the boot ROM keys leaked, oh my.
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What’s this about? Ok just saw the potential issue.
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After a few weeks with this system I reiterate the dualsense is an horrific abomination and there’s no such thing as haptic feedback - at all. People are just imagining they can feel things with it because what’s really happening is just vibrations, vibrations and more vibrations. Pulse pulse pulse, thud thud thud, grrr grrr grrr.
I’m playing Control Ultimate Edition on the PS5 & this thing is just… I don’t know. It feels like a cheap toy in my hand.
The caveat being I have a lot of Xbox muscle memory over the past decade so of course I’m used to the Xbox controller but the thing that’s surprised me most is just how irrelevant the so-called ‘haptics’ are. Take Resident Evil 4 Remake for example: when you read articles where they write about ‘feeling’ Leon’s footsteps in the mud, after playing the game on the PS5 I can tell you nooooo way. All you feel is pulsing vibrations. Every step. That’s not feedback, it’s just more rumble.
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The speaker is how it tricks people into thinking the rumble is doing those things. You are right of course and have figured it out that it is just rumble, something that has existed since forever. It’s the combination of sound and rumble that makes them imagine the extra sensation.
The real thing that makes the PS5 controller an abomination is the adaptive triggers. Why in the actual fuck would I ever want that. It makes the controller feel like it’s broken. Also the battery life sucks and the giant touch button is stupid and pointless.
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I like the speaker in the Dual Sense. It’s just a nice little immersion bonus when games use it in a fun way. If there was one element that Xbox might implement in a future controller, I’d pick that over the touchpad or trigger resistance.
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I wouldn’t. It’s too low quality and when you have a decent audio setup (anything with surround or a decent soundbar) the contrast is too jarring when the controller’s tin-like sound crackles and someone speaks. The most effective implementation I’ve experienced was in Silent Hill 2 Remake when the crackle is supposed to mimic James’ radio crackle and be disconcerting when an enemy is nearby. But everything else was too low quality.
Unfortunately for me the dualsense is now just another variable I need to contend with on a per game basis: anything made for the so-called haptics and triggers I set the controller to Medium vibrations and trigger effects, i.e. down from the default Strong setting. The default is simply way, way too distracting (& cumbersome when the triggers impedes my aim and firing). Meanwhile backwards compatible games or titles without haptics/triggers I set them back to default strength, otherwise it’s too weak.
And ironically the controller feels better with games using traditional rumble, i.e. Dark Souls 3 backwards compatible on the PS5 for example has genuine punch with the dualsense. Meanwhile Demon’s Souls Remake (in the same genre) is just excessive vibrations with thud whoosh wham grrr crack at all times no matter what I’m doing. It becomes very difficult to get real information from that sort of vibration overload.
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I don’t like any of gimmicks with the Dual Sense which is why I turned all of it off at the system level because while I play a few or so games every year on PlayStation 5, I don’t want to deal with those overrated and overhyped gimmicks. I said it with PS4 and I’ll say it again - the touch pad is nothing more than an oversized world map button.
I don’t want to see Microsoft copy any of this shit with their standard controllers. Save it all for the Elite 3 or whatever.
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Yes, I agree. There was a lot of chatter a few years ago about Xbox getting a haptic controller. I’d say shelve it. It’s totally unnecessary. It’s about information and readability. Take Control Ultimate Edition: When Jesse’s energy bar refills you feel a pulse on the Xbox controller to signify you can use throw again. On the PS5 meanwhile I’m getting so many other vibrations tap tap tap, grr grr grr, wham wham wham that it becomes difficult to sparse the vibrations between useful information and just background noise. I’ll say this again because there’s still a huge number of people who pretend you can ‘feel the car’s engine’ or ‘feel the surface’ with this thing in games that support it: no you can’t. You’re feeling more vibrations. The biggest difference I ‘felt’ was in Demon’s Souls Remake when swinging the sword made a vibration run from right to left on the controller. Is that better than a straight up BAM on one side like in traditional rumble? I actually have no idea. At best it’s a sideways step.
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When a controller vibrates it just reminds me I’m holding a controller. Maybe I have a bad imagination…
I’m in the drop rumble all together and add gyro camp. But it seems a lot of people like rumble. Hard to make everyone happy I guess.
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I enjoy the Dual Sense. Of course it’s “just rumble”, but it feels much more delicate and precise. For me it adds a lot of immersion, which is perfect as that is how I play video games for the most part.
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I haven’t spent much time with the DualSense, but did like its implementation in the bundled Astrobot game, and GT7. I’d take improved battery life over any potential Xbox version though.
I strongly disagree. Gran Turismo is one of the worst games for PS5 controller. Adaptive triggers on GT7 specifically will definitely give you the “my controller feels broken” feeling.
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To each their own.
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I dont think any rumble in any controller is a worthwhile feature and is generally pointless. It was novel for about a month when the rumble pack released with Starfox 64, but now its just a bunch of pointless shaking.
It doesnt add anything to the experience for me at all.
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Information. Powers recharge etc. providing a small vibration to signal the player can use it again. Stuff like that. Reloading the weapon, taking hits etc. anything that provides more information outside the heads up display on screen is good.
The very first rumble I ever experienced was in Gran Turismo 1 back on the PS1 and tbh that was pretty much the baseline for how it’s done right. Going over the rumble strip naturally made the controller… rumble. It made sense. It worked. No need for complex strings of various vibrations and a right trigger with a resistant notch to pull through like on the dualsense. With the latter I feel like I have to actually learn what each vibration means and that’s not good. Not for me in any case.
My favorite is when there is a lot of stuff going on and the controller (on any system) just goes
BRRRRRRRRBBBBRRRBRRRRRRRRBRBRBRBRBR
Its really makes me feel like Im there.
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Haha, it’s interesting how subjective this is. I love to feel my guns fire, or changes in the road if I’m driving etc.
But yes, it going completely bonkers with all vibrators on max is not really doing much lol.
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I’m basically having a far more difficult time adjusting to the dualsense than I expected. I have a PS4 which I still played every year (my Bloodborne box) alongside my Series X. So in theory I reckoned the jump to the PS5 would be seamless. Wrong. The controller is giving me issues. I get right arm pain during longer play sessions (something to do with the resistant right trigger making gameplay seem like a workout) and the size of the controller seems wrong compared to the Dualshock 4. It just doesn’t sit right in my hands. And the vibrations are too chaotic and meaningless to be of any added value (no idea what the grating grr grr grr so-called haptics is supposed to ‘simulate’ whenever I’m running on planks of wood with Leon in RE4 Remake).
Yeah, DualSense is just ok as a controller and I prefer the DualShock 4. Wish they had done the Xbox thing of allowing past controllers for new games.
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Sounds like you should go the third party controller route.
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