Anyone else use a game controller as 'serious' input?

[fifted]

I have an Xbox 360 controller that I've set up using JoyToKey and AutoHotKey to quickly blaze through my Outlook inbox. The analog sticks control the mouse cursor (comparable to http://lifehacker.com/5883374/how-i-imp ... controller), and the d-pad controls the mouse wheel to scroll through the active e-mail message. The main A/B/X/Y buttons each move the selected e-mail to a different folder (Archive, To-Do, Trash). It's most useful as a first-round inbox clearer; I can get through twenty or thirty e-mails in under a minute, without having my fingers poised over the keyboard only to do key combinations like 'Ctrl+Shift+1'.

Anybody have similar 'serious' uses for a game controller?

[ne0phyte]

A while back I wrote an autohotkey script to use my PS3 controller as mouse with accelerating scrolling, ctrl, shift mods and so on (don't have a PS3, just a controller).

But I only used that on LAN parties when I was tired and/or my mouse-arm hurt after 36h+ so I could scrape through the available terabytes of movies/games/music more comfortable

[ArtisanZero]

I recently bought a logitech F710 which is a pretty good piece of tech. It feels even better than the PS3 Dualshock 3 controller while the layout is quite similar.
I use it for platforming games and racing stuff and iam pretty satisfied. One thing thats great about it, besides the built quality is its great compatibility. Its (as far as i know) the only serious attempt of a controller thats made just for PC. It works in almost every game and also features direct input which means that it will at least work as an emulated keyboard when the game has no controller support.

[Quardah]

I recently bought a logitech F710 which is a pretty good piece of tech. It feels even better than the PS3 Dualshock 3 controller while the layout is quite similar.
I use it for platforming games and racing stuff and iam pretty satisfied. One thing thats great about it, besides the built quality is its great compatibility. Its (as far as i know) the only serious attempt of a controller thats made just for PC. It works in almost every game and also features direct input which means that it will at least work as an emulated keyboard when the game has no controller support.

I agree the F series from Logitech is incredible. I support your words but i might say not only the F710 model is serious. Both F310 and F510 are very good too, you simply drop the wireless or both wireless and rumble if you drop to lower models.

I personally prefer the F310 since i hate rumble and i play on my chair so i have no worries about cables. Plus you get two F310 for the price of a single F710... and no damn battery! (Is it rechargeable batteries on F710?)