Older games and multiple controllers?

[Von Due]

I have the Saitek X52 Pro and Pro Flight pedals. However, many of these sims I have will only recognize one so the pedals are left out. Furthermore one game wouldn't accept the throttle axis as throttle but instead reported the slider on the throttle unit as throttle.

Anyone know a solution for this, to get as many axis and the right ones, accepted as possible for these older games? Games include Tie Fighter (I know, throttle is not supported in this title as far as I know but it does support 3 axis), X:Tension, Search & Rescue 4, Hind and Apache ('95).

I have looked at vjoy and ppjoy but neither of these seem to be what I need, a virtual joystick to make multiple USB PC controllers appear as one.

[Von Due]

I know this is a very old post but real life kept me busy. Anyway found a solution that might work for others, if they haven't already figured it out.

1. Get VJoy v2.x
2. Get UJR

Create a virtual stick in VJoy with number of axis and buttons matching those of the real controller combo. Remember to include the POV hat if you have one. I had to pick 1 hat continuous (4 way didn't work and UJR supports 1 hat only)

Run UJR and configure the virtual controller.

Make sure the game uses the virtual stick and not the real ones.

Example of configuration: (VJoy ID 1, X-52 ID 2, Pedals ID 3) (Axis found through trial and error. Your might differ) (VJoy set up with 8 axis and 32 buttons + 1 hat)


Search & Rescue 4:

Virtual Axis, Physical Stick ID, Physical Axis, Comments
1 (X) 2 1 Cyclic x
2 (Y) 2 2 Cyclic y
6 (RZ) 3 4 Rudder pedals
7 (SL0) 2 3 Collective

Under the buttons tab, Auto Configure Stick ID 2.

The Saitek software works perfectly alongside this for programming buttons.

One more example, Total Air War 2.0:

Virtual Axis, Physical Stick ID, Physical Axis, Comments
1 (X) 2 1 Stick x
2 (Y) 2 2 Stick y
3 (Z) 2 3 Throttle
6 (RZ) 3 4 Rudder Pedals

This also works for X:Tension. I have not been able to make it work flawlessly through DOSBox yet. It did work on Apache 95 and will probably work on Hind as well. Might get to it if time allows.

Hope this helps someone facing the same problems getting older games to recognize newer and multiple controllers.