Playing on PC, looking for a decent gamepad/controller.

[Maelwys]

Just as the title says, I play on the PC, but would like to play using a controller since it's easier to lounge back and relax with a controller in hand when I'm having a lazy day.

I was looking at this one, but it seems expensive as heck: http://www.amazon.com/Snakebyte-Fina...ords=snakebyte

Was also thinking about using a regular PS2 controller with an adapter such as: http://www.amazon.com/eForCity-Plays...rds=ps2+to+ps3

I give zero hecks about vibration or any of that stuff, I just want something that I can be sure will work, so I'm wondering if anyone uses a gamepad while playing on PC, and which one you use and how it works as far as any kind of button delay, non-responsive buttons, etc.

I'm running Windows 8 if that makes a difference.

Thanks

I had a Snakebyte (from Amazon EU) until about a week ago, whenever it suddenly stopped being recognised as a valid USB device by the PC.
Since then, I've been using an old Playstation -> USB adaptor like the second one you linked (the one I have is from the "PS2" era, an ownbrand version from a UK retailer called GAME) and an old PSOne Gamepad.

Functionally-speaking they work almost identically. 12 buttons, 6 axis (DPad and both analogue sticks). The Snakebyte one is a little larger and feels a little more fragile.
One thing the Snakebyte controller has that the Playstation standard one doesn't is the ability to hold down a 13th "Function" button just above the Analogue LED to make the buttons emulate the Keyboard Function Keys F1-F12.

I can't stand the in-game "Crossbar" setup though, I found it very restricting. So I've basically disabled the game's gamepad detection and remapped everything manually using GlovePIE, binding all the gamepad buttons and axis tilts to different keystrokes and assigning those keystrokes in-game to Macros. The resulting setup is a little odd, but has worked very well for me so far.

Currently without touching the keyboard or mouse, I've got instant access to Movement/Jump, Targeting, the Marking system, Camera Control, and Ability Positions 1-11 on Two Hotbars.
Two hotbars are usually sufficient, but I tend to use the numeric keypad to directly target all my teammates and pet, and give me instant access to the entire row of Hotbar3 abilities (usually heals/buffs)