how to "fix controller ports?"

[rCadeGaming]

If this ought to be moved to another section, let me know.

I apologize that I'm not even sure of the proper language to describe this, but this is the problem I'm having:

I have a couple of usb arcade controllers that I built. When I plug one into the computer and play some games, it's recognized as controller 1.

Then if I plug in my Playstation to USB controller adapter it always bumps the arcade controller to controller 2 or 3 (depending if there's 1 or 2 controllers connected to the Playstation adapter, it has two physical controller ports).

Also, some of the arcade controllers will do the same thing. There are certain ones that will always bump others down the list. The Playstation adapter will always take the top spots if it's plugged in though.

I'm building a cabinet, and this will really be troublesome when trying to keep the controllers straight.

Is there any way to lock certain game controllers to specific "ports?"

For example, two arcade controllers will be built into the cabinet, and will always be plugged in. I want the one on the left to always be recognized as controller 1, no matter what else is plugged in. I want the one on the right to always be recognized as controller 2.

Sometimes I will plug the Playstation adapter in to accommodate two more players in four player games, and I want the controllers connected to always be recognized as controllers 3 and 4.

Sometimes players three and four will plug in portable arcade controllers instead of using Playstation controllers. If possible, I want these to be recognized as controllers 5 and 6, even if controllers 3 and 4 aren't plugged in. If this isn't doable they could just be 3 and 4.

Does anyone know how to do this? I have this problem with all versions of Windows, but I'll be using 7 Pro for the foreseeable future, so I'd like to fix it in that. Any ideas?

[Hoopz]

Try this:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=108767.0

[rCadeGaming]

Thanks Hoopz, that was the clue I was looking for.  In that link the OP says that MAME enumerate controllers by device ID.  I'm already writing my own front-end, so I'm thinking about writing in something to get the device ids of what's plugged in and fix the problem by altering the .cfg files.

[drventure]

You have to be a bit careful about altering config files directly . Originally, that's the tack I took with ControllerRemap, but things can get wonky pretty quickly as you plug and unplug devices, run and rerun map and replace those device id's over and over.

The approach I finally settled on was to provide a separate place to declare devices and their mapping, and have the utility literally "wipe out" the <input> sections and completely rewrite them.

But if you've got other idea's, I'm all ears!

[rCadeGaming]

The approach I finally settled on was to provide a separate place to declare devices and their mapping, and have the utility literally "wipe out" the <input> sections and completely rewrite them.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'll try to do.  I'll try yours first to steal ideas... I mean get inspiration... but I think I'll try writing my own to integrate it with my front-end, I've got some pretty specific requirements and applications in mind.

Can I ask what you wrote this in?  I'm using VB .net and I need to figure out the code to get the Device IDs.  I put up a post about it on the VB Forums:

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=674355

[drventure]

I used VB.net, with the rawinput code from

http://multitouchvista.codeplex.com] [url]http://multitouchvista.codeplex.com[/url]