well during initial use, and are easy to blame on the driver/user when they seemingly 'wear out too fast'. "Don't drive like a maniac, and maybe you won't go through parts so fast"
@@LRK-GTtbf some people do treat controllers badly, like lack of basic cleaning (Cheeto dust fingers) and especially on DualShock 4 biting the sticks. Also the very tyipical get mad and throw at wall
Technically Saturn started it. N64 had sticks in 1996, but within a year those started having issues, Saturn got the 3D pad in 1997 and had Hall Effect sticks, then one month later, the Dualshock came along. Saturn and SEGA started the good sticks thing, and it basically ended with SEGA too since Dreamcast also has a hall effect stick. Shame it never got two of them though.
I read somewhere that for a while, Sony lost money on their consoles, leaving it to the online store and accessories for profits. Not surprised they decided to go with a new joystick module prone to failure. The old controllers were just too reliable to make money off of. Disappointing.
Its also on the users. Do you remember many people that were praising the Dual Shock 3 at the time? I don't. And that is one of the reasons why we don't see magnet based Sticks in first party sticks since then.
@@Stefan_Payne couldn’t disagree more. Not sure how faulty joysticks could be on the users at all. I don’t recall a single instance of consistent mass complaints regarding the joysticks on the DS3 controller, maybe I missed it? But ever since they switched modules to the new potentiometers all i hear about is stick drift. People not praising the DS3 ≠ it’s on the users for the joystick module change, and the only praise for the DS4 and DualSense is the touchpad, the haptic feedback and the triggers. Everyone hates the joystick modules.
Really, just another sign that the ninth generation is a barren wasteland, bereft of a glut of great games at this point in their lives as compared to previous generations, more concerned with milking every last drop of profit from people's passion for gaming rather than delivering quality products on the hardware or software side.
@@Stefan_Paynealways praised DS3 for robustness, mine survived worse things than what I thought was possible. The design was antiquated by then though, same look as DS1, with pressure sensitive face buttons like DS2 (that maybe 2 games ever used) and sixaxis as the only addition
@@Afaik777 Well, if you go back to it, the DUal Shock 1-3 aren't really too bad. You just need to hold them like a SNES/SFC Controller, not like a modern one. The Issue with the DS3 is the Triggers, the curveture is wrong... So that the Sixaxis was the only addition is false, as the Analogue Triggers were added too, aka more movement for L2/R2... And, of course, the Analogue Button was replaced with the Playstation Button.
@@J0rdan912 the pad material is different.... modern controller uses a mixture of glue and graphite, that not only wears out pretty fast... but is not even wearing in the same manner for all the pad.. creating drifting problems. those alps joystick are instead made out of brass, that not only is a self lubrificating material, but it will wear out in a very looooong time
this isn't planned obsolescence. the wear isn't noticeable enough for it to be worth it in extra sales. your average ps4 player wasn't ever going to have to worry about stick drift before something like the battery died or it broke from falling a bit too much. this is simply the result of higher precision and more complex machines having shorter life spans. the components get smaller and more fragile at a faster rate than we can keep up with making them sturdy. it can be done but it would push the price up a lot. this would hurt sales numbers because it solves a problem only few will ever deal with enough to care. the competition will simply not do it and outcompete based on price. if they wanted planned obsolescence the issues would be much more apparent. the controllers would be cheaper so people won't feel as cheated and the decline would be in things like connectivity or battery life time. things that are way more apparent, stick drift creeps in and goes unnoticed most times.
@@group555_ " your average ps4 player wasn't ever going to have to worry about stick drift before something like the battery died or it broke from falling a bit too much" Are you still living in 2013 was PS4 controller were released? There is so much reviews, teardowns, investigations, service reports and even lawsuits happened since then. Every recent PS4, Xbox and Nintendo controllers are known to have a drift and jitters out of the box in worst scenarios or usually gets drift after just a months of use, even before your 1 year warranty expired. Which was literally a reason for a huge success and recognition of so many great 3rd party controllers and brands with hall and TMR sticks.
@@group555_ AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH look at sony / all manufactures poster child right here. yup we don't do it on purpose ahahahahahaha
This explains why my friends keep buying new controllers for their modern consoles while I've been gaming with the same DS3 controller since ...2008 I think. The battery is worn out but the sticks are still good. Works great on PC via USB.
yeah, when I tried tweaking anti-deadzone in Steam input for my brother's old DS3 and seen that I could pretty much remove all deadzones and it wouldn't drift, I was like 'how is this even possible for this fossil of a gamepad??'. now I at least understand that the answer is in the special joysticks.
My PS3 controllers’ thumbsticks went bad years ago. So, while PS3 controllers actually DO have thumbsticks that go bad, it’s interesting to read corner cases.
@@MegaZeta I recently had an old PS3 controller joystick fail, it was a relatively easy replacement. no soldering needed, 6 PH1 screws, and just popping parts out and back in. This controller was from like 2008 or so, back with the original fat ps3s. Works perfectly now.
These are MR sensors, it's a wheatstone bridge made of MR elements. First sign of this is the four pins, VCC, ground, and the two poles that are matched but opposing in their voltage swing. Two poles into a differential op amp is also the classic resistive bridge sensor. Not to mention lack of noise, unlike what you see with Hall sensors which are noisy and jittery. ALPS did produce these themselves, though I cannot find the patent on this specific module, but it was a custom order by Sony or there was some kind of exclusivity contract. Now there's further genius of this compared to modern implementations of Hall sticks, and potentially the upcoming TMR stick. The first is how the magnet interacts with the sensor, you have the boundary line resting at a cardinal direction, on top of a coplanar MR bridge, very akin to how rotary (including stick axis) pots have a circular carbon track with a pivoting wiper; this much better approximates a circle than the rotating magnet over a linear Hall sensor like what modern controllers are using, this introduces non-linearity of position and requires processing to fix it, it's a distorted system, and the noise of Hall sensors compounds with this. The next is the physical constraints of the module which is where that potting material plays a part, the stickbox is manufactured with dimensional accuracy of a cube and is soldered in place in a set of holes in a square, the internal gimbal sits within this cube at specific points (and is further aligned via its return to center mechanism) that keeps it square to the stickbox, the magnet sits on the gimbal yoke in a specific orientation and hence the donut shape, this magnet then sits in the spherical/spheroid molding of the epoxy potting ensuring a properly aligned fit due to the convex-concave pairing (similar to how conic surfaces will self-align), the module housing then clips into the stick box at specific locations, and the module itself solders into the same plane as the stickbox; the system is so utterly constrained that there's no concern about alignment issues, unlike newer Hall controllers that can have sensor skewing and magnet alignment issues. This is also why I have low hopes for the newer TMR modules, because they will likely never do what ALPS did, but instead follow their Hall design but with a different sensor type, because redoing the packaging method costs money when most of these controllers are coming from the cheapest source anyways. Please do a follow-up video, an edit, whatever, and reflect the accurate information. I know in the video you said you didn't definitively say the sensors were Hall, but look at your comment section, how many people are regurgitating what they _thought_ they heard? It should be everyone's due diligence to spread good information, because this is exactly how bad information spreads, the general populace lacks comprehension competency and critical thinking skills, you're not at fault for their spread of bad information but it's also important to put out good information to stop people from being frankly uneducated.
Greatest comment i read in years. Thank you for being smart and not lazy at the same time. I just graduated IT engineering and i started repairing various electronics during the covid lockdown. That included plenty of PS2s, Ps3s, Ps4’s, Xbox 360s and their respective controllers. I can see your level of knowledge is beyond what you “normally“ find on the internet, in the sense that you have to dig pretty deep to find this kind of detailed answers to simple questions like “why old controllers were more reliable than the new ones ?”. You should make a youtube channel that goes really in depth about stuff like this.
@@apotekarenossnotna8380 In general, yes, they're less jittery and less noisy. Hall sensors, due to material properties, have a quiescent age-related voltage drift, meaning they will eventually be out-of-spec, and mitigation against this can only be taken so far, what starts as a small issue ages into a large issue. As for sensor design, ALPS is the better design. GuliKit and KSilver are releasing a TMR module but I don't know the circuit design of it, if they're simply just using one resistor and measuring voltage drop, as they look similar to their HE modules; this would be a lesser design due to less redundancy plus there's still the issue of them using a rotary magnet measured with a linear sensor on a perpendicular plane, issues of distortion, etc. The proper way to do things is how ALPS did it in this module, where the magnet and sensor are coplanar, and the sensor is a wheatstone bridge, which not only provides redundancy but better approximates circularity, of which a full-bridge does a better job of this than a half-bridge. The only issue is, ALPS only produced these for Sony, the production lines (V1, V2, and Vita1000) were shut down afterwards, so finding these at all is rare unless you have access to the specific OEM controllers that use them. We're unlikely to see modules like these again, unless a manufacturer wants to invest into recreating the specific package, which is unlikely mostly due to the magnet used, as it's not just your common square or circle low-strength neo of a standard size, and the effort put into the module casing and implementation. There's some hope, but it'll likely be a DIYable solution such as what Marius Heier (@MariusHeier1 on RU-vid) had done with his own hall stick, just replace the hall ICs with TMR ICs; the only potential here is parts compatibility, such as the stick cap and the controller housing, so until this kind of method can be minimized to where it's a drop-in replacement, I personally wouldn't seek out this solution unless you know what you're getting into. As far as the intersection of cheap and reliable go, magnetoresistance is the best option, for now at least. There's other potentials that could be developed, but development costs money, and the further you stray from typical design also requires research, which is additional money; for the former, look at implementing analog optical sensors, for the latter look at developing a 2D low-power inductive position sensor that senses accurately on two axes. As for magnetic sensors specifically, tech goes up in cost fairly steeply as far as I recall, not to mention package sizes; there's a reason why Hall sensors are dirt cheap and are capable of being in handheld devices. TMR's main issue in this use case will be susceptibility to external fields, but realistically what magnetic sensor isn't, though shielding on the exposed side may help with this as it has with HE modules, though I've never seen a shielded MR sensor. MR sensors are also quite abundant, usually they're within a potted IC, but they don't get quite as much attention as HE does in any variant, probably because HE is dirt cheap among some other factors like raw sensor availability, i.e. not packaged in a potted IC. Personally though, I would push manufacturers to seek a different solution based on a new stickbox design. While these work and can be reliable, nobody knows how well they perform in modern games, just look at the FPS genre for example, compare COD BO2 to the latest iteration of the franchise, gameplay is very different. Part of the overall drift issue is mechanical, the centering spring wears out, the centering mechanism wasn't really built for the abuse it modernly sees, hence why there needs to be a more robust stickbox in general. A TMR would work here just fine, but personally I'd push for inductive or optical, inductive position sensing gets rid of the external field susceptibility and would honestly simplify things with a 2D sensor array but at a potential cost of power efficiency, and optical further simplifies things once someone develops a way to package it. TMR may look like the thumbstick endgame, but it absolutely should not be; always advocate for further improvements.
@@joshuaPurushothaman_ I've never been asked if I had Ko-Fi, or similar; I've always been suggested that I get into content creation to share this kind of knowledge and if I end up developing anything myself. I went ahead and set one up, it's xaytana just like my user here and linked on my channel page. Thank you for being kind.
The worst offenders are the "Pro" controllers that cost twice as much as the standard model but STILL USES crappy potentiometers for the analog sticks!
no, it's a bug, but it's one that will cost more to remedy than it will make them more in sales based on reliability. and that holds up even if we don't count any of the extra sales from people replacing stick drifting controllers
I have 4 DS3 controllers that are well over 10 years old. All still work flawlessly. They were made before the era of planned obsolescence took hold. That's why they will continue to work for a very long time. The opposing outputs for each axis provide excellent accuracy. The same idea is used on drive-by-wire systems on modern automobiles. It's critical for something like a throttle position sensor, overkill for a game controller. I'm OK with overkill though. Thanks for the detailed teardown. Now I know why I've never had to throw away a DS3 controller.
@@MegaZetaAs he mentioned in the video, not all DS3 controllers were built the same way. Some of them used this type of sticks, and others used the new ones.
Perfect 0 every time? Highly doubt that it's mechanical. There's likely a small deadzone built into the controllers software. That's what most hall effect controllers today do as well. Great video though! That was well ahead of its time!
Not the joysticks but Ps3 controllers had issues with multiple other buttons being pressed when pressing only one button. The problem is a tiny tiny foam height buffer that gets compressed over time and leads the PCB being touched at multiple points. The fix is just adding a bit of height using electric tape. I fixed 2 of my controllers and one of my friend's controller this way.
Huh, I wonder if that's what I'm running into. I have two DS3s that started doing the same thing, when clicking in the left stick for the L3 button, sometimes the D-pad activates the Down or Right directions.
@@dranyth Most likely this issue. If you google something like "PS3 controller multiple buttons press fix" or something like that you'll likely find someone on youtube showing you how to fix it. The fix is really really easy, just need the screwdriver and some electric tape.
I fixed mine this way too! I used paper cut to size though. It was fine for few years until paper compressed, and then I just added few more layers and it still works! Another thing that broke was white plastic frame, and because of it, it was nearly impossible to press R2. Used super glue on the frame, and it was better, but still didn't work properly. So I added some duck tape on the button itself, so it presses harder against the rubbery bit on PCB, and it works perfectly.
You are not addressing the real reason why you need more pressure for the controllers to register properly. I've repaired the "crazy controller" syndrome for a hundred or more PS3 controllers at this point. If you look at how the film is held by the two rods that go through it, you will see that it's not possible for them to move enough to touch multiple pads. The thin film the foam is pressing on has a thin layer of a conductive material that contacts pads on the controller's board. That material oxidizes over time and has a hard time conducting. All you need is some Deoxit and a cotton swab. Clean those contacts on the film and board and the rogue button presses will stop. Deoxit provides some protection from oxidation occurring again as well. Both of my own PS3 controllers suffered that problem and have not done so since cleaning. I do not apply more pressure as it's not needed. I'm seeing that on PS4 controllers now and expect to see PS5 controllers doing that too. Given enough time, this will happen to every controller that uses a film compressed against a board.
Fascinating research! Thank you so much for this video. And I think I was the guy who asked you about PS3 controllers in a comment few weeks ago ;). Thank you so much for looking into it!!
@@metalplasticelectronics354I sure hope Sony and other Gaming come start using Hall Effect Joystick modules in the next generation of video game consoles. I pray Sony uses Hall Effect Joystick modules for the PlayStation 6. 🙏 If not a lot of gamers that are smarter like us will be very upset and very disappointed.
earlier PS3 controllers used Magnet based Sticks. The one you have is one of the earlier ones. Later revisions, such as the A1, got rid of that and moved to the usual carbon wiper based potentiometers... Its partly due to what the users said at the time as well as them needing to cut the cost...
The very first Sixaxis controllers still used normal pots, but they changed to these sticks very quickly. I'd say most DS3's have magnet based sticks, as I've got lots of A1's that still have them as well. The only DS3 I've ever come across with normal pots was an A2.
@@penguinsushi8442 I honestly don't think they're that big of a gamble. Many of the DS3's you'll come across are A1's and most of them are fine. If you're given the choice, sure, take the older models, but even the worst type of A1 is still a lot better than a knockoff. Even if you do get an A1 with pots, chances are they'll still work fine. Some of the older pots aren't nearly as prone to drifting as they are on current controllers.
I've refurbished approx 20 ps3 controllers over the past 2 months. 14 were a1 revisions, 3 of which were potentiometer models. There was no consistency between revisions as to what had pots hall effect.
i do not remember my PS2 controller drifting with probably thousands of hours of use, they failed mechanically from extensive use but they never drifted which says a lot about those too For all my life since i started playing consoles with joysticks, they never drifted, only "recently" drift started being a main thing with all controllers of every brand suddenly This video is a good insight on why, they changed it and use potentiometers that are more crappy than ever probably for cost.
the DS3 was the greatest controller of all times. It also had pressure sensitive buttons (L1, R1, X, Square, Triangle and Circle). On PC you can use it with DsHidMini. It works great still. The only successor is the RetroFighter's Defender.
@@riverblack123 I prefer actually feeling the controller in my hands and having good access to the dpad, rather than having an ergonomic controller made for relaxation
I have some PS3 controllers from when the console first released, and they have no drift at all. Mind you me and my dad were the main users, and we both have some anger problems so those controllers have been abused to put it lightly. While the buttons randomly activate while not being used due to the damage, the joysticks are completely accurate. 0 drift, no random inputs, and always return to (0, 0). I got a switch about a year ago, and both joycons are basically unusable, despite the fact I almost never actually played on the switch at all.
I have some of the first where they put the light on the top of the touch pad, it's still working fine today and the older ones are fine too. I never knew they made bad PS4 controllers.
I also had a DualShock 3(early model right after SixAxis) and it lasted until the battery died too. I tried to replace the battery but kind of jacked it up in the process, as I suck with this kind of stuff. DualShock 1 & 2 are tanks too.
I didn’t have a single PS3 controller that lasted more than 3 months. I firmly believe that joysticks using potentiometers should be the FTC’s next meal. It’s blatant abuse of the fact that there’s been a distinct lack of consumer protection in the US over the past decades.
You're tripping, I have a 10+ years old controller and aside from putting a thicker ribbon inside because of that common issue of pressing buttons by themselves, i have zero problems.
@@MegaZeta exactly the same experience. About the same longevity as any other controller in my experience, so I've no idea what the uploader is on about, or why the video has so many views.
@@kompassorpigo7600 The controller's drift could easily be recalibrated by rotating the analog sticks. If you never knew about that, I feel bad for you.
@@MegaZeta PS1-PS3/Xbox OG-One controllers are known to have a basic physical worn including recentering springs tension, which is totally fine and expectable on a long run and can be easily fixed with deadzones. That's different from crappy potentiometers and drift caused by that in short terms.
Everybody hyped about hall sensors now, sony did that so long time ago. I would never thought that DS3 was hall effect (at least some of them). Great video. I have one with dead battery (no reaction after plug for hours), might be great to revive it.
That is because the A2D is 8bit. The newer controllers have more bits. Don't know exactly how much, but the API I use for XInput is 16bit. With an 8bit A2D unless the joystick is off by quite a bit it will return 0 to the software. If it was 16bit it will almost never return a 0 because 16bit has enough granularity to pickup analog noise. The quantization/resolution/precision of 8bit is 1/256 whereas 16bit is 1/65536.
Given that the DS3, DS4 and DualSense analogue sticks are to all intents and purposes functionally identical, what's the advantage of 16-bit polling over 8-bit? I think there's more tangible difference in the feel and shape of the rubber coverings on the sticks between the three different controllers than the way they respond in games.
@@0x8badbeef Surely if it's to do with precision then it does relate to sampling? Anyway that doesn't answer my question which I'll ask again with more elaboration - if it's functionally identical to the user as in it "feels" the same, and offers no noticeable improvement to the games on a technical level, what's the point of changing from 8-bit to 16-bit if it just introduces another point of failure to the design?
@@garydiamondguitarist has nothing to do with sampling. Many games don't need this precision especially older games that were designed to be used with a D-pad. For the newer games 8bit, because of the smaller hit boxes, the gamer with have to struggle more to land their reticle on the target.
@@0x8badbeef It reads llike what you're saying is the extra bits aren't doing all that much and it only affects games that were programmed for 8-bit sticks, that is if they aren't properly mapped to 16-bit ones. If the only advantage is advanced decrepitude of the sticks leading to drift, seems like it only really benefits Sony in terms of people buying more controllers.
*Thank you for making this, all my controllers from 2020+ have stick drift (5 controllers) all my controllers before 2019 (3 controllers) have never had stick drift*
I read somewhere like 5 years ago that the ps2 had software which actively corrected for stick drift. The more you use it the more it corrected it. Reset everytime you restart the console.
This is now built into the controller itself. Also your wording confused me at first cause I thought you were saying that this information has been out for 5 years, even though the ps2 came out wayy before lol.
The Dreamcast actually also had Hall Effect sensors. Curious that Sony implemented this for the PS3 controllers, I was under the impression that they actually did wear out, and even used the same potentiometers as the Xbox 360 ones. There was a mention about cost cutting in later revisions, so it seems everybody who got an early model got lucky.
Thanks for this video! I also still use DS3 and have been wondering this exact thing. Everyone else complains about having to buy new controllers meanwhile I've gone through only 2 in 18 years.
I've repaired hundreds of controllers that use both magnetic and potentiometer based sensors. I have coffee cans full of the joystick modules I have had to unsolder and replace. I really wish everyone would stop making the claim that magnetic sensors will not drift. That is an inaccurate statement. Every controller relies on physical tension to return the sticks to center. While it can take much MUCH longer to drift in most cases, I have fixed plenty of magnetic sensor based controllers that simply would not PHYSICALLY return to center. Remember that these are plastic on plastic parts internally. They wear themselves away, especially when exposed to abrasive things like dirt, dust and dog hair. Yes, animal hair/fur is responsible for a TON of drift/jitter. I'm not exactly sure how so much hair makes it inside of the sensors themselves but I have rescued a boat load of controllers by simply opening the sensors, removing the debris, cleaning with Deoxit and reassembling. As long as the potentiometer material has not worn through and the sticks will physically return to center, the controller is functional again. The other issue not talked about much is the dead zones have gotten so much smaller. Older consoles had gigantic dead zones, so it isn't that PS2 controllers weren't developing drift, it's that the games aren't registering movement until you push the stick much further so it is ignoring a good chunk of the "sloppiness" they are developing. We can all thank the "twitch shooter" gamers for demanding that level of sensitivity from controllers. Sorry for the long post, but the drift issue is just so misunderstood by most people.
@ramentamago4094 Don't get me wrong, I love the magnetic sensors like everyone else does. I would say at the absolute worst it's a 1 : 50 ratio of magnetic to potentiometer based controllers. The mean time to failure is also typically exponentially longer. So yes, they are far FAR better. For reference, my own Xbox One controller that I replaced the analog modules had to be opened up again after only 20 hours of use to get the ONE lone hair that somehow made it into the sensor and caused drift/jitter. I was like WHAT?! How does this even happen? Yet it does. To many many people. Keep in mind that quantity also plays a part in these numbers. The vast majority of analog controllers ever produced are potentiometer based. As a result, we will naturally see higher numbers of those in need of repair. My issue is in the statements that magnetic sensor based analog modules will never drift. The grease inside will dry out. Hair and fur will get inside them. The plastic where the arm presses the "clicky" button does break. The plastic wears away just like any other stick does. All of these things can and will cause a stick to become lazy or stiff and refuse to center properly. Do I think they are the superior product? Absofreakinlutely! Do I think they are impervious? Obviously not.
Finally, the only other person on the planet that understands hall effect sensors are not magic and the real reason older thumbsticks don't drift is because they are sloppy and imprecise.
@nerdstrangler4804 I think you're coping. I bought like 5 NEW controllers that all experienced drift until I found a third party manufacturer out of China of all places that managed to source new Hall effect magnetic sensors to put in their controllers. I have now been using that one controller longer than the last 5 new ones I purchased combined.
@@RobotDCLXVINah you are probably just uninformed. Pretty much all those hall effect controllers have large deadzones built into the controller itself. And that is actually how they avoid drifting. But they know uninformed gamers will just assume the lack of drift it is the magic of hall effect sensors. If you go into a game and turn your deadzone completely off, does the controller drift? Because if not then you have a deadzone built into the controller. Should see if there is companion software available that lets you adjust the built in deadzone. And it is not at all surprising that chinese manufacturers are the ones willing to use untested components of dubious quality in order to capitalize off misconceptions. They tend to have the shadiest business practices. None of these chinese companies producing hall effect thumbsticks will tell you their rated life expectancy. Despite the fact that listing that kind of information on a datasheet is standard practice in the industry. I am not coping, I just have enough experience buying electronic components to know chinese stuff is typically junk compared to reputable japanese manufacturers.
My first PS3 DualShock 3 was the very first version (even imported it) and it eventually developed this problem of the sticks not zeroing. I took it apart and then could not figure how to put it back together, i still have the parts laying around, i wonder if it still might work or if i broke something, i was very careless. Can you tell me what is the part number for your 3pin replacements? The only ones i can find do not have the proprietary base that sits snug in the frame, they come with a gray base that has 2 plastic prongs sticking out and i have to cut those with a blade. The end result of fitting these joysticks is not 100% perfect, one X axis has a bigger dead zone than the other and in MGS4 the game does not register the corner inputs as the correct max value so Snake will walk instead of run (only in MGS4). Also after countless pot trial and error i only managed to find 2 pairs that are BARELY under the drift threshold for most games. Some like Killzone 3 or Dead Space 3 (during EVA) have drift.
I still use my 2007 PS3 and controller as a dvd/bluray player. The controller's battery might only hold a 10 min. charge, but just like you said, the thumbsticks are 'like-new'. My used-for-PC DS4 controller lasted about 6 years before drift set in and the DualSense that replaced it has a stick that goes nearly full-left at rest or when barely pushing right after just over ONE year. This all just sank-in over the past week while figuring out what to replace it with and your video just perfectly answered why. Thank you!! (went with new 8BitDo Pro 2 w/Hall effect btw, very pleased after a few days even though I've no clue which sensors they used)
Yeah I'm on the PS3 subreddit community and when buying used DualShock 3 controllers, the main concern is getting a legitimate OEM one as there's lots of fakes out there. With the OEM ones, there's never any worry of stick drift, so much so it's basically a non-issue, same with DS2 and DS1 controllers from previous consoles. DualShock 4 controllers, on the other hand, are occasionally prone to stick drift but it's not common. DualSense? Stick drift is a regular thing and in some cases on controllers barely used, not that old. This is by design. I'm not saying Mark Cerny himself personally is happy with nor made the decision to use inferior quality parts, but regardless when PS5s are retro consoles in a decade original working controllers are going to be hella expensive because there won't be many of them left.
Luckily, when PS5 is a retro console it will be jailbroke to use PS3 controllers and then all those sixaxis and early DS3s that are sitting in peoples drawers can be used instead.
@@talibong9518 It's jailbroken now with older firmwares. There already exist several devices that can adapt other controllers including the DualShock 3, albeit with some limitations, namely you can't correctly emulate the touchpad beyond it being used as 2 buttons in a lot of games. SCUF Reflex controllers can basically do what a DualSense does, except with build quality that's actually, y'know, good if you don't mind paying triple. A good investment if you game a lot on PS5 as it's possible to go through a couple of controllers per year if you do.
I asked myself many times the same question.... Why were the old Controllers so much better and more reliable???? The only defects are dead batteries in the ps3 controllers. Buttons and D-Pads are still fine even after nearly 20 years!
Had to watch this video considering it made me think about when stick drift became a big topic. Never even heard of it till the PS4 came out. And now suddenly these days, almost everyone have has experienced stick drift personally at some point.
that's also my experience with ds1 and ds2 controllers, they may have gotten smashed and destroyed in all kind of other ways but I never remember them drifting.
1:49 It is in fact exactly what the games are expecting. The Dualshock 2 uses this same joystick design, so often times if I'm using a Dualshock 4 or Dualsense on PS2 via an adapter I don't get the full range of motion in some games. Other games (and the PCSX2 emulator) compensate for it by having larger deadzones, but at the end of the day this stick design is the intended medium of input.
Wao I never ever imagined Sixaxis Dualshock 3 had magnetic joysticks. No wonder I have been using these controller since inception and never had any problems
I still use my ds3 everywhere I love the size of the game pad, the placement of the sticks, how simple it is, and that even after many many years, they still work as new. I do know that their interface is quite antiquated, but thanks to homebrew and special drivers, you can use it anywhere
As I've seen from research, those controllers like you show with model CECHZC2U (without any suffix like -A1 -A2 etc) were the early models released and those have hall effect sticks. The later models with a suffix after the model do not, and thus develop stick drift.
@@metalplasticelectronics354 hmm, everything I've read says that those ones were the earliest models, before they started adding revision numbers after the main model number.
I have that exact blue DS3 that I 've been using on my PC since 2010 nonstop. It still works like a charm, I never had to replace anything, not even the battery.
This is one of the reasons why I stopped playing consoles. I just couldn't bear buying a new joystick every year or even half a year. It's not that I couldn't afford them, it's because I felt like I was getting scammed. If a company starts prioritizing short term profits for long term ones, into the trash it goes.
They have wired controllers with Hall effect sticks which don’t drift however the springs may go out in like 3 or 4 years of heavy use. I’ve never used them but I assume anything that has Hall effects is gonna be better than most joysticks on the market.
There was Turner v Sony Entertainment 2021 Good it It went away because Sony delayed and delayed and the other side ran out of money and Sony offered the complaining parties new controllers and the story ended there
Found a still decently working ps3 controller of the same shade of blue as the thumbnail... about a few months ago. Works great. Got it to replace my old one I lost and can't find anymore between moves from place to place. Now I can play Crash Bandicoot as Naughty dog intended.
The random/crazy button inputs happen because of a ribbon cable loosing contact over the years. There’s this foam inside the controller that gets flatter over time somehow. Putting a piece of paper on the grill the foam is laying on will fix the issue!
I've replaced joysticks but only because I accidentally left the controller out in the sun, which the rubber can't withstand and it gets irrevocably sticky and gluey. No matter how much you wipe, wash or rub, once the rubber has started bleeding, it will never be the same again. Never leave your controllers where the sun can reach them at any time of the day.
Apart from spending 2 hours fixing the "crazy random input" problem caused by a worn sponge inside the controller, it has served me for well over 12 years, they are still comfortable and the analogs are sensitive and accurate. Never had any drift issue
the only problem i ever had with the PS3 controller was the ribbon cable having less pressure and contact due to the cushion aging and taking shape. the fix was to get some electrical tape and do 1 or 2 turns around the cushion to thicken it. (will probably work for another 10 years!)
My Dualshock 2 sticks from 2012, that I absolutely *ABUSED* as a kid (DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3), had perfect stick calibration till the day they stopped working in 2021 (dropped in a bathtub). My 2018 dualshock 4's that I also abused a lot (F1 2013 and F1 2018) perfectly work fine till date. My 2022 Dualsense got stick drift yesterday. What was I playing on them? Minecraft. Emailed Sony, they told me that it's a dust problem. But here's the thing. It was kept in a perfectly clean space. My dualshock 4's were left caked in dust for months, to the point they were greyish white all over. I dusted it off, worked perfectly fine. That stick drift on the Dualsense was absolutely planned obsolecense imo.
the other reason why therr is no stickdrift, is because of the differential output, instad if taking a measurement of the voltage of the sensor it measured the diffeence in output of the sensors, i'd assume using an operational amplifier to get a +-60mv signal to measure from, maybe it gets amplified as well, you should have put your multimeter between the output pins to get a +-60mv perfectly centred around 0 volts
I did develop drift on my PS3 controller, even though it was an early model DS3. Drift isn't just the usual 'damage/debris to pot sensor/pads' but also 'centering spring gives up'. In my case, the centering spring, after over a decade of service, just gave out. Far more common for me, with PS3 controllers (particularly the sixaxis ones), was encountering the spring clip they used to provide resistance on the triggers having popped off the rail. My relatives all had a terror of opening any electronic device ever, so I got recruited to 'fix' controllers when something went wrong. Apparently that little spring-clip liked to jump off the track on the sixaxis controllers, and was a MAJOR pain in the rear to get it back on it's little track properly. Once you got it there , it was back to normal, but it was always difficult to get the controller back together without it coming loose again. NEVER encountered an issue with OG 360 controllers though. I also had a green with white buttons Rock candy wired 360 controller that lasted over a decade, and only got retired because of the stick spring losing tension, introducing drift. I loved it, but didn't feel like trying to find replacement springs and dealing with it. Kinda wish I had, given how it seems like every non-nintendo first party controller since the xbox one/PS4 came out is utter doodoo for longevity. Currently using a flydigi for most things, and the only 'issue' I've had with it is the way the springs on the stick sound. Sounds like flicking a door stopper if you let it flick back to center, but apparently that's how it's supposed to work. as it apparently uses a different design for the sticks than is typical of even hall effect. It certainly feels way smoother than it has any right to. EDIT: What I'd really like to see in a new controller, is to see someone take a stab at a modernized N64 controller. The only 'fail' I ever encountered in OEM N64 controllers was the usage of plastic for both the shaft and bowl of the insides of their optical switch, and the occasional one that had issues with the expansion slot, which as far as I can tell comes down to people not releasing the tab properly when pulling accessories out, or just using iffy third party accessories in it in general.
My PS1 DualShock and the PS2 DualShock still run flawlessly, the PS1's is about 27 years old... my PS4 and PS5's controllers got problems after 5/6 months, I don't really understand.
PS2 controllers essentially 0 out the potentiometers based on the maximum and minimum values they receive, so every time you move the joystick completely up and completely down the stick will use those two values to set the center back to 0, it works well enough for potentiometers that aren't completely cooked. N64 and Gamecube controllers had similar things set up to handle stick drift as well and they worked to some degree as well. Honestly at this point analog sticks breaking as quick as they do has to be a designed feature given the amount of at worst bandaid solutions that just aren't implemented at all anymore.
It blows my mind how we have 20+ year old controllers that still work as solid as the day they were made, but new controllers can't last a year, and are 3 or 4 tines the price
I have an XBox 360 usb controller from 2009 that I've used regularly for 15 years now. Zero analog stick drift. I get so angry thinking about that every time I have to replace a current-gen analog controller after less than a year.
I just futz'd around this exact variant of DualShock 3 that I bought from someone off eBay, which has drift. It's one with the 4 pin Alps thumbpointer, like in this video that can't be purchased from an authorized distributor or anywhere stateside for that matter. I actually removed the Hall effect sensor on the direction having issues, and moved a good one to the direction having issues..and the drift continued on that same direction. Not sure if it's a small resistor or cap causing drift and I'm not even sure it's curable now. These Hall effect controllers sometimes do have issues. Totally confirmed that the left thumb vertical direction is off- if you connect it to a pc, it starts in the up direction then slowly moves to center. It repeats this when moving a magnet and Hall effect from of the other 3 directions to that vertical left direction- so something in the circuit is not working or damaged.
I still have an offbrand PS3 Scorepad controller I bought for 15 bucks or so way over 10 years ago and it functions perfectly in any game I tried. I still use it in steam big picture, it's comfy, has zero drift and just works.
Nintendo got around this on the Gamecube and Wii by just taking whatever it reads on startup as the neutral position. You can see for yourself: hold the joystick in one direction before and while booting up a game, and when you release the stick, the controls act in the opposite direction
@@genderender Drift is by definition the stick thinking it is moving to the side when in neutral position, and these controllers define that neutral position as not moving every time it's connected. Drift happens on new systems when the stick is tilted by default and the system only cares about the original position. If you never disconnect a gamecube controller and never turn it off, yes, it will start drifting, but upon reconnection, the position that the stick is in that causes drift will be reset to be neutral, and thus, not drifting
@@specialopsdave ultimately caused by a hardware issue. the issue with modern sticks is 2 fold: first the resistive material of the potentiometer degrades, second the sticks get loose from lack of potentiometer physical resistance this wasn’t an issue in the past because they made better sticks but it still happens. my abused gamecube controllers noticeably have a large deadzone that might not lead to drift but sure does make it sloppier. every company getting potentiometer joysticks is buying from the same source, and that source has a horrible mean time before failures calibration cannot solve this. ask any switch owner who has drifting joycons like myself. all it does is push the problem down the road by a month and give you even less accurate sticks
@@genderender I don't believe that the Switch Joycons calibrate at all, as drift can be apparent upon startup from my personal experience with a Switch. My 12 year old Wii Nunchuck still has no drift and a decent deadzone, despite being used to beat Super Mario Galaxy 2 at least three separate times, beat NSMB Wii about three times, beat Sonic Colors at least 12 times (though it only takes 3 hours of gameplay to complete), alongside use in tons of other games
@@specialopsdave you can literally go into the settings and manually calibrate any capable joystick attached to your switch. it does not fix the issue. i’ve done it before and it drifts very quickly after the nunchuck used similar joysticks to the gamecube, possibly even the exact same due to underwhelming hardware sales of the gamecube
I bought a batch of like 30 PS3 controllers as "broken", I swapped aroud parts, soldered new USB-ports, replaced batteries, in the end I had 18 working original controllers, 6 working chinese clones and the rest were either a mix of too broken to be worth the effort(sold them as parts though). One clone had stick drift, but otherwise every working controller was flawless.
I love your videos. I find them quite interesting. I dropped you a comment on your other video talking about how I bought the ginful v5 hall sensors and they were incredible.
@@metalplasticelectronics354 I was worried the delay would be a deal breaker but after thoroughly testing them in game I can confidently say I could never have spotted the difference between these and potentiometers. So I did the only reasonable thing to do. I went on offer up and bought 2 more controllers with really bad stick drift for $20 and fixed them up today. Was getting about 1.8% error and no discernible delay. Now they’re better than new.
I remember i accidentaly sat on such. Was ready to say bye to it, yet kept it for a while. Like, it was working, but left stick in some positions felt too loose and in some was barely moving. Though, with time it somehow "regenerated" with time and went back to normal as i kept using it
Sega Saturn had a hall effect analog stick in '96. All of Dreamcast controllers also had hall effect sensors. Sega Saturn also came with scart RGB cables in Europe (which caused some people to complain because they didn't have TVs that came with scart). (For example in the UK, France had mandated the use of scart in all TVs sold in France by then.)
One of my Dualshock 3 controllers did develop drift. They didn't use hall effect sensors for the entire line. Later on they started putting potentiometers in them. Never took it apart but I'm pretty sure it's why the one I got last and used the least, developed drift, while the included controller I used the most never did.
Interesting, I had a lot of issues with the early Sixaxis (DS3 without rumble) sticks breaking, but they broke in a mechanical way; springs lost tension and you were able to spin them around their axis. But indeed, I don't think I've ever had any issues with drift. Dualshock 3s on the other hand, I don't think I've had mechanical failures on. The PS4 launch controllers on the other hand... Terrible quality. The rubber on the sticks came of real quick and 2/2 right thumbsticks became unusable after a year or two. (all anecdotal ofc)
*Some* Dualshock 3's have the hall sticks. There was a hardware revision at one point to replace it with a potentiometer, as part of the various cost-cutting measures taken with the PS3 as a whole. That being said, I can think of several older controllers of mine with no drift, compared to modern designs which seem to be abnormally susceptible to drift issues. I'd be interested in a deep dive as to why some things drift heavily whereas things like say, a gamecube controller, don't seem to have issues with high noise or jitter after aging.
The first 3 revisions (based on the PCB) of the SixAxis has carbon wiper potentiometers before they switched to hall effect for its last 4 revisions, and they used hall effect for the first 10 revisions DualShock 3 switching back to the carbon wipers for its last 3 revisions. I find it interesting and strange that they initially used carbon wipers then switched to hall effect only to eventually switch back to carbon wiper years after, at that point in its life they really didn't need to cut its cost. I agree some older controllers don't seem to have any real issues with drift even despite the use of carbon potentiometers, I know I never experienced drift on either my PS1 or PS2 controllers and they saw countless hours of use (especially PS2). Modern controllers really do seem to be abnormally susceptible to drift, the simplest assumption is their manufacturer of the sticks (Alps) has cheaped out on quality since then or are using a different design for greater precision at the cost of lifespan. I too would be really interested in a deep dive on the apparent resiliency of some older controllers compared to modern ones.
I've been waiting for someone to make a video analyzing the Dualshock 3, especially the modules since I couldn't find any of the videos because this is important. And IIRC, the older Dualshock 3s have had hall sensors according to my research.
@@ahmedmohmed4346cant tell from just the model number, they have lots of internal revisions. cant completely remember the model number, but cechezc1e or something like that are most likely to have em iirc, you can also check the psdev wiki
Heck, I have a PS1 DualShock 1("Analog Controller") SCPH-1200, and I STILL don't have stick drift, probably have anywhere in between five to 6 digits worth of hours of gameplay on both of them! Yes, I have two, one of them only has the cross button issue where the button material sort of "fades off onto the board", hindering the connectivity and makes it so it doesn't detect an input, we've fixed it multiple times with some isopropyl alcohol already lol
Yep. If you've got some foam or gel tape you can try and use that to help give it extra pressure. In a pinch a tiny bit of folded paper or tissue can do it too.
@@TussalDragon344 No, the flexible thing all the button traces are on has a section that bends over and contacts the hard PCB of the controller, putting something behind the flexible bit where it contacts the PCB of the controller so it presses harder should solve it.
Same thing seems to be happening with many mouse switches nowadays. In late 2000's/early 2010's the only thing that made me change my 3-5yo a4tech mouse was either a broken scroll wheel or a worn out cable. Nowadays logitech mice fail every year and start to double click. Hell, even a brand new Kalih switch double clicks under certain circumstances.
there are definitely PS3 controllers that could use a stick replacement. mine was used for competitive rocket league for years and is as loose as a well used N64 controller. i don't actually like this controller, otherwise i would've fixed the sticks years ago.
That's one of the many reasons I switched back to PC, you can't get ripped off on a sea of alternatives, on PS4/5 you pay $70 for a new controller with crappy joysticks, on PC I can pay $25 on a controller with hall effect joysticks
My cousin bought me a white Japanese ps3 controller for Christmas one time and played hundreds of hours of MW2 with all the sprinting and knifing I’ve done in the game. Just about 2 years ago just out of curiosity wanted to see the stick position to know if there is any drift on the sticks. Turns out it was still to this day dead center. And to further query my curiosity further while I had the controller tester on the screen, held a magnet to the analogue sticks and turns out the readings show a tilt on the sticks. I’ve had Hall effect sticks the whole time since 2008 and they are still working. Lol
I really hate how companies justify hardware downgrades for what is probably only a few cents saved per controller vs the retail cost they sell them at. Joycons are still using the same tiny buttons used on the Nintendo DS triggers which wear out after 5-7 years, yet my DS soft button pads are still fully functional after 15 years of use. I already had to replace both my joycon sticks after only 2 years of light use and the buttons need to really be clicked hard before it registers a press. Also have a few DS3 controllers lying around that I use with an HTPC for media and emulator games because as you said the sticks works perfectly fine. The battery charge has noticeably dropped, but all three connect on bluetooth just fine.
And I was wondering why my 25 year old PS1 Analog controller still works and why 3 Dualsenses in 3 years have failed with drift issues... Just capitalism I guess
@@H53. No, its still use carbon strip like standard alps. The difference is in quality. I got some of used genuine Dualshock for about 0.5 usd each and surprisingly no drift whatsoever, tested on PC.
I bought a DS3 for parts, cost like $3, but the only thing to do was replace the conductive film that most of those controllers have. At the first disassembly, I saw the 4-pin pontetiometer for the analog sticks. It seems like the spare parts are will be rare and expensive, but now knowing those are magnetic, I'm worried about the mechanism of the stick, due to the grease those sticks wear inside will come dry.
I love the DualShock 3. I made it it work with my computer and abandoned my Chinese joystick. It is quality, good plastic, good button clicking, good vibration, grips good, and just works
All modern things are built to be thrown away and replaced. As a society we've been taught that broken things are to be thrown away and not fixed, shoes, electronics, cars, cloths, and anything else you can think of, someone knows how to repair these things and should be doing it. Some day we're not going to have any room for all of our "Trash".
My ps2 controllers have tens of thousands of hours of use and have never had any issues besides maybe a bad wire, bad thumb grips and sticky buttons. The good old days controllers were bullet proof.
@@MrFrambooise There's a small foam piece that pushes a ribbon cable for your dpad/face buttons together when the controller is assembled. Those tend to deform over time and then the connection is unstable which causes a lot of random dpad/face button inputs. Usually just flipping the foam over is enough to fix them but I've also seen people put paper or something harder in there.
They used 3 pins from PP1.2 up to PP4.0 11. The stick controls were implemented by Texas Instruments but then Toshiba came along with a new design as far as I remember.
I've worked on the sticks on one DualShock 3, and it wasn't because of drift. It was because a friend accidentally spilled soda on his controller. I simply had to work some dry lubricant in there and move the sticks around constantly for about 20 mins each and it was good to reassemble
I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Anecdotally, DS3 sticks are among the worst. I have two _original_ DS3s. Both have dismal stick drift. They're unusable. I also have two DS4s which are still working perfectly.
Also, these DualShock 3 Controllers have insane battery life, I beat Silent Hill 2 on my PC using my DualShock 3 controller in one charge and i took my sweet time with that game (around 19 hours!), Back in the day me and my 2 brothers would play on our ps3 every day and these controllers held charge so much, Can't even remotely say the same about DualShock 4 and even though i don't own a DualSense i've seen people say it has abysmal battery life.
These controllers are really easy to pair up with a pc and just works, never had one dying apart from a battery or broken usb port(replaced mine with USB-C)
My xbox series controller right stick failed 7-8 months right after the guarantee ended and no amount of cleaning would fix it. I had some old crusty sticky xbox 360 controllers that were given to me. I cleaned and lubed, ordered a new shell and a generic wireless receiver for my pc and it works flawlessly better than my series controller with bluetooth 5.0 dongle. They are less ergonomic and the dpad sucks but it works like new.
They are certainly nice right up until you want to replace the 4 pin ones… found out the hard way that you can’t buy replacements. Also, the 4pin ones arnt just a Sony thing like I thought, found a couple in generic controllers the other day. Neat!
