from Rhino to Warthog...

Draxxen

Draxxen
My wonderful x-55 Rhino started to become unresponsive on certain important buttons these past weeks, just past the warranty of course, and I figured it was time to upgrade. And it really is just one option.
I have just unpacked, set up and assigned buttons to my shiny new Warthog HOTAS, and wow! ..what a bucket of mixed feelings!

Stripped down version of my personal experience:
Warthog vs Rhino Pro's: very solid, metal, very precise. This feels like the real deal, and I love it! The Rhino always was a bit too plasticky, but its quality performance makes you forgive any possible shortcomings! (until it breaks, that is)
Cons: Warthog has way less buttons, ans switches, and no wheels. And no twist stick, so no logical (my logic) yaw on the stick; I had to assign yaw to one of the hat switches.

All in all I know I am going to be very happy with the Warthog HOTAS once I learn the new control setup I had to design due to the lack of buttons compared to my Rhino, and for now I am just enjoying just handling it, the real metal feel of.. well, you get the idea; I don't want this to get too weird. :D

The Warthog cost me twice as much ($399) as I spent on the Rhino ($199), but I added a 3 year extended warranty; lesson learned!
If you love this game and ask me if you should spend $400 on a Warthog, I would say: if you have (or can get) the money? most definitely! If it is a tight squeeze, go for the Rhino, but get an extended warranty, because there are a lot of buttons than can get damaged.
 
Last edited:

Sysmon

Sysmon
You'll need pedals for the yaw! I thought about getting pedals, although I use the X-55 still. It hasn't broken yet.

:D S
 

dutchy2000

D
I personally hate saitek products since the quality is so crappy. But the saitek pro pedals are actually made of metal and feel solid, I would recommend those instead of the twisty stick. Once you use rudders and get used to them you will never want a twisty stick again
 

Draxxen

Draxxen
Sysmon said:
You'll need pedals for the yaw! I thought about getting pedals, although I use the X-55 still. It hasn't broken yet.

:D S
Click to expand...
Yea, I suppose you are right; need to get pedals.
Hang on to the Rhino until it falls apart! I had practically all functions I needed on it; can't do that with the warthog in the same way.
 

lysan

lysan
Draxxen said:
My wonderful x-55 Rhino started to become unresponsive on certain important buttons these past weeks, just past the warranty of course, and I figured it was time to upgrade. And it really is just one option.
I have just unpacked, set up and assigned buttons to my shiny new Warthog HOTAS, and wow! ..what a bucket of mixed feelings!

Stripped down version of my personal experience:
Warthog vs Rhino Pro's: very solid, metal, very precise. This feels like the real deal, and I love it! The Rhino always was a bit too plasticky, but its quality performance makes you forgive any possible shortcomings! (until it breaks, that is)
Cons: Warthog has way less buttons, ans switches, and no wheels. And no twist stick, so no logical (my logic) yaw on the stick; I had to assign yaw to one of the hat switches.

All in all I know I am going to be very happy with the Warthog HOTAS once I learn the new control setup I had to design due to the lack of buttons compared to my Rhino, and for now I am just enjoying just handling it, the real metal feel of.. well, you get the idea; I don't want this to get too weird. :D

The Warthog cost me twice as much ($399) as I spent on the Rhino ($199), but I added a 3 year extended warranty; lesson learned!
If you love this game and ask me if you should spend $400 on a Warthog, I would say: if you have (or can get) the money? most definitely! If it is a tight squeeze, go for the Rhino, but get an extended warranty, because there are a lot of buttons than can get damaged.
Click to expand...

One of the best HOTAS out in that price range, the black mamba are the other one. I own the Warthog, and I just love it. Very solid, very stable, there are some issues with it, however noting you can't fix.
rudder pedals are of course number one for yaw, next best in elite are the hat as you don't need yaw that much.
 

Clicker

Clicker
Draxxen said:
Yea, I suppose you are right; need to get pedals.
Hang on to the Rhino until it falls apart! I had practically all functions I needed on it; can't do that with the warthog in the same way.
Click to expand...

Have you tried connecting your X-55 to a powered USB hub?
That fixed similar issues I had with mine.

Cheers
Clicker
 

Gédéon_Lecanard

Gédéon_Lecanard
I have the warthog, its HOTAS and pedals. Bought them for DCS, where the combo shines with no equal. But to be honest, it's a bit overkill for a game like Elite. PLus the warthog being modeled on its real life counterpart, it is not supposed to have a yaw axis, which tends to make it very specialised for hardcore sims.

I love it and the pedals, but if I were to play only Elite or games in the genre, I would have stick to my FLY 5.
 
Last edited:

Clicker

Clicker
Draxxen said:
Say what? how?
It's been running flawlessly for more than 2000 hours with out it; please explain.
Click to expand...

I can only assume that the USBs on the motherboard don't give the current the joystick needs. After a while you get intermittent button presses. Mine started playing up after 9 months or so. The powered USB hub I have can deliver enough grunt to charge an iPad!

I have not had a spurious button press in the months since I bought one after reading of this within this forum somewhere.

Clicker
 
Last edited:

Tepescovir

T
I would by a warthog tommorow if they had twist, I know it's the same as the real warthog, but i wanto play games, not fly a real warthog.

Actually i really would like to fly a warthog, but probably only going to play games, so need the twist.
 

Aussiedroid

Aussiedroid
I did the same recently going from a X55 to Warthog. Haven't had a chance to setup yet tho. I am leaning towards keeping using my X55 throttle (as it has more buttons/rotaries etc) and use the Warthog joystick (since my X55 is dying). Get the best of both worlds hopefully since the X55 throttle is still going strong.

Warthog seems to have some interesting and advanced stuff you can do with it like different functions per keys for short and long presses which should hopefully expand the range of functions you can map even with a little bit more limited buttons than the X55.
 

DNA-Decay

DNA-Decay
Don't see the point of the Rhino myself.
I rocked a Logitech 3D for six years before I got the Warthog.

There was nothing in between as far as I could see.

I had the opportunity to fly a military simulator of the Eurocopter Tiger.

In the control room I spotted two Logitech 3Ds for running the other wing elements etc.

Simulator was a full working cockpit with the in helmet display and a 360 field of view projection.
 
Last edited:

tawittle

tawittle
I play with stick + keyboard and decided to upgrade my old T16000-M to the Warthog for 285$ (305$ after tax) a couple weeks ago.

As long as you have a way to mount it (my desk has a drawer that pulls out, so it was not a problem for me) you won't have a problem.
 
Last edited:

kofeyh

kofeyh
Draxxen said:
My wonderful x-55 Rhino started to become unresponsive on certain important buttons these past weeks, just past the warranty of course, and I figured it was time to upgrade. And it really is just one option.
I have just unpacked, set up and assigned buttons to my shiny new Warthog HOTAS, and wow! ..what a bucket of mixed feelings!

Stripped down version of my personal experience:
Warthog vs Rhino Pro's: very solid, metal, very precise. This feels like the real deal, and I love it! The Rhino always was a bit too plasticky, but its quality performance makes you forgive any possible shortcomings! (until it breaks, that is)
Cons: Warthog has way less buttons, ans switches, and no wheels. And no twist stick, so no logical (my logic) yaw on the stick; I had to assign yaw to one of the hat switches.

All in all I know I am going to be very happy with the Warthog HOTAS once I learn the new control setup I had to design due to the lack of buttons compared to my Rhino, and for now I am just enjoying just handling it, the real metal feel of.. well, you get the idea; I don't want this to get too weird. :D

The Warthog cost me twice as much ($399) as I spent on the Rhino ($199), but I added a 3 year extended warranty; lesson learned!
If you love this game and ask me if you should spend $400 on a Warthog, I would say: if you have (or can get) the money? most definitely! If it is a tight squeeze, go for the Rhino, but get an extended warranty, because there are a lot of buttons than can get damaged.
Click to expand...

The Warthog is very good. But it was always designed to be used as purely a flight stick; getting it's companion throttle is absolutely worth it; both are very good, and the throttle gives you very easy access to various controls.

Do consider some good flight pedals though; once you translate from using twist type sticks to proper flight sticks, with pedals, it all becomes a bit more fluid and it's much closer to actual flight (you end up having a 'holy crap' moment when it gels and becomes natural). :)

Saitek have two models, plastic and metal pedal respectively. Both are great. Tie that in with Voice Attack, and it's quite something. ;)
 
Last edited:

Triple88a

Triple88a
A usb 3.0 will give more juice if it needs it so start with that first but it wont fix the problem of buttons going bad.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom