Fix for Hori Fighting Stick Wii (Snes9x GX/Genesis Plus GX)

[tobiaaaaart]

Bug Report

The Hori Fighting Stick for the Wii is an arcade-style controller that connects to the Wii Remote like a Classic Controller. It works perfectly with Nintendont, WiiStation, and Wii64. It’s also mostly functional with Snes9x GX and Genesis Plus GX — all buttons work correctly, and the controller is generally recognized. However, the stick itself has directional issues: in menus, it tends to drift to the left, and in-game, the directions are misaligned. For example, in Street Fighter II, the character crouches constantly and cannot be properly controlled.

The stick should behave like a normal D-Pad, just like the D-Pad on the Classic Controller for the Wii.

I would be so happy if the Wii Fighting Stick could be fully supported in SNES9xGX and Genesis Plus GX!

What's the issue you encountered?

How can the issue be reproduced?

Start Snes9x GX or Genesis Plus GX and then connect the Hori Fighting Stick Wii to the Wii Remote.

Environment?

Using a vWii

• Snes9x GX 4.5.5

Additional context?

[DacoTaco]

Hey thanks for the report!

just to verify, you only have issues in homebrew and not with official games supporting the device (like Tatsunoko vs. Capcom) launched trough SM, without any game patching ?

[tobiaaaaart]

Thanks for the quick reply!

The Fighting Stick works perfectly with all Wii (like Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, love this game) & Wii U (like Tekken Tag Tournament 2) games with official Classic Controller support, as well as all Virtual Console/WiiWare games.

If I can contribute anything else, just let me know! Unfortunately I'm not a coder :’)

[DacoTaco]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Usually i dont reply this quick, i just saw it pass by while i was busy with other stuff :p

The Fighting Stick works perfectly with all Wii (like Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, love this game) & Wii U (like Tekken Tag Tournament 2) games with official Classic Controller support, as well as all Virtual Console/WiiWare games.

hmm, somebody would need to look into it but i assume it has to do with calibrations. can you try holding the stick down while its booting one of the games and release it to neutral once the game booted? does the game act weird like youre constantly holding it up?

Gamecube controllers basically did some calibrations on init to make them run fine.
so im thinking, without looking at code, that maybe either sdk does some calibration or some command/report data is processed incorrectly.

sadly the Hori Fighting Stick for wii is no longer available to me (and expensive if it was). do you have other arcade sticks to use on the wii to try with?

i just find it odd as arcade sticks are usually digital inputs, on or off, so i have no idea why it would interpret something that isnt there...

maybe i should build a raphnet pcb and convert one of my arcade sticks to wii controller port haha

[DacoTaco]

@tobiaaaaart : do you have the issue in other applications that accept the input as well? other than Genesis GX & Snes9x GX ?

[tobiaaaaart]

@DacoTaco I have now done a few more tests!

Unfortunately, holding the stick down before booting a game didn't help.

I then tested other apps with the my fighting stick:

• USB Loader GX works fine!
• WiiFlow: Stick drift to the left, like in Snes9x GX/Genesis Plus GX
• Retroarch Wii with NeoGeo & Mame Games: also Stick drift to the left
• Retroarch Wii with CPS Games: Stick drift down, also in the Rentroarch menu
• Retroarch Wii with TurboGrafx CD Games: Games working fine, Retroarch Menu unfortunately does not respond at all

I also found the Youtuber D-Cepticon, who has a different Fighting Stick, but has the same problems. However, he gets around this by plugging the Fighting Stick into a Wii-to-Gamecube adapter:

https://youtu.be/3M3gxxLRuI4?si=6G6bYCmCYImeNhs7&t=15

Thanks again for trying to help me out here!

[DacoTaco]

Hi @tobiaaaaart !

i had a chat with blackbox about usbloader GX working but the others dont.
to figure out if this is a libogc issue or not he made a build of usbloaderGX that has a fix for classic controllers reverted to check if that breaks it.

let me know if the stick works correctly using this build :

r1281-cal-data-reverted.zip

[tobiaaaaart]

Hey @DacoTaco, many thanks for continuing to tinker on the problem!
I have now tried your USB-Loader build (the version number in the loading screen definitely included the word “reverted”). Unfortunately, nothing has changed and USB-Loader GX can be controlled perfectly with the Hori Fighting Stick.

[wiidev]

Hey @tobiaaaaart, could you please try with the public test version of USB Loader GX r1282?

The test version was built with the latest build tools and libs at the time I released it, so it'd be good to know if your fight stick still works with that. Thanks!

[tobiaaaaart]

Hi @wiidev!
“Unfortunately” the stick also controls perfectly with this build.
Thank you also for your efforts!