Using the same controller and config on two PCs

[A500+]

Hi,

I'm guessing this is more of a Windoze issue than a WinUAE one but thought I'd post here in case anyone has any insight or tips on how I might overcome it.

So I have WinUAE and a selection of games set up in my Dropbox folder so I can play and continue the games on both my laptop and desktop PCs, depending on where I am. Obviously in this case both machines share the same config file.

The problem is I've mapped a DS4 controller to the 'Custom 1' slot in 'Port 2' of the 'Game ports' panel. I did this on the laptop and the controls work fine. I have two DS4 pads and it doesn't matter which one I have plugged in - they both work with the same mapping on the laptop. However neither of the pads work on my Desktop PC.

Both controllers appear the same in Windows on both PCs (at least as far as I
can tell when looking in Device Manager) and both are using the same drivers (again as far as I can tell). On the laptop however the first controller plugged in will show in WinUAE as 'Wireless Controller [1]' but on the dekstop PC it shows simply as 'Wireless Controller'. I'm assuming Windows is assigning them different device IDs or something like that? I'm not really sure.

Both controllers are being used via USB, despite them being labelled as 'Wireless Controller'. Both machines are running the same version of Windows 10 and are both up to date.

Does anyone know how I can get the same joypad working with the same WinUAE config on both machines?

It's not the greatest hardship to have separate configs if need be but I'd rather not if I can get away with it as I'd like my setup to be as portable as possible.

Thanks.

[Toni Wilen]

Could you attach winuaebootlog.txt from both machines when you have USB controller(s) connected?

[A500+]

Yes, absolutely. I already have winuaebootlog.txt from my Desktop as I was looking through it earlier. I'll launch the same game on my laptop a bit later on when I get chance and post them both here.

Thanks for getting back to me.

[A500+]

Here's the two winuaebootlog.txt files for the same game on both machines. That's not the only game affected though - they all are.

I can't remember now whether or not I was using the exact same DS4 controller or not but like I said neither of them work on the desktop whilst both of them work on the laptop.

I don't know if it matters or not but the laptop is USB C only so I have to use an adapter on that machine.

[Toni Wilen]

Strange.. USB product ID is different. It looks like they are physically different (different revision?) or driver for some reason changes the device id? Or did you use different controller? If it is same controller, then it must be something to do with drivers.

WinUAE uses this string to match the devices (with the local part '#{xxx}' stripped) and finally it uses device label.

RAWHID: 0/8 0 'Wireless Controller' ('\\?\HID#VID_054C&PID_09CC&MI_03#8&cf80527&0&0000#{4d1e55b2-f16f-11cf-88cb-001111000030}')

vs

RAWHID: 0/11 0 'Wireless Controller' ('\\?\HID#VID_054C&PID_05C4#9&f5ae99c&0&0000#{4d1e55b2-f16f-11cf-88cb-001111000030}')

[A500+]

In this instance I may have used a different controller, yes. I can't remember. So that might explain the difference in product ID.

However both controllers work fine on the laptop and neither of them work at all on the desktop.

Both work fine in other applications (e.g. Steam games) on both machines.

I should be back at my desktop PC tomorrow so I'll repeat the test making sure to use the same controller and then I'll check the product IDs on both machines and see what's what.

I don't know what drivers are in use so there could be a difference there - I just let Windows install the drivers on both machines and presumed they'd be the same but perhaps not. I'll have a look and see what driver version is being used on each machine.

[A500+]

Okay so I repeated the test making sure to use the same controller on both machines and here are the respective Product ID strings:

On the desktop:

RAWHID: 0/8 0 'Wireless Controller' ('\\?\HID#VID_054C&PID_05C4#7&83fa01b&0&0000#{4d1e55b2-f16f-11cf-88cb-001111000030}')

On the laptop:

RAWHID: 0/11 0 'Wireless Controller' ('\\?\HID#VID_054C&PID_05C4#9&f5ae99c&0&0000#{4d1e55b2-f16f-11cf-88cb-001111000030}')

So, the exact same controller but two different IDs?

Checking the driver details both machines appear to be using exactly the same driver. It's a Microsoft provided driver with date 21/06/2006 version 10.0.19041.2251.

Could it be something to do with the laptop using USB C and the desktop using USB 3.0? I know this is a Windows issue so not a problem with WinUAE but I'd be curious to know the reason for this if anyone has any ideas?

Also, is there perhaps a way WinUAE can be made to identify a controller by its type, rather than specific device/product ID? For example it would treat all DS4 controllers as a DS4 controller, all XBox One controllers as an XBox One controller etc?

Both machines recognise the controller as a DS4 controller in Steam for example, so I assume it's possible in some way (though I appreciate maybe not in WinUAE).

I'm not asking you to actually implement something like that just for me of course, rather asking out curiosity and perhaps as a wish-list feature for a future update. I'm sure others would find it useful to be able to for example map one DS4 (or whatever) controller and then have that same config work with any controller of the same type that happens to be plugged in going forward.

[Toni Wilen]

I don't want to detect any specific game controller types because I don't want to keep supporting any kind of device lists. Everything should be as generic as it can be.

But this was basically a bug, device matching (config file vs what system has) was not done if device had no Input panel input mappings. Which it usually does not have if it is a game controller configured using Game Ports panel. I also added partial match support (if whole unique device name does not match, check only part of it and finally only vendor id and product id)

Does https://www.winuae.net/files/b/winuae.7z fix it?

[A500+]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I don't want to detect any specific game controller types because I don't want to keep supporting any kind of device lists. Everything should be as generic as it can be.

That's fair enough.

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

But this was basically a bug, device matching (config file vs what system has) was not done if device had no Input panel input mappings. Which it usually does not have if it is a game controller configured using Game Ports panel. I also added partial match support (if whole unique device name does not match, check only part of it and finally only vendor id and product id)

Does https://www.winuae.net/files/b/winuae.7z fix it?

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have fixed it, no. Both controllers still work on the laptop and neither work on the desktop.

I'm not sure if it helps or not but I looked at the Device ID's for both controllers on both machines and they appear like so:

Controller 1

Desktop:

RAWHID: 0/8 0 'Wireless Controller' ('\\?\HID#VID_054C&PID_09CC&MI_03#8&cf80527&0&0000#{4d1e55b2-f16f-11cf-88cb-001111000030}')

Laptop:

RAWHID: 0/11 0 'Wireless Controller' ('\\?\HID#VID_054C&PID_09CC&MI_03#a&52a4a15&0&0000#{4d1e55b2-f16f-11cf-88cb-001111000030}')

Controller 2

Desktop:

RAWHID: 0/8 0 'Wireless Controller' ('\\?\HID#VID_054C&PID_05C4#7&83fa01b&0&0000#{4d1e55b2-f16f-11cf-88cb-001111000030}')

Laptop:

RAWHID: 0/11 0 'Wireless Controller' ('\\?\HID#VID_054C&PID_05C4#9&f5ae99c&0&0000#{4d1e55b2-f16f-11cf-88cb-001111000030}')

Both controllers work interchangeably on the laptop and both work simultaneously using a 2 player config on the laptop.

Neither work in either scenario on the desktop.

I originally mapped the controls on the laptop so at some point as soon as I get chance I'll try mapping them on the desktop and then seeing if they work with that same config on the laptop 'out of the box'. Not sure what it'll achieve but worth a try I suppose.

Thanks for your help with this, I really appreciate it.

[Toni Wilen]

I found another problem related to game ports panel custom mapping and device indexes changing. Probably causes this problem. Fix later this week..

[A500+]

Okay cool. Nice work. I'll happily test it for you and feed back when it's ready

[Toni Wilen]

New attempt, same url (make sure winuae.exe is dated at least today).

If it still does not work correctly, attach both winuaebootlog.txt again.

[A500+]

Will do. I'm not going to be near my Desktop to test until tomorrow but I'll post back here with the results when I can.

[A500+]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

New attempt, same url (make sure winuae.exe is dated at least today).

If it still does not work correctly, attach both winuaebootlog.txt again.

Unfortunately it still doesn't work. Same issue persists. I've attached the new bootlogs.

[Toni Wilen]

Logs are from official 4.10. Did you copy wrong winuae.exe?

[A500+]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Logs are from official 4.10. Did you copy wrong winuae.exe?

Nope. Double-checked the exe and it's the one modified on 10/01/2023. I may have uploaded the wrong logs though, sorry!

New logs attached. For completeness I've attached logs for both controllers (pad 1 and pad 2) from both machines.

According to this page VID_054C&PID_05C4 is DS4 revision CUH-ZCT1x and VID_054C&PID_09CC is DS4 revision CUH-ZCT2x.

Just for clarity, because I'm not sure it's obvious from my previous posts, I mapped only one DS4 to that config on the laptop but both controller revisions work with it. So somehow WinUAE on the laptop is matching either DS4 regardless of whether it is the one originally used to create the mapping, but on the desktop is matching neither of them.

[Toni Wilen]

These are from correct version but for some reason there are no expected log messages.

Could you run winuae without any command line parameters, then load your config manually (using Configurations panel normally), then check the config (GamePorts panel, remap/test). Exit. Attach log. No need to start the emulation.

Attach also your config file.

(I am going to fix this even if it takes days because this is feature that was supposed to work years ago..)

[A500+]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

(I am going to fix this even if it takes days because this is feature that was supposed to work years ago..)

I admire your dedication to squashing bugs and constantly improving WinUAE. Props to you. Not that there's much I can do but I'll help with this one in any way I can.

New logs attached. I hope I've got the right end of the stick - I launched the latest winaue.exe (which I renamed to winuae-new.exe to avoid confusion on my part) with no command line params, then loaded the config manually, then went to the game ports panel and selected remap/test and tested the pad, then did the same in the inputs panel, then quit and grabbed the logfile.

I did this for each pad on each machine using the same .exe and config.

Logs and config are attached. Let me know if you need anything else or if I got anything wrong and I'll have another go.

[Toni Wilen]

Thanks. There is still something strange going on.
There should be lines like these before "Log (disabled)"..

parse_custom port -1, 'k.0.b.54.0=JOY2_2ND_BUTTON k.0.b.157.0=JOY2_FIRE_BUTTON.....

Both custom configs should get listed at least twice. This is the part where custom config is loaded (and now also "fixed" if input devices have changed since config was saved).

Lines do appear here when I load your config file. (Also lines are not new, they have been logged since custom entries were implemented which makes this even more stranger..)

Did you exit WinUAE before copying the log? It might not be fully flushed to the disk if WinUAE is still running.

Do you see "missing" log messages if you start winuae with -log command line parameter ("winuae.exe -log").

When you load the config on "wrong pc", do you still see both custom configs in gameports panel but events are mapped to wrong controller or are missing when checking remap/test window?

Only one log from non-working PC is ok. (Unless I specifically request others)

[A500+]

Okay yeah that's weird. Is it anything to do with the 'Enable full logging' checkbox in the 'Paths' panel? Because it's currently unchecked but when I check it it seems to uncheck itself again (next time I launch WinUAE) and I can't seem to get it to stick. Not sure if related or not but thought it might be worth mentioning.

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Did you exit WinUAE before copying the log? It might not be fully flushed to the disk if WinUAE is still running.

Yeah I quit before copying the log.

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Do you see "missing" log messages if you start winuae with -log command line parameter ("winuae.exe -log").

Yes. I just tried launching with the -log parameter and the output includes a lot more information than winuaebootlog.txt does. I copied it from the console to a .txt file so I'll attach it here - NOTE: This is from the 'working' machine (the laptop) but without any controller plugged in so it's not going to help with the issue at hand but I wanted to check if it's the full log info or not so figured I'd attach it.

Might it be something to do with the way I've configured WinUAE? I was learning as I went (still am) so I may have messed something up somewhere.

Would it be worth starting with a fresh copy using a quickstart config and nothing else changed, then mapping the controls and seeing if it works as it should, or at least whether or not the logging is working correctly, or would that likely confuse the issue?

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

When you load the config on "wrong pc", do you still see both custom configs in gameports panel but events are mapped to wrong controller or are missing when checking remap/test window?

From memory they're missing but I'll double-check that for you. I'm not at home right now but should be back in front of my desktop machine tomorrow so I'll check then.