So looking to get Street Fighter 4 for the PC now that it finally came out.  of course I prefer an arcade stick vs the crappy gamepads. Problem is all the ones I can find are either crappy quality or super expensive.

The official SF4 mad catz ones that are ~$50 has horrible reviews about build quality so those are out and no way will i pay $140 for the tournament edition mad catzs.

So the only other ones I can find are the hori fighting stick's for the ps3/360.  The 360 one is available only with 3 pairs of buttons while the ps3 has 4.  However, reviews/forums all say the ps3 one has iffy compatibility with PC's, some computers it works and some it doesn't.

Are there any other options out there or am I stuck with the 3 pair 360 one from hori?

What do you mean by one having three pairs of buttons and the other having four? Can you link me to some pictures of the two sticks in question?

http://www.gamewad.com/ul/1417-550x-hori%2520fighting%2520stick%2520ex2.jpg" width="195" height="131">

http://www.gamersgizmos.org/images/fighting-stick-3_52.jpg" width="182" height="135">

Its not *required* for 4 pairs but it'll be nice since I would like to be able to use it with whatever other games I decide to use in the future.

I have wondered about the 3 pairs on the 360 hori sticks (not sure whether all are like that, but the blazblue ones are)


vs.

Spring for the 360 Hori. 360 accessories seem to be very compatible with PCs, and the last thing you need is to spend $60+ dollars on something that ends up not working. I understand the slight concern you may have with the amount of face buttons, but frankly, what else is there for you to play anyways other than Street Fighter IV? Fighters aren't exactly pouring in on the PC, and MUGEN is basically a six button fighter also. I think you'll be fine.

Do you have other games on your radar that are 8 button fighters? I don't know of any.

@alekth, yeah basically Hori is cheap and designed only 1 style for each (360 and PS3). For each special game version (i.e. Soul Calibur 4, Blazblue) they just touch up the artwork.

So they all have the same problem. The 360 version does have the buttons but they're at the top and all but useless for playing.

Yeah basically that's what its looking like.  I can't believe there's no other options, I always heard the mame scene on PC's keep the arcade stick's in demand/alive.

I'm pretty sure the MAME scene is very niche and a small community of gamers, many of which probably haven't sprung for arcade sticks. Forums usually gather these types of people in large numbers, so it may seem bigger than it is. Considering MAME emulators are not official products, I just don't see how it could be that big of a demand for arcade sticks to play them with. In any case, almost every arcade game emulated on MAME will be a six-button game at max. You won't miss out on much by going for the 360 stick.

The TE Edition works great once I replaced the break away cable - it seemed to be the actuall problem for one of the buttons not responding. Other then that if your looking for a good decent stick I would go with a cheap hori. I use a DOA Hori for my 360 as a backup/leave over friends house on Mondays and never had any real issues with them.

Ok, that got my interest so I googled some and tried my hori ps3 stick on the pc.
I downloaded the driver from here: http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=170859 and everything seems to be working fine (though as I don't have any games on the pc, I was limited to the testing settings).
The only drawback seems that there is only a 32bit version.

What are the problems reported for this stick around forums?
And also can you point me to some free fighting game that would be well suited for testing?