Ever since I got my PlayStation three years ago, I have been waiting for a wireless controller that doesn’t suck. Well, as last night’s experimentation shows, we still aren’t there yet…
The first wireless remote controllers used infa-red. Essentially, the controller flashed a little blinky light (though not in the portion of the spectrum that humans can see) at the base unit, and that conveyed keypresses - whee. Problems with this approach were that any opaque object (a table, your finger, your roommate’s fat butt) that got between the controller and the base unit would block the signal and make you lose your game of Tekken 3. Also, any time you pointed the controller more than about 20 degrees off-angle from the base unit, the stupid light couldn’t cope, and you’d lose. I wasted $40 each time I tried one of these pieces of crap, and I tried three different models, each time about 9 months apart. I disassembled each of them afterwards and used a sledgehammer to crush the circuitry inside into little green pieces. (I am not one who tolerates shitty electronics well. Consequence of being an electrical-engineer wannabe who KNOWS you can do better.)
Very recently, the great white hope of wireless controllers came about: RF. “RF” stands for “radio frequency” and basically it means using radio waves to send keypresses between the controller and the console. RF is good because it slides through the human body like taco bell food and can also bounce off metal or stone objects. This means your roommate can masturbate like a crazed monkey between you and the TV and your four-hit combo will still come off flawlessly. However, since you can’t see the TV, you’ll whiff it and still lose your game of Tekken III.
However, like many things, RF is a lot cooler in theory than in reality. For starters, the FCC regulates the amount of power that can be transmitted via radio waves. 1 milli-watt is about it unless you get a license. At certain frequencies (or rather, in certain frequency ranges) you can get away with more, but those bands (particularly 900MHz) are already crowded with RF signals from cell phones, garage door openers, the next door kid’s remote control toy car, cordless phone handsets, etc, etc. What this all means is, for practical purposes, the radio waves emitted by wireless controllers are so weak and the air is so full of interfering signals, you might as well sledgehammer that RF controller and go back to cords. Which brings us to last night…
Several days previous, I had read a review of the MadCatz 900MHz wireless controller. The review said that the controller itself had a shitty D-pad and that the wireless capability was much less than the claimed 20 feet. “Bummer,” I thought to myself, and pretty much wrote off wireless controllers. Now, as it happens, the girlfriend and I had taken a break from bouts of multi-orgasmic hot monkey sex long enough to go to the vast wasteland that is known as the local shopping mall. GF decided she wanted to visit the Wizards of the Coast store - apparently her crack habit isn’t bad enough, she also likes collectable card games. While in there, I spotted a wireless controller by a company called “Pelican.” Pelican is headquartered in England, and only hardcore gamers would likely know them. I only know them because they make an excellent light-gun. The only one on the same level as the Konami GunCon.
I looked over the box. It was a 900MHz (of course), 30-ft (claimed) range controller. Dual-shock, so I could “play with my joysticks” (huh-huh, huh-huh) too. The d-pad wasn’t great, but it didn’t suck total rocks, and the controller was fairly comfy in my hands. It was $45. “Oh, what the hell,” I said. “If it turns out to suck, I can always either return it… or get the sledgehammer.” It was also compatable with either PS or PS2, so I figured I could keep it around even when I upgraded to PS2.
So I got it home and put the 4 AAA batteries into it. I tried it out first with the PlayStation’s CD player, which it worked passably with. But the range was terrible. I went downstairs and turned off my cell phone and computer monitor (both often sources of RF noise) and tried again. No discernable change. I still couldn’t sit 12 feet away and change tracks on the CD with it. No signal at all. I thought maybe the PlayStation being on the floor might be part of the problem, so I put it up on top of the TV. This is not so great, since TVs themselves generate some RF noise, but it was a slight improvement. I could now sit on the couch and change tracks - if I held the stupid thing just right and hammered the buttons multiple times.
Next up was some Soul Blade. A good thrash-em-up twitch fighter. If anything can test the mettle of a controller, this is it. Timing is key. Well, it worked fairly well if you sat less than 5 feet away. Great, tell me again why I shouldn’t just use a controller with a cord? Out to about 8 feet was very marginal. I’ve pretty decent at Soul Edge, but there’s not a lot you can do when your character refuses to swing their weapon. At least this controller doesn’t make your character do all sorts of crazy spazzy shit when you get out to the fringes of the range. I’ve seen wireless controllers do that. Finally, if you try and sit on the couch and play (12-15 feet), fuggedaboutit! No action whatsoever. You guys just sits there was the bastard computer executes the special move that makes him toss the opponent’s salad and come back for seconds.
Finally, I tried some GT2 in order to test out the analog functions. Same story as before, really. When the controls work, they work. Nice analog sticks on this thing, actually - I give Pelican full credit for that. But get more than about 6 feet away and you’re crashing and burning like Dale Earnheart.
So, I dubbed my latest wireless controller a(nother) pathetic fucking failure, and got out the screwdriver. And now I’m going to bore you with RF and EE engineer crap about what’s inside. You may want to skip this if you don’t care…
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They’re using crappy lengths of copper wire as antennas. In the biz, this is known was an “omni-directional”, “quarter-wave”, “isotropic” or “marconi” antenna. A slightly different “half-wave” antenna would give them another 2db of signal strength, essentially for free - it would just take two more pieces of cheap, crappy wire. 2db more signal isn’t a lot, but it’d be SOMETHING. Also, high-gain directional antennas that would fit in the very limited space in the controller and boost the signal in the forward direction (while damping the radiation strength in the direction of your nuts) are available. They’re not cheap, but they’re not terribly expensive either. And even if they are, what the hell, I’m a power gamer - I’ll pay an extra $10 in order to have a controller that, you know, ACTUALLY WORKS.
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The receiving antenna in the controller and the transmitting antenna in the receiver are set at right angles to each other. A marconi antenna has essentially no reception power if you send or receive the signal right at the point. That’s exactly what they’re doing here. So in addition to using weak, shitty antennas, they’re orienting them incorrectly, which will cause further degredation in the signal strength.
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Inside the controller, the small RF circuit board has been grafted onto a standard PlayStation-type controller circuit board. So I suspect they didn’t do a lot of protocol design vis-a-vis making the controller and receiver talk. Which is a big mistake, given the notorious unrelaibility of the radio waves and the precise timing of the controller signals the PlayStation expects.
Last and most damning, I didn’t see an RF amplifier chip on the RF board. This means they’re taking an extremely weak RF signal straight off the RF signal generator chip (an RF Monolothics 25-something) and shooting it unamplified straight out those crappy antennas. I’m surprised these things work at all with that setup! To my mind this is something like whispering at someone on the other side of a football field during the halftime show and expecting them to hear it. No wonder these things can’t work from more than 5 feet away.
Maybe in my copious free time (ha!) I’ll see if I can rig up a better set of antennas for these things (the omni->dipole conversion is unfortunately usually nontrivial) or see about hacking in an RF amp. I’ll be breaking FCC regulations by broadcasting too high-powered a signal, but WTF are they going to do? Come take away my controllers? Oh, boo-fucking-hoo! I hate the damn FCC anyway, censorious motherfuckers.
Well, enough of that. Suffice it to say, don’t waste your money on wireless controllers. Even with the advent of radio-signal based ones, they still suck moldy spooge out of the rotting cocks of the undead.[1]
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But the thing that really pisses me off about all this is that there’s really nothing wrong with these things that more signal strength and a little more engineering couldn’t fix. But because they’re cheap bastards (read: shitty antennas) and because of the fucking FCC (read: major limits on signal strength) we are forever condemned to be bound by cords to our video games.
-Ben
[1] Band name!