is controller config dependent on other controllers?

Hi, I set up commands for an xbox one controller in dcs, and then later when I plugged in my hotas, the xbox commands were all scrambled, my modifiers were gone. then I set it up again, and now when I opened the game without my hotas connected, the xbox config is all gone again!

what is going on? I don't wanna set it up for the third time just to see it gone again.

does one config depend on the other peripherals? this is really frustrating. it took me way more time to set it up than I'm comfortable to admit.

DCS sees whatever windows tells it is there. When you disco devices and reconnect them you can end up on different addresses. > scrambled

You can save configs on the screen you set configs in DCS, but if Windows gives the device a different address the next time you plug it in, you will still have issues.

this is not a windows problem. my device has the same ID as ever. I just did some troubleshooting and it's definitely a bug. the problem is as follows:

1- I have an xbox one controller connected to the computer, then I open DCS and configure a modifier button on the xbox one controller, then I exit the game.

2- I disconnect my xbox one controller, open DCS and assign any command to any device, such as a keyboard shortcut, while my xbox controller is disconnected. then close DCS

3- When I open DCS again with my xbox controller connected, the modifier button that I set up on step 1 is gone.

so DCS can't keep modifiers stored if you change any commands while that modifier's device is disconnected.

Not at all sure that is a valid test . Yes , controllers do affect one another , as to my knowledge , Windows creates one "virtual" controller out of all plugged in . Unplug one and reboot and Windows creates another "virtual" controller , causing the problems you describe .

I've never seen Windows create a virtual controller by itself. But I don't use that Early Access version that's around for a few years already. Might switch when it finally gets out of that pre-alpha state though. And since I skipped 8(.1), I just know how it behaves in up to 7. The only culprit I know of is the scrambling of the IDs. Early in the 2000s I learned the hard way that I have to disconnect every "game controller" prior to shutdown, reboot or standby/hibernate and replug them all in exactly the same order, exactly the same ports as before to prevent Windows from messing up the ID counts. In some other sims I had my control schemes messed up more than once when Windows did that, most prominently after crashing itself up when I then forgot to unplug everything before attemting to restart it. And I know this problem persists up to 7 at least. But it doesn't affect DCS since it doesn't just call the numbers, but exact hash keys of the devices (praise Celestia for that). Just gets problematic when using UJR/UCR, Autohotkey or other remapping programs. I have fond memories of the Ka-50 trim fix not working anymore due to this and I had to find out again which number my FFB2 was. It switched multiple times...

Could be that the XBox controller is taken as a virtual controller which might get a new hash key after some events though... I have one that came with my CV1, but never used it since I'm used to having the Sixaxis 3 for the cases I need something like that. Like some additional slew/ministicks for the Viggen

DCS is even able to cope with hotplugging, which is totally awesome... I have nightmares of having to restart some other sims after my FFB got killed by a simple Alt-Tab or something popping itself up in the foreground unwantedly (somthing which Win 10 is very good at)

in a perfect world, all usb devices would use unique identifiers, so the operating system could identify them, regardless of which port you use.

but a lot of usb peripherals, manufactures reuse the same VID/PID identifiers and skip the device serial number.since it’s easier and cheaper that way, and we base our purchase decisions on price.

thus...

Houston! we have a problem.