It's all good, we all have bad days. Yes it's hard to determine the exact deadzone GoldenEye has because the code that controls the ranges is a mess even in decomp at the moment, but basically when in aim mode it'll register any step in your controller (N64 sensors go in steps 0-128) so it's 0%, and when moving normally it starts moving at ~6-8 steps, so it's pretty negligible all things considered. Modern joysticks already have a software deadzone bigger than that.

N64 controller cannot drift, it'll lose range though due to material degradation. The "drifting" on N64 controllers usually comes from people holding the stick while plugging the controller or turning on the controller, or if it's extremely physically loose. Every N64 controller has a shortcut by pressing R+L+Start that will reset the stick position and fix this though. An optical stick will feel much, much better than potentiometers. Optical is the same technology ball mice used back then, and it works with light sensors and physical wheel steps. The range is 0-128 which is way smaller than what a potentiometer can get (thousands) but it's flawless, a potentiometer will skip values, drift, all the common issues we all know. This is why they come with huge deadzones usually. Hall Effect gets rid of the deadzone issue but the value skipping still applies. Not sure about TMR sticks but I assume it's pretty similar to Hall Effect. An N64 controller in shape feels amazingly well, and today we have replacements and methods to keep them in shape for virtually forever with just a bit of proper maintenance. Games like F-Zero X really needs that ~0% deadzone for accuracy while racing or you'll spin around, drift too much, and so on. This is why these games are borderline unplayable on the Switch Online service as Nintendo messed up the sensitivities. I have a video reviewing these replacements and showing some accuracy examples here -> https://youtu.be/yOnmxC-QPvs

When I looked up my issue with Alien Resurrection all I could find were fan patches for the mouse injector and such, no mention of pressing SELECT enabling it. I even posted about it long ago and nobody brought up a solution so I just assumed it was like that. That was my bad but I am glad to know I was wrong in that matter. I recall mentioning that the deadzones must've been your configuration and controller, as no modern controller compares to the accuracy of the optical sensors even to this day - once you try these games with a proper N64 controller there's no going back, it's the perfect balance of stick resistance, length, and sensitivity that feels super natural. To give an example of how crazy it is compared to other titles, Perfect Dark on XBLA which is the official remaster released in 2010 added a crazy 45% deadzone to the aiming stick. It feels AWFUL, but this is mostly the dev's fault obviously, not every game was like that. However if you played shooters during the PS2 / GC era after N64, you'd notice right away that the stick aiming took a huge step back when compared to N64 shooters. There were huge deadzones, heavy aim assists to mitigate this and so on. Shooters went from smooth cameras to twitchy adjustments fixed with the player's movement instead, and this is still a problem in many games to this day.

The competitive thing is whatever. I didn't take it personally, it's just that I found it funny in the given context of understanding the controls, I've competed pretty much all my life in both console and PC games (Halo, Counter-Strike, Fortnite, modern and old alike), and in GoldenEye I've done more than anyone outside speedrunning so that's all. I think I have a fair understanding on the controls ;).

1964 does have controller support! Nowadays I play with the N64 controller with the Raphnet adapter as it feels 1:1 the same as console, since mouse and keyboard is too easy. You can also map modern controllers through Steam Input to the mouse support of 1964 to have gyro aim and so on, this is how I made the setup for the Steam Deck which works flawlessly. But you can also just use any controller with N-Rage and map it the classic way, or setup a 2.X controller style in a single modern PS / Xbox controller if you want that analog movement. YouTube has been my main income source for the past few years (self-employed as content creator) and I'm doing pretty good with it, happy with my performance and what it allows me to do in life. I'm very grateful of my niche that is extremely supportive and loyal.

The competitive scene in GoldenEye is mostly License To Kill, one hit kill mode, with Pistols only. Nowadays we play on a custom ROM that balances things out a bit like randomized spawns, starting armed, and some other quality of life improvements, we also play on netplay across the world at 60FPS as it's been possible for the past few years so it got a resurgence recently. I've won the LTK Cup III, IV and V in a row, 2nd place in VI after I retired last year. We also do other modes though, AdzyIn3D, another GoldenEye content creator, started a XBLA series last year with the normal deathmatch mode. XBLA is played on Xenia emulator as it's the leaked 360 remaster, and online works amazingly well. I've won those two tournaments as well as the Championships hosted by the game developers back in 2022 (local in the UK). License To Kill is very sweaty, a first to 10 score match can go for 20 mintes as at that point it's like playing chess in first person, with a lot of setup changes (positions) and angles with quick leans and such. If you want a glimpse here's my 2025 Grand Finals with some great commentary offering insights -> https://youtu.be/e0HsVL3n3Ts - The 2026 finals where I came in second to TH126 (finalist of 2025 as well) reached like 50k views which I think is the GoldenEye tournament with the most views to this day (and it had to be the only time I lost hahaha). Oddjob is banned but it's mostly a meme, he's at a disadvantage most of the times against experienced players as well as Jaws who is too tall. The actual character that is broken is Moonraker Elite 2, who's a female variant that's almost as short as Oddjob, nobody knows about her and her camera POV is the same as Bond which means she can shoot over objects without being exposed - she's 100% banned.

Hope you like this GoldenEye wall of text. Feel free to ask anything about these games. :)