Rockfire USB Nest VS Thrustmaster (F22 F16 RCS) | Review

hellooo cave-dwellers I'm meaning on the floor today and with the wide-angle lens because we've got a lot to squeeze into the picture you may recognize how these they're rule by Thrustmaster and it's what's known as a hot ass setup hotel standing for hands on throttle and stick meaning other toilet you would never ever have to take the hands off the stick because you have enough buttons triggers throttle controls and whatnot to to fly your plane without ever taking them off anyway that's by the by the reason I'm showing you these is because but they are all from 1996 we've got the thrust master f-22 Pro the f16 throttle quadrant system and the rudder pedals here the rudder control system and at the time that these were released in around 96 this would have be a 22 would have set you back a call 170 English Pounds all about signal on there 220 American groundhogs or whatever you go use the throttle quadrant system would have set you back 155 English growths or what saying US dollars about 200 US freedoms and then the rudder control system would have set you back 116 English sprouts or about what fine US dollars about 150 150 Clintons I think that is so combined that total converted to US dollars allow for inflation and if you will buy in this kit today it would set you back 896 American Eagles that is a lot of money there's a lot of money I mean the build quality of these things is incredible the weight of this is ridiculous so it's you know it's how it was however you kit at the time the equivalent today would be through still by Thrustmaster and it would be there the a-10 setup which is the split throttle control system and stick but a very very similar setup and that will set you back the best part of 300 pounds I don't know what about even dollars-three 350 American dollars again a lot of money and it's the equipment of business today so why am i showing you this I'm showing you this because I bought this on gumtree I don't know if you get Gumtree in the US is a little bit like Craigslist a bit less Wild West but I'm very similar and I got this entire setup including postage for 15 Queens noses 15 quid for that pretty impressive I think you'll agree thank you thank you stickers off so what's the drawback why can't I jump on these and start playing DCs world of MS flight simulator or um explain eleven well one simple reason it's this as you plug in this is known as a gain port connector it was discontinued because well because Microsoft decided to discontinue it by not supporting it on any newer versions the Windows XP so after XP begin ports died are with it these devices people had invested hundreds of pounds into these devices and they can no longer use them and that's why you can find them on the market today for such a low price so the question is can we use them can we find a way of using them can we turn this back into $800 worth of flight sim equipment can we do it cheaply can we do it reliably and effectively it doesn't take a lot of research to find the answer to that question on the quick Google will show you all different methods of converting these things from taking them apart removing the controller boards and replacing them with say an Arduino or a gives a teensy unit TT tweeny TV I think it's team G unit which involves soldiering involves a little bit of technical ability a great amount I mean I'm sure you can figure out before long but before we get to that stage I want to show you this it's called the USB net also known as the USB rock fire controller it looks like this and it's a very simple game port two USB converter so I know from the quick research I've done that will not going to get every single part of this working with this simple seven pound 13 dollar device but how far can we get with it can we make any of this usable can we combine any of this with a modern USB joystick perhaps there's only one way to find out let's plug it in we're going to test them individually one at a time see if we get anywhere with that and if we do then we will daisy chain them see what combinations work and yeah let's see if the 25 pound total that I've spent here can be used in any way whatsoever without having to start tearing them apart and converting them the first item we're testing then is the thrust master control rudder control system I chosen this first because it's the simplest if we look on the bottom it's a single pot which is measuring a single axis it's for the back on both sides bit squeaky I think you could do a bit of oil but otherwise it's fine it's in good condition so we've got the balls plugins we've got the rock fire plug in the USB for user manual shows that we've got four settings on this switch and the first setting is mode one thrust master flight control system which is exactly what we're using it also supports the CH fly stick Pro mode three is a two for two two for axes four button joystick and move four is a two axes eight button joystick so you can reduce the axes and increase the buttons I'm not to get it to work with whatever joystick you're using so quite simply run a control system does it work well I think result that would help the the connector on this has a daisy chain connector so the uncompleted edge of the joystick later but we're going to do this on his own plug it in our Windows has detected it at the two axes for band joystick with a viewfinder and rudder so all we're looking for here oh yeah I work just their rotation although there's not much on the scale of things I think we need to calibrate that we just run through the wizard so we'll just to leave everything centered okay then it will discolouration my squeaky pedals for the massive away that's it there you go that's much better so test one the rudder control system hundred percent it works absolutely perfectly so for me that is probably worth the cost of the 15 with that I paid in total on its own we'll give it a quick test with a USB stick that I've got a bit later but let's move on to the next thing see how that works next up then a little bit more complex is the the f-22 stick so in total here you've got two hats well three actually a button folding back here trigger on the front another trigger and on the trigger in total you've got four eight 12 14 15 16 17 18:19 buttons on logistic and considering we've only got four buttons here well even if we take it's a setting for on the rock fire which has a maximum range buttons you can immediately tell that we're never going to get all of the buttons to work but does any of it work at all let's plug it in and see what happens so we're looking for movement on the X&Y here and I'm not getting anything okay could be because I haven't unplugged it since I cut the since I unplug the rudder so let's unplug it we do this complaining about that slow get back in [Music] detected it again check up to you now okay yeah we've got movement now so actually seems fairly smooth let's uh let's calibrate the stick so we have to take it to all of the extremes calibrate it again a little bit squeaky but that's nothing that can't be fixed sure even the best fighter pilots have to part with a juicy sticky joystick once in a while the squeaky toys that used okay if you that's calibrated now there's no set rotation okay so we're in the middle yeah I'm actually impressed with that I was expecting them the pots to be a bit more spiky I with these old istic sometimes the the tops in there will will jump up out and you'll get spiky input just because of Ag or because of the grease that's got in them from here but that's a really nice smooth stick so the stick itself works we know we're not going to get any fire buttons we're not going to get all of the buttons working but do any of them work yes let's try the main trigger yeah button one button two we've got two batters working at the size one nothing perhaps soaked in the point of view app might do something over here I'm getting no I'm only getting button one and two working so because this is a used stick I can't guarantee 100% that there isn't something that's broken in here because of that would involve that would involve plugging it into a Windows XP machine with a game port which I haven't got here right now I do have however one of many games one of many sound cards here with a built in game port so at some point I will be around to building an XP machine and I can confirm if this is working but from what we can test today we can say that the joystick works some of the buttons work you're never going to get all of the buttons to work so you know what's that thirty forty percent success rate I guess on that hmm I would have liked a bit more from that but let's move on and see if we get anywhere with the throttle okay so the throttle is closed in now let's see if we get anything and let let's move it and see what happens okay that's quite bizarre and I don't know if you can see this but it's detecting the throttle movement as the point of view hat so that's really quite strange and let's try the buttons now I'm not getting anything from any of the buttons and I'm not surprised that the the spinners aren't working I thought maybe one might have worked but it's not picking anything up as the said rotation all the buttons down here snow okay so in attempting to daisy-chain these actually found something interesting which was if I change the rock fire to set in 3 which is designed to be a - 4 X YZ 4 button controller rather than the thrust master fly control system setup I get an extra setting here which is slider so I have a dead rotation which is what it picked up for the rudders but I didn't have slider before and in choosing second three my throttle quadrant system is now correctly working it's detected as an analogue slider as opposed to a point of view hat and the point of you have no longer list the little resistor so our sacrifice to point of view how to gain a throttle and it works so actually on its own the throttle works the buttons still don't work we've got a working throttle so there's a little bit more than we have before yeah so with that in place I'm going to leave it in setting 3 and now I'm going to daily change of the joystick it actually plugs into the front here of the throttle quadrant system and then that goes off into the erupt fire so there's daisy chain that what happens okay the you change we've still got our throttle but we've we've got a working stick at the well and the two here just the two of course fire button still work so we've got too far buttons or working stick and a working Trussell and we just have to ignore all of these other buttons here so not bad so the last piece of the puzzle then is to Divi tune the rudder control system in and see if that works our rudder control system and where do we do teaching this into okay we've got another link here so we'll plug the joystick into the throttle throttle into the rudder that completes the daisy chain rudder into the rock fire so we've still got our working throttle we've still got our work in joystick and the moment of truth does the rudder work yes it does so squeaky rather still work so that's actually not bad I think working through our words and stick working rudder to buttons so I think that some is successful as we're going to be with this I'm pretty happy with that for 15 quid plus the converter so 25 pound let's fire up some games and see how we get on with them it would have been nice to have that work in - to be able to look around I'm using my squeaky pedals down here so I try line up with the runway the fifth down not the best landing in the world I just want to get out to the ground to show you that yeah moving the runner I'm gonna say stealing will so that works nicely one last thing to try is the combo of the throttle and the rudders with a modern joystick which I've got so let's give that again so what I plugged in now is this it's a USB CH fight istic so this is a modern very single so the final test really is to combine the throttle and the rudders with the modern plastic because I know of course a hat and everything works as it should on the bottom of I think so the perfect kind of combination and value for money for me is to get strong to work and the rudders to work the pedals to work with a fully working stick it gives me all of the buttons I want to use to give it a go that's what was working with the squeaky rudder pedals are working but of course my one sleep work is working and here it's immediately noticeable on this just how much less effort it takes because as great as this thing is in a beast to move around it takes a lot of force whereas this is a much more civilized type of fly stick so um I've got my just just adjust the trim every day so throttle is working great I can ignore all these buttons it'd be nice to have the working but got enough on here to do you know enough for at least a civilian flight sim like this the rudder pedals working just great so for my money for 15 pounds and with the aid of the USB nest combined with the joystick I had before and all I had was a joystick before I don't have any other throttle rather than this little Flavians rifle control here I've got myself a nice throw I've got myself some nice rudders I'm pretty happy with that maybe in future videos we'll explore taking this apart and some of those more advanced options to get all of the Bands working but if you happen to see a throttle rudder available for ten dollars ten pound don't let it stop you from picking it up because with this converter I think you still get quite a lot of value for money so the enhances my gameplay experience and yeah go for it these things will work for years to come I still don't forgive Microsoft's a drop in the game for because that would have made life so much easier but we are where we are right now I'm in my extra flying above Heathrow Airport in London and loving it see you later Kay Jewelers [Music]

Channel: RMC - The Cave

Views: 18,476

Keywords: Rockfire, gameport, nest, usb, game port, converter, hotas, thrustmaster, review, test, compatability, rock, fire, rudder, throttle, joystick, analogue, flight, simulator, sim, cheap, F22, f16, rcs, FCS, FQS

Id: 3C5xbVPzU5o

Length: 20min 31sec (1231 seconds)

Published: Tue May 09 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/1l0k0s]

To much money ($896!!!???) for have a "4 axis, 4 buttons" joystick working in 8 bits (256 "steps"). :))

MMjoy2 is the way for old hardware.