USB Device Assignments

[funkyhut]

Greetings,
My understanding, and experience, is that if I start PSX with a different set of USB devices, existing assignments get lost or confused.
So, before launching PSX I usually check that everything is being recognized by my PC. The main culprit is my XBox controller which I use to handle the PSX window with MSFS which sometimes does not turn on by itself. I've even renamed the PSX shortcut to "PSX controller on", but sometimes I forget to look and run PSX to find all the bindings to my Alpha and Bravo devices are gone.
My way of fixing this is to maintain a backup of the default.perf file taken when everything is okay, so that when this happens I can check the correct (PSX) USB devices are recognized and when I start PSX again with the new default.perf copied to the preferences folder, all usually comes right.
But my question is why is PSX so sensitive about connected devices. I have other sims (P3D and MSFS) where this is not an issue.
Having got an acceptable process to work round this, it's not a big issue; I'm just curious.
Thanks.

[Hardy Heinlin]

Hi Chris,

PSX uses a 3rd party Java USB interface. I don't know what native code they use.

By the way, if two kinds of USB device sequences can occur in your system, and you have a pref file just for either of the two, you may do this:

Resave Default.pref as MyBest.pref

When the other, unwanted sequence occurs, make button and axes assignments for that device sequence, and then save it as MyOther.pref or as any other special file name. -- Now whenever your other device sequence occurs, just go to Instructor > Preferences > Load and load MyOther.pref.

When your preferred device sequence occurs, go to Instructor > Preferences > Load and load MyBest.pref.

You can do this while PSX is running. It's just a mouse click on the Preferences > Load page. No restart required.


Regards,

|-|ardy

[funkyhut]

Thanks again Hardy for your insight. Much appreciated.

[United744]

Windows?

The Java USB handler reads the devices in WINDOWS USB ORDER.

Example: You plug in stick first, then throttle. Windows assigns these 0 and 1, respectively.

If you plug throttle then stick, they are now reversed! Throttle is now 0, and stick 1.

To reset the order, unplug everything, plug and unplug ONE DEVICE AT A TIME into a DIFFERENT port than normal, then unplug everything and restart the computer.

Once Windows is running, plug each device into the port you want them on, but do NOT unplug them. They will now be in the order you expect.

If you're using a USB hub, THROW IT AWAY! Windows uses the USB "root hub" as part of its ordering (each port on the motherboard is its own USB root hub).

Using an external USB hub breaks this.