Switching order of controllers in Windows XP

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.games (More info?)

Hi, I've been looking through old posts on this issue, and haven't seen
anything lately...

the bottom line is this -

I had a Thrustmaster Dual Power 4 game pad, and bought a Logitech
Rumblepad later - I like the Rumblepad better, and want to consider it
my "first string" controller.

But if I go into say, Nba Live 2005, and go to choose controllers, no
matter what I do, the thrustmaster is on the top of the list, and the
logitech is on the bottom.


All the old posts talk about choosing Preferred device in the control
panel. By running DxDiag, I can see that setting something as the
Preferred Device assigns it Controller ID 0.

But I also see that the order of the Controllers, as recognized by most
games, is the same as the order listed in the game controller control
panel, and is completely unrelated to which device is "controller id 0"
and "preferred device."

For example, I set the logitech as preferred device, and plugged in the
thrustmaster and also a gamepad pro.

In the control panel they are listed as:
Thrustmaster
Logitech
GamePad Pro

dxdiag lists them as:

Thrustmaster - controller id 1
Logitech - controller id 0
GamePad Pro - controller id 2


Obviously there is a separate controller id that is recognized by the
game when ordering controllers, and is recognized by the control panel
when listing controllers in a certain order.


The list could be looked at more like this -

[True controller id=1] Thrustmaster - Controller ID 1
[True controller id=2] Logitech - Controller ID 0 ("preferred device" )
[True controller id=3] Gamepad Pro - controller ID 2


by editing the preferred device, I can change the listed controller ID,
which is completely irrelevant as far as the game is concerned, and the
true controller ID is the same. If I make thrustmaster the preferred,
it would be like this -

[True controller id=1] Thrustmaster - Controller ID 0(preferred device)
[True controller id=2] Logitech - Controller ID 1
[True controller id=3] Gamepad Pro - controller ID 2

or I could change it to
[True controller id=1] Thrustmaster - Controller ID 1
[True controller id=2] Logitech - Controller ID 2
[True controller id=3] Gamepad Pro - controller ID 0 (preferred)
if I wanted to.


But all this changing has nothing to do with the true way DirectInput
orders the controllers and how games recognize their order. Surely
there should be a way to edit the registry to fix or reset the id's that
directinput gives?


Ultimately in the games it's just an aesthetic issue, but it's kind of a
matter of principle now..

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.games (More info?)

Setting devices as the Preferred device only works for gameport devices. USB
devices don't use controller ID's, they use a different unique ID given to
it by DirectInput. It is up to the game how to expose these devices once
they are enumerated by DirectInput. It is sometimes possible to open Device
Manager and remove the two devices, then unplug the other devices leaving
the preferred device and then Scan for Hardware changes allowing the system
to rediscover the preferred device. Then plug in the others. This however
isn't guaranteed to work in getting one device to be discovered before the
other.

Joshua Smith
OpenGL Test Lab
Microsoft
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"mydogisalab" <mydogisalab@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F7596DAD-5656-4948-9A0B-AC2EF9768F12@microsoft.com...
> Does it seem that we all have problems....
>
> Try this. switch the controller cords. Put Logitech as a Preferred device.
> "Big Normy" wrote:
>
>> Hi, I've been looking through old posts on this issue, and haven't seen
>> anything lately...
>>
>> the bottom line is this -
>>
>> I had a Thrustmaster Dual Power 4 game pad, and bought a Logitech
>> Rumblepad later - I like the Rumblepad better, and want to consider it
>> my "first string" controller.
>>
>> But if I go into say, Nba Live 2005, and go to choose controllers, no
>> matter what I do, the thrustmaster is on the top of the list, and the
>> logitech is on the bottom.
>>
>>
>> All the old posts talk about choosing Preferred device in the control
>> panel. By running DxDiag, I can see that setting something as the
>> Preferred Device assigns it Controller ID 0.
>>
>> But I also see that the order of the Controllers, as recognized by most
>> games, is the same as the order listed in the game controller control
>> panel, and is completely unrelated to which device is "controller id 0"
>> and "preferred device."
>>
>> For example, I set the logitech as preferred device, and plugged in the
>> thrustmaster and also a gamepad pro.
>>
>> In the control panel they are listed as:
>> Thrustmaster
>> Logitech
>> GamePad Pro
>>
>> dxdiag lists them as:
>>
>> Thrustmaster - controller id 1
>> Logitech - controller id 0
>> GamePad Pro - controller id 2
>>
>>
>> Obviously there is a separate controller id that is recognized by the
>> game when ordering controllers, and is recognized by the control panel
>> when listing controllers in a certain order.
>>
>>
>> The list could be looked at more like this -
>>
>> [True controller id=1] Thrustmaster - Controller ID 1
>> [True controller id=2] Logitech - Controller ID 0 ("preferred device" )
>> [True controller id=3] Gamepad Pro - controller ID 2
>>
>>
>> by editing the preferred device, I can change the listed controller ID,
>> which is completely irrelevant as far as the game is concerned, and the
>> true controller ID is the same. If I make thrustmaster the preferred,
>> it would be like this -
>>
>> [True controller id=1] Thrustmaster - Controller ID 0(preferred device)
>> [True controller id=2] Logitech - Controller ID 1
>> [True controller id=3] Gamepad Pro - controller ID 2
>>
>> or I could change it to
>> [True controller id=1] Thrustmaster - Controller ID 1
>> [True controller id=2] Logitech - Controller ID 2
>> [True controller id=3] Gamepad Pro - controller ID 0 (preferred)
>> if I wanted to.
>>
>>
>> But all this changing has nothing to do with the true way DirectInput
>> orders the controllers and how games recognize their order. Surely
>> there should be a way to edit the registry to fix or reset the id's that
>> directinput gives?
>>
>>
>> Ultimately in the games it's just an aesthetic issue, but it's kind of a
>> matter of principle now..
>>
>>
>>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.games (More info?)

"Joshua Smith [MSFT]" <joshsm@online.microsoft.com> wrote in
news:#jivNL8tFHA.3740@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl:

> Setting devices as the Preferred device only works for gameport
> devices. USB devices don't use controller ID's, they use a different
> unique ID given to it by DirectInput. It is up to the game how to
> expose these devices once they are enumerated by DirectInput. It is
> sometimes possible to open Device Manager and remove the two devices,
> then unplug the other devices leaving the preferred device and then
> Scan for Hardware changes allowing the system to rediscover the
> preferred device. Then plug in the others. This however isn't
> guaranteed to work in getting one device to be discovered before the
> other.

Ok, that makes sense. So does anyone know how to change the default order
that DirectInput changes enumerates the IDs? Because it seems obvious that
DirectInput decided that the Thrustmaster has seniority and should always
be assigned top rank; I would think that information would be in the
registry somewhere.

Removing them through the device manager was something i wanted to try, but
it says they can't be removed through the device manager.