Review: Gamemon USB Converter
By Jeffrey | April 18, 2008
I was rambling around Walmart - I know, I know - the other day when I stumbled across a little package marked “USB Converter” in the computer section that claimed to allow for the use of Playstation, GameCube, or Xbox controllers on your PC. It was only $10, so I figured “Why not?” and picked one up.
Let’s see how the China-made box performed.
The Gamemon came in one of those ubiquitous plastic shells that are harder to get into than Fort Knox, which I absolutely loathe. Still, it’s par for the course for electronics to come like that so I can’t really hold it against the converter.
Here’s what it looked like after I set off some C4 to get it open.
The device comes with a EngRish manual that said little other than how to plug the device in - Oh, so that’s how those rectangular plugs work! - and how to install the driver software. Still, for the non-technical literate I can see how it might be useful. Actually, no, no I can’t.
Anyway, the Gamemon also included a driver mini-CD (which only included the 1mb driver install file). It was nothing special, but it gets the job done.
Finally, the converter itself was among the wreckage, and it is actually pretty well put together. The Game Cube and Xbox ports lie on one side, while the Playstation port and 2 USB ports are on the other. The box does let you use multiple controllers at the same time, but there is only one of each type of port, so no multiples of one controller is possible. This is to be expected, though, so it’s a minor drawback.
The inclusion of the USB ports is nice, since the box takes up a port itself and including some extras make it unnecessary to unplug the converter while using other devices, although the ports seem to function at only USB1.1 speeds. More on that later.
Installing the device is easy enough, as 2000/XP or Vista instantly recognize the box as a Generic USB Hub, which it is. After installing the drivers - you can download the latest version by clicking here - you’ll have the software that controls the ports.
If for some reason it won’t open on your computer - I had troubles with it under XP, but not Vista - change the compatibility options to Windows 2000. Then it should work.
The program itself looks like this:
You can have all boxes checked if you’d like, or you can only select the type of controller you’ll be using. For simplicity reasons I only have the PS option checked on mine. Clicking OK saves the settings.
When the device is plugged in the operating system will see all the activated controller ports listed under Game Controllers in the Control Panel, even when a controller isn’t plugged into the device.
It is possible that the Xbox controller will not function on the device. I haven’t yet figured out the exact cause for this, but if it isn’t working for you then try using the Xbox Controller Drivers here instead.
Here’s what the Playstation controller window looks like:
As you can see, all original features of the controller work just fine, including vibration. Yep, the vibrate function of the controllers works, and feels just like it does on a console.
One tip: When setting up the controller, click Advanced under Game Controllers and select the default controller you’d like to use for your older games. Some games didn’t find the controller until I set this.
So how does it work? In all of my tests it worked perfectly! The controls felt just right, and all of the games worked great using the controller - including older ones, after I set the default option mentioned above. All of the games I tried - including emulators like ePSXe - recognized all of the controls, and were able to use the vibration function, too.
As far as emulation is concerned, it was much more enjoyable to be able to play my older console games using the intended controller, especially on Playstation emulation.
As I mentioned above, one drawback is that the USB ports on the converter are only recognized as USB1.1 devices. I’m not sure if that was intended, or just a problem with my setup, but be aware of that so you can leave some other ports open if you need high-speed devices to be used. If it is in fact a design “feature” then it’s very surprising, as why any modern device would not include the very common USB2.0 functionality is unknown to me.
All in all, though, I highly recommend picking up the Gamemon USB Converter if you can find it. I’m not sure if Walmart is still offering the device - I couldn’t find it on their website - but if so it’s a steal at $10 to be able to use your console controllers on your PC.
Score
Ease Of Use = 9/10
Functionality = 8/10 (Xbox recognition…)
Features = 9/10 (USB1.1 Ports knocked this down)
Total Score = 9/10
Topics: Guides |
Sounds pretty sweet to me, much better than those usb hacks as seen on other sites. If I happen to be strolling the Wal-Mart isles I may just go ahead and pick one of these up. I should probably brush up on my engrish, messing with drivers can be a pain.
Posted by: hornswaggled on April 21st, 2008 at 12:27 pm[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]
Posted by: Next Generation Console Reviews » Blog Archive » Review: Gamemon USB Converter on April 25th, 2008 at 1:01 pm