So I’m happily running, riding, and teleporting all over Vana’diel when my gamepad starts getting all wonky. Suddenly I’m randomly healing, changing views, and opening menus. Needless to say, in battle this would be a big problem.
I’m playing Final Fantasy XI on my PC using a Logitech Dual Action gamepad because the game is designed for and plays best with a Playstation 2 Dual Shock style gamepad. I bought the controller about 4 years ago, but honestly never gave it a whole lot of a workout. Indeed, back then I spent most of my playing time on the Playstation 2 and later the Xbox 360. But now suffering a partial banishment from the TV due to my gamer kids, I’ve been playing more on the PC.
At first I thought a driver upgrade would solve the problem, but it didn’t. I also tried shutting down the profiler, since FFXI doesn’t need it. But that didn’t work either. Then I decided to Google to see if anyone else was having this problem. Yup, that was it. Many customer reviews of the Logitech gamepad claimed that the pads were failing after a few weeks of use. The problems generally showed up in the analog sticks, which is where the buttons controller healing and view changes are in FFXI.
Unfortunately, it looks like Logitech is the only big name making a usb gamepad for the PC these days, and seeing recent complaints about today’s Dual Action gamepad, did not fill me with any confidence that the problems plaguing my 4 year old, lightly used, one had been solved. Admittedly, most PC games don’t use gamepads, so it is probably a low volume product for Logitech.
I know there are other gamepad makers out there, but I didn’t want to trade one cheap gamepad for another. And I also didn’t want to spend $50 or $60 bucks for something like an Xbox 360 gamepad for Windows games.
In the end, I ordered a Playstation 2 to PC USB Gamepad Converter by HDE on Amazon. I’d read of others using this for FFXI with good results. And I know my Sony Dual Shock controllers are made to last!  Hopefully this converter will solve my problem. In the meantime, I guess I’d better learn the keyboard and mouse controls for FFXI, a truly evil notion…