Fight Stick Tester

Test arcade sticks, hitbox and mixbox controllers. Vewlix layout, SOCD cleaning detection, and full input history log.

Fight stick / hitbox

Waiting

Direction

↑

←

→

↓

SOCD

Clean

Vewlix layout

Y / △

RB / R1

RT / R2

X / □

A / ✕

B / ○

LB / L1

LT / L2

Input history

Press buttons and directions to log inputs.

Overview

What the Fight Stick Tester does

Fight sticks and leverless controllers demand clean, unambiguous inputs. This tester renders a Vewlix face-button layout, flags SOCD conflicts (simultaneous opposing cardinal directions) that many fighting games ban, and logs an input history for combo verification.

Steps

How to run the test

Connect the stick over USB. Bluetooth is rarely used for tournament sticks due to latency.
Press each face button and each direction in isolation. Confirm the correct cell lights up.
Hold left and right together, then up and down together. SOCD should read clean if the stick applies cleaning; a conflict warning means the game will receive both inputs.
Run a combo. The input history logs every direction and button change with a timestamp.

Why the Vewlix layout is standard

The Vewlix cabinet layout (eight buttons in a curved 2x4 arrangement) is the international standard for fighting games because Japanese arcades and modern tournaments both use it. This tester renders that layout so what you press physically matches what the screen shows. If your stick uses a different layout (Sega Astro City, Namco Noir), the button indices still map correctly; only the visual layout changes.

SOCD explained without the jargon

SOCD stands for Simultaneous Opposing Cardinal Directions. It happens when you press left and right at the same time (or up and down). A stick with a joystick physically cannot do this because the lever has one position. A leverless controller (hitbox, mixbox) has separate buttons for each direction, and you can press both. Games have to decide what to do. Some crash. Most modern games ignore both. Tournament rules usually require your controller to clean SOCD to a defined output so you cannot cheese with impossible inputs.

How to read the SOCD output

Press left. The tester shows left. Now hold right in addition. The SOCD panel shows what your stick sent to the browser. Common outputs: neutral (both cancel), last input wins (right takes over), or up priority (up beats down). The panel labels each. If your leverless controller shows both left and right lit at once, SOCD cleaning is off and you risk being disqualified from tournaments that require cleaning.

Testing combo timing with the input history

The input history logs every input change with a timestamp in milliseconds. Run your bread-and-butter combo and read the log. You can measure the gap between each input, catch a stuck button (index staying lit past its release), and verify your macro fires the sequence in order. This is especially useful for testing new keyboard-style leverless controllers with sensitive optical switches.

What to check before a tournament

Confirm all eight face buttons fire cleanly. Confirm SOCD cleaning is on and matches your tournament ruleset. Confirm no button is stuck or double-firing. Run our Latency Test wired to confirm the stick is within tournament norms. Bring a backup USB cable because the number one on-day failure is a bad cable, not a bad stick.

Fix it

Common problems and quick fixes

SOCD panel shows both left and right

SOCD cleaning is disabled. Enable it in the stick's firmware (Brook, PS360+, Snackbox settings) before ranked play.

Button fires twice per press

Chatter from a worn microswitch. Replace the switch or the whole button.

Direction button intermittently misses

Loose crimp or a failing switch. Reseat the wire, then replace the switch if needed.

FAQ

Common questions

What is SOCD cleaning?+

SOCD cleaning resolves simultaneous opposing directions (like left plus right) to a single output, typically neutral or the second input. Most tournaments require it to be enabled.

Are my macros logged?+

Only the raw button indices your browser sees. Any on-board macros run before the browser reads state.

Hitbox vs stick?+

The tester treats them the same. Both report directions as button indices for up, down, left, right.

Press every button and hold opposing directions to verify SOCD. Do this before every tournament, not on the day.

Every diagnostic here runs locally in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

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Pair this test with any of the below for a full controller health check.

Mapping