17 replies to this topic

[fhjui]

I have an unusual effect concerning the game controller properties of KL25z controllers in windows.

I noticed the whole thing when configuring Nudge for VP and Future Pinball. Nudge works so far, thats not the problem.

That means, if the game controller properties are displayed using the joy.cpl, the properties are incomplete shown/found depending on the PC and the Controller.

But not uniform, one controller is fine on one PC, not on the other.

 

I have evaluated this behaviour with my 3 KL25z-boards on my 3 PCs

• All 3 controllers have the recent firmware and the same configuration
• PCs have W10 21H2. Display language is English
• When the properties are wrong:
  • then in the test-tab the axis cross is missing
  • in the settings-tab the calibrate buttion is greyed out (no, I don't want to do win-calibration, only an info)
  • only 7 Buttons are recognized in the buttons field
    
• when doing a cross check using DOFLinx with its joystick-test, in case of the controller with the missing properties, no acc.sensor values are recognized and no position values, all fields are complete dead
• But nudge in FP works
• when checking with the old DXTweak2 programm from Logitec, the sensor values of the axis are shown and ok.

 

Here is the table with the result of my tests.

 

 

perhaps one can explain to me what happens there.

I don't trust a system with such inconsistent behavior.

[mjr]

Have a look at "Buttons/axes are missing in joystick control panel" here:

 

http://mjrnet.org/pi...troubleshooting

 

That should get you fixed up.

[fhjui]

many thanks, mjr, for your answer.

yes, deletion of the faulty reg-keys fixes that issue.

I didn't expect that this part would be covered in your excellent build guide.

My fault, sorry for that

[NicoB]

I cannot make sense of an issue that I believe share the same root cause as the one mentioned in this post.

I have explored, tested, failed and asked questions on forums but couldn't find a fix to my controller issue. I now hope I have found the right place/persons to ask for help and figure this out.

 

Symptom:

The Windows game controller properties appear to be inconsistent, which I beileve prevents FX3 from "seeing" my buttons.

 

System:

OS: Windows 10

Pinscape: 2021-12-22-2148

KL25Z mounted on a RigMaster

X360CE_x86 : 3.2.10.82

VPX: 10.7.2

 

My system was fully functional, with all buttons properly assigned and mapped, until I completely lost my buttons on FX3 and also for Popper navigation (but buttons remained OK in VPX). This was most likely triggered by some modifications I brought to my system but I could not isolate which one was the culprit.

Anyway I managed to recover my buttons for navigating popper menus after following mjr's recipe on cleaning Windows' cache in the registry (Thanks a bunch mjr for this!!). FX3 remains however blind to my buttons even though X360CE is located in the root folder of the FX3 executable.

 

Inconsistency:

Launching the command joy.cpl and clicking on Pinscape Controller properties gives me the expected window with all 32 buttons and axes, all responsive (as in fhjui's post above).

Now clicking the bottom left button in X360CE "Game Controllers" gives me the nonsense Pinscape Controller properties with the 7 buttons and no axes.

 

 

That being said, when mapping my buttons in X360CE, it is clear that X360CE sees the buttons being activated (buttons lit up in X360CE graphical interface), so X360CE and Pinscape are communicating fine.

However, FX3 is not able to pick up button actions, likely by lack of communication between components of my system. 

I fail to understand where the problem stems from. 

Please let me know if you have ideas of what I can try out to get this fixed, or if you would need more information/log.

Thank you.

[Tesla]

 

Symptom:

The Windows game controller properties appear to be inconsistent, which I believe prevents FX3 from "seeing" my buttons.

 

System:

OS: Windows 10

Pinscape: 2021-12-22-2148

KL25Z mounted on a RigMaster

X360CE_x86 : 3.2.10.82

VPX: 10.7.2

 

My system was fully functional, with all buttons properly assigned and mapped, until I completely lost my buttons on FX3 and also for Popper navigation (but buttons remained OK in VPX). This was most likely triggered by some modifications I brought to my system but I could not isolate which one was the culprit.

Anyway I managed to recover my buttons for navigating popper menus after following mjr's recipe on cleaning Windows' cache in the registry (Thanks a bunch mjr for this!!). FX3 remains however blind to my buttons even though X360CE is located in the root folder of the FX3 executable.

 

Inconsistency:

1. Launching the command joy.cpl and clicking on Pinscape Controller properties gives me the expected window with all 32 buttons and axes, all responsive (as in fhjui's post above).

 

2. Now clicking the bottom left button in X360CE "Game Controllers" gives me the nonsense Pinscape Controller properties with the 7 buttons and no axes.

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the forum. I'm kinda new here also.

 

1. Good.

 

2. If just running VPX, why are you loading and using X360CE is the first-place? AFAIK, it is not required.

[NicoB]

2. If just running VPX, why are you loading and using X360CE is the first-place? AFAIK, it is not required.

 

 

 

You're absolutely right, VPX does not need X360CE, but FX3 does. Note that there is no running of X360CE in-game, you just need to have the appropriate X360CE-related files in the root directory of FX3.

 

I feel that my issue is related to some Windows behaviour that I don't understand, hence my call for help.

Edited by NicoB, 02 March 2024 - 09:30 PM.

[fhjui]

It is not necessary to use x360ce neither for vpx nor for FX3. It may be necessary in case of arcade games in conjunction with game controller.

[Tesla]

 

2. If just running VPX, why are you loading and using X360CE is the first-place? AFAIK, it is not required.

 

 

 

You're absolutely right, VPX does not need X360CE, but FX3 does. Note that there is no running of X360CE in-game, you just need to have the appropriate X360CE-related files in the root directory of FX3.

 

 

 

I don't run FX3 on my VPX-cabinet.

 

I suggest you Uninstall X360CE (or otherwise completely prevent it from starting).

 

If Pinscaped KL25Z runs properly with VPX, then you have a FX3-issue.

 

A possible work-around for FX3 might be to just boot the Windows-computer up 2-different ways. 

[NicoB]

It is not necessary to use x360ce neither for vpx nor for FX3. It may be necessary in case of arcade games in conjunction with game controller.

 

Oh! That would be great to NOT need X360CE, or any other controller emulator, to play FX3 on my cabinet.
I personally never came across such a setup where a controller emulator is not needed.

Could you recommend a recipe/tutorial to setup FX3 so that it recognises my buttons straight from Pinscape/KL25Z?

 

I don't run FX3 on my VPX-cabinet.

 

I suggest you Uninstall X360CE (or otherwise completely prevent it from starting).

 

If Pinscaped KL25Z runs properly with VPX, then you have a FX3-issue.

 

A possible work-around for FX3 might be to just boot the Windows-computer up 2-different ways. 

 

 

The Pinscape/KL25Z runs indeed properly in the cabinet, so the trouble is with the FX3-X360CE element. I'm mentioning explicitly the X360CE element as a part of the problem because of the unexpected behaviour when opening the Controller properties from X360CE (the 7 useless button issue).

 

Could you please elaborate on your suggestion to boot the computer 2 different ways? While this option would not be practical (rebooting each time I switch from VPX to FX3 tables), this might help me figure out the root cause of the issue.

[digitalarts]

You can try antimicroX instead of x360ce

[Tesla]

 

It is not necessary to use x360ce neither for vpx nor for FX3. It may be necessary in case of arcade games in conjunction with game controller.

 

Oh! That would be great to NOT need X360CE, or any other controller emulator, to play FX3 on my cabinet.
I personally never came across such a setup where a controller emulator is not needed.

Could you recommend a recipe/tutorial to setup FX3 so that it recognises my buttons straight from Pinscape/KL25Z?

I don't run FX3 on my VPX-cabinet.

 

I suggest you Uninstall X360CE (or otherwise completely prevent it from starting).

 

If Pinscaped KL25Z runs properly with VPX, then you have a FX3-issue.

 

A possible work-around for FX3 might be to just boot the Windows-computer up 2-different ways. 

 

 

1. The Pinscape/KL25Z runs indeed properly in the cabinet, so the trouble is with the FX3-X360CE element. 

 

2. Could you please elaborate on your suggestion to boot the computer 2 different ways? While this option would not be practical (rebooting each time I switch from VPX to FX3 tables), this might help me figure out the root cause of the issue.

 

 

1. Thanks for confirming what I expected. So I suggest you then don't really be looking toward Pinscape code, KL25Z, or VPX in your troubleshooting ... they work fine.

I've found that VPX systems that are setup lean-and-simple play the best and prettiest with good FPS.

 

2. Yes, for trouble-shooting your FX3 and X360CE issue. 

 

You simply allow the computer to boot without X360CE loading sometimes for running VPX properly.

 

Other times, you can allow X360CE to load-and-run for running FX3.

Just a work-around to

- aid in troubleshooting

- allow you to play both properly now

 

Back when I was using JoyToKey (a similar tool) ... I seem to remember having option-control over it's resident-loading or not. Now that I only run VPX on my cabinet (with Pinscaped-KL25Z) I have uninstalled JoyToKey.

Edited by Tesla, 04 March 2024 - 05:41 PM.

[NicoB]

 

 

1. Thanks for confirming what I expected. So I suggest you then don't really be looking toward Pinscape code, KL25Z, or VPX in your troubleshooting ... they work fine.

I've found that VPX systems that are setup lean-and-simple play the best and prettiest with good FPS.

 

2. Yes, for trouble-shooting your FX3 and X360CE issue. 

 

You simply allow the computer to boot without X360CE loading sometimes for running VPX properly.

 

Other times, you can allow X360CE to load-and-run for running FX3.

Just a work-around to

- aid in troubleshooting

- allow you to play both properly now

 

Back when I was using JoyToKey (a similar tool) ... I seem to remember having option-control over it's resident-loading or not. Now that I only run VPX on my cabinet (with Pinscaped-KL25Z) I have uninstalled JoyToKey.

 

 

Thank you Tesla.

Just for clarity, as I understand it, X360CE does not 'run' during games and it is not launched at boot time. X360CE is an application that you run once to generate DLL files. These DLL files are located in the root folder of the game you're playing to convert you controller inputs into Xinput format for your game. 

So if I don't want to have X360CE involved with my FX3 gaming, I would simply remove all X360CE-related files from the FX3 root folder.

I would therefore say that the dual-boot idea is not gonna help me in that particular case. Thanks anyway.

[mjr]

NicoB - it sounds like you've got things working on the Pinscape side, so my guess is that it's something in that xbox adapter software's configuration.  The "7 button" thing makes me think that maybe you have an old duplicate DirectInput registry entry that the xbox software is using as its source instead of the live one. There are two things I can think of to try, both kind of the standard Tech Support Grasping-At-Straws approaches of just trying to reset things to a clean configuration:

 

1. Uninstall the xbox software and reinstall it.  Maybe that'll clear whatever old/bad cache data it's using, if that is indeed the problem.

 

2. Repeat the Pinscape joystick troubleshooting procedure with the HKEY_CURRENT_USER ... DirectInput key, but just erase ALL of the sub-keys under there.  If the xbox software is reading from an old defunct key, that will hopefully get rid of it and make it look in the right place again.

 

These are just guesses based on the symptoms you describe - I don't know how that xbox software works internally so there might be something entirely unrelated that's tripping it up.  But hopefully it won't do any harm to try to reset things with these steps.

[NicoB]

 

NicoB - it sounds like you've got things working on the Pinscape side, so my guess is that it's something in that xbox adapter software's configuration.  The "7 button" thing makes me think that maybe you have an old duplicate DirectInput registry entry that the xbox software is using as its source instead of the live one. There are two things I can think of to try, both kind of the standard Tech Support Grasping-At-Straws approaches of just trying to reset things to a clean configuration:

 

1. Uninstall the xbox software and reinstall it.  Maybe that'll clear whatever old/bad cache data it's using, if that is indeed the problem.

 

2. Repeat the Pinscape joystick troubleshooting procedure with the HKEY_CURRENT_USER ... DirectInput key, but just erase ALL of the sub-keys under there.  If the xbox software is reading from an old defunct key, that will hopefully get rid of it and make it look in the right place again.

 

These are just guesses based on the symptoms you describe - I don't know how that xbox software works internally so there might be something entirely unrelated that's tripping it up.  But hopefully it won't do any harm to try to reset things with these steps.

 

 

Thanks a lot mjr for your insight. I also suspect that some cache is outdated or has been corrupted one way or another, but not being a Windows expert (more on the Mac/Linux side of things), I am unsure how to proceed.

I am currently on travel, no access to the machine.

I have already uninstalled/reinstalled FX3 and X360CE once, but the issue remains.

I will try to understand how registry/cache works on Windows to minimise the risk that I break anything but deleting registry keys still feels like a risky thing to do.

I'll search the web, but just in case: do you know how to trace all registry keys related to a specific software? I did browse the registry by eye already, but there are so many!!

[mjr]

> do you know how to trace all registry keys related to a specific software?

 

That's not possible even in theory, I'm afraid.  The registry doesn't have any concept of who owns a key; they're just global variables.  It's up to each piece of software to use sufficiently unique names.  

[Tesla]

 

 

 

1. Thanks for confirming what I expected. So I suggest you then don't really be looking toward Pinscape code, KL25Z, or VPX in your troubleshooting ... they work fine.

I've found that VPX systems that are setup lean-and-simple play the best and prettiest with good FPS.

 

2. Yes, for trouble-shooting your FX3 and X360CE issue. 

 

You simply allow the computer to boot without X360CE loading sometimes for running VPX properly.

 

Other times, you can allow X360CE to load-and-run for running FX3.

Just a work-around to

- aid in troubleshooting

- allow you to play both properly now

 

Back when I was using JoyToKey (a similar tool) ... I seem to remember having option-control over it's resident-loading or not. Now that I only run VPX on my cabinet (with Pinscaped-KL25Z) I have uninstalled JoyToKey.

 

 

1. So if I don't want to have X360CE involved with my FX3 gaming, I would simply remove all X360CE-related files from the FX3 root folder.

 

2. I would therefore say that the dual-boot idea is not gonna help me in that particular case. Thanks anyway.

 

 

1. Great. then your VPX install will work properly.

 

2. Sounds like you just need a batch file, but whatever you say.

 

I also suggest you look into the inner-workings of that X360CE software because I've never heard of software

... that interferes with other software

... without being run or loaded into memory.

 

Just sayin. 

[NicoB]

I'm completely lost...
I've tried so many different ways to fix this, in vain.

I've now also installed Pinball FX but I still cannot make X360CE work properly, and FX does not see my buttons directly through Pinscape (is PFX using DirectInput or XInput?). I only managed to configure the Steam Input Controller to play FX with my buttons. However I can't get the analog nudge through the Steam Input Controller, as far as I understand.

I've also installed Future Pinball, but once again my buttons are acting weird. Only the right flipper and exit buttons seem to have an action, all the others are useless. Even my keyboard on FP behaves with the same weirdness.

And of course FX3 still does not see any of my buttons.

That being said, VPX remains fully functional with my buttons.

I'm at a loss here. It doesn't make any sense!!

 

I am now tempted, but reluctant, to start the full install all over again from scratch (even Windows!). As my buttons used to work with FX3 earlier this year, I hope I can find again a working setup.

But before I go for the brute-force-tedious-approach-that-may-be-won't-even-fix-the-issue, I wanted to ask if any of you guys have an idea of what would cause such a mess with my buttons, I am all ears on your detective work!

Thank you!

Edited by NicoB, 18 March 2024 - 04:43 PM.

[NicoB]

Hi there,
I ended up re-installing my entire system from scratch, including an upgrade to Windows 11, but the issue remained: X360CE seems to communicate fine with Pinscape and Windows 'sees' the virtual controller. However PFX3 still does not react at all to my buttons.
So I tried another tool called  XOutput (https://github.com/c...Output/tree/3.x), and this worked like a charm. I could configure and fine tune it for the analog nudge and I eventually managed to tilt the cab in PFX3. So it's working beautifully.
I hope this work around will help others who are having trouble with X360CE.