USB controllers getting new assignments at startup

[Will]

I posted on this a while back, years ago, and I'm wondering if things have changed between now and then.

The issue is that restarting my iMac scrambles the USB button and axis assignments in PSX.

What I think is happening is that a restart scans the USB inputs and assigns them in the order they were detected to an internal hierarchy. But that order is unpredictable and PSX doesn't sort it out, so after every fresh restart, different assignments are made.

What this looks like practically is this: I have rudder pedals and a HOTAS Warthog throttle and stick. Between those three controllers, there are something like 50 buttons and 9 axes. I configure everything perfectly for PSX and save the USB preferences file, and things are good until a restart. Then with every restart, the axes and buttons are scrambled. When I reload the old profile, the rudder pedals now move the speed brakes, and pulling back on the joystick retards the throttle. So I remap everything, save the new profile, and all is good until the next restart when everything gets scrambled again.

Some thoughts:

PSX sees buttons and axes differently that other software. One partial solution for this problem was to use ControllerMate to capture a USB button and send a keypress instead. So I ended up mapping almost all of the buttons on the USB controllers, through ControllerMate, to keyboard presses. That means that instead of setting Instructor > Preferences > USB to set a joystick button to "Gear cycle," instead I use ControllerMate to set that same joystick button to press the G key.

The effect within PSX is the same, but the difference is that restarting the computer scrambles only the "within PSX" USB button assignments, whereas ControllerMate still connects the same joystick button to the G key and therefore restarting doesn't cause any unwanted reassignments.

Since ControllerMate is solid in that way, I moved all the within-PSX button assignments to joystick-activated key presses wherever I could. What's left are only about 6 buttons that don't have keyboard equivalents, and then the joystick, throttle, and rudder peddle axes.

I just had another restart this morning, so all of those were once again scrambled, and so I thought I'd see if a solution had become available in the intervening years.

Any thoughts? Am I the only person to whom this happens? If so, is there something in my system I could change?

Thanks for your help.

[Hardy Heinlin]

No change on the Java/PSX side. The USB interface provides an array of USB devices to PSX. Each device has an array index. Some devices have names. Since not all devices have names, and because some have equal names, PSX can only use the array index for the identification.


Cheers,

|-|ardy

[vito]

Not directly linked to topic but I thought maybe can be posted here as it is linked with Warthog HOTAS: here is something I found on the web (on one of the forums linked to questions about joystick calibration), it is original Thrustmaster Warthog Calibration utility for HOTAS Warthog Joystick - people get one if they write directly to Thrustmaster support with problems linked to calibration of the joystick. It is not clear why Thrustmaster doesn't make these utility public (if links cannot be posted here I will of course remove them) ? I also had a problem with calibration of the joystick - it was not perfectly centered from the factory, "y axis" had small displacement and it was shown in PSX USB axis detection field. Nothing helped (Thrustmaster software TARGET, windows calibration) but this utility did. Utility is in two separate files, one for joystick and another for throttle. Each of them guides you through serious of tests of moving, pressing etc. and after tests are done it writes new "calibration" to the joystick. After I have run both of them, joystick for example is now perfectly centered at "0" :-)

Here is link to my Dropbox if anyone is interested:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ruv2p60oze8erzz/Thrustmaster.zip?dl=0

best regards

vito