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Xbox 360 controllers always in wrong player order on my Arcade control panel?


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I have hacked apart 4 knock-off Xbox 360 controllers I got from eBay ($15 each!) and soldered the connections to my arcade buttons. I highly recommend this as it allows you to not only play emulator games, but a lot of "retro" styled Steam games, including 4 player local multiplayer ones, which go really well on an arcade cabinet! Most people's complaints about the Chinese knock off controllers is the physical buttons etc. may not feel as good (some people don't have any complaints actually) but all I need is the circuit boards and they work great!

 

My only issue is that even though I plugged them in for the first time one at a time, top to bottom in the USB slots, from Player 1, wait till it installed, for each one through to Player 4, Windows 7 seems to have it's own idea of what order they SHOULD be in and sticks to it permanently, no matter what order I plug them in afterwards or what USB slots I put them in.

 

This means in every game and software, eg. RetroArch, or Steam games like Duck Game, Player 1 presses start, and he is Player 2. Player 2 presses start, and he is Player 1. 3 and 4 were swapped in a similar manner.

 

I took my control panel over to another PC (my personal one) which had never seen these controllers, and plugged in each cable in order. This time it worked correctly, all games saw Player 1 as Player 1 etc. Even after a reboot.

 

So back to the arcade PC, I tried many methods online for uninstalling device drivers, nothing seemed to work. Plugged them in and they maintained the SAME wonky order described previously. It's like Windows 7 has recorded the ID of the controller somewhere and decided "This controller is Player 2" etc.

 

So figuring it's something that happens the very first time Windows 7 sees the device, I got around to re-installing windows on the Arcade PC, (which I was going to do anyway to do a HDD swap with another PC). Got windows installed, plugged them in one at a time - I even follow the USB 1, USB 2 etc. labels on my USB hub - same way when I tested it on my personal computer earlier, waiting for each one to install and activate before I move onto the next - and this time, Player 1 shows up as Player 4, Player 2 shows up as Player 3... Player 3 shows up as Player 1 and Player 4 shows up as Player 2!!

 

I'm tearing my hair out now, I just re-installed windows for this and it didn't work, it even got more random. Before, P1, P2 and P3, P4 were swapped in pairs - this time it doesn't make any sense. I have searched so hard online for how you set the player order of Xbox controllers - seems that Microsoft saw fit to build in this feature into their Xbox 360 (where you can directly tell the system what player number you want each controller to appear as) but not Windows.

 

I don't suppose anyone knows how to set the player order of Xbox 360 controllers on PC?

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I have hacked apart 4 knock-off Xbox 360 controllers I got from eBay ($15 each!) and soldered the connections to my arcade buttons. I highly recommend this as it allows you to not only play emulator games, but a lot of "retro" styled Steam games, including 4 player local multiplayer ones, which go really well on an arcade cabinet! Most people's complaints about the Chinese knock off controllers is the physical buttons etc. may not feel as good (some people don't have any complaints actually) but all I need is the circuit boards and they work great!

 

My only issue is that even though I plugged them in for the first time one at a time, top to bottom in the USB slots, from Player 1, wait till it installed, for each one through to Player 4, Windows 7 seems to have it's own idea of what order they SHOULD be in and sticks to it permanently, no matter what order I plug them in afterwards or what USB slots I put them in.

 

This means in every game and software, eg. RetroArch, or Steam games like Duck Game, Player 1 presses start, and he is Player 2. Player 2 presses start, and he is Player 1. 3 and 4 were swapped in a similar manner.

 

I took my control panel over to another PC (my personal one) which had never seen these controllers, and plugged in each cable in order. This time it worked correctly, all games saw Player 1 as Player 1 etc. Even after a reboot.

 

So back to the arcade PC, I tried many methods online for uninstalling device drivers, nothing seemed to work. Plugged them in and they maintained the SAME wonky order described previously. It's like Windows 7 has recorded the ID of the controller somewhere and decided "This controller is Player 2" etc.

 

So figuring it's something that happens the very first time Windows 7 sees the device, I got around to re-installing windows on the Arcade PC, (which I was going to do anyway to do a HDD swap with another PC). Got windows installed, plugged them in one at a time - I even follow the USB 1, USB 2 etc. labels on my USB hub - same way when I tested it on my personal computer earlier, waiting for each one to install and activate before I move onto the next - and this time, Player 1 shows up as Player 4, Player 2 shows up as Player 3... Player 3 shows up as Player 1 and Player 4 shows up as Player 2!!

 

I'm tearing my hair out now, I just re-installed windows for this and it didn't work, it even got more random. Before, P1, P2 and P3, P4 were swapped in pairs - this time it doesn't make any sense. I have searched so hard online for how you set the player order of Xbox controllers - seems that Microsoft saw fit to build in this feature into their Xbox 360 (where you can directly tell the system what player number you want each controller to appear as) but not Windows.

 

I don't suppose anyone knows how to set the player order of Xbox 360 controllers on PC?

 

https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en-id/d/xbox-360-controller-for-windows

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Thanks guys, appreciate the links, but as I said, I searched Google hard for answers, and I've already tried both those pages and many others.

 

I was posting here as a last resort to see if anyone actually knew of this issue and how to resolve it themselves.

 

@dragonlee The drivers linked to simply tell you what player number the controller currently is, it doesn't give you a way to change it

@MarkOZLAD I've already tried all the answers in that thread. Eg. the first one, "Go to Devices and Printers, then Right click and remove" is only available in Windows 10 I'm lead to believe (from reading another page), as there's no option to "remove" in the right click option on Windows 7.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Funnily enough I found the answer after searching hard again, I found it on a page I'd already read but it was one of the posts buried further down in the thread that I'd missed and hadn't tried yet - before you plug it in, hold the HOME button on the controller first, plug it in, then wait till it gets assigned a player, then let go of the HOME button.

 

This forces it to be permanently assigned to the next available slot, so if you do them all in order, this fixes the problem, even after a reboot!

 

Actually I think it also helps if you try to plug them in descending order on your USB ports on your hub, hopefully your hub has them labled as mine does. I had done this earlier but it hadn't made a difference. I did the home button thing but it didn't work right away, then I noticed I had out of order in the ports by accident as well this time (probably frustrated and didn't notice at first), so I put them back in descending order - only once I had done those two things together, the problem was resolved.

 

Hope this helps someone else.

 

This really should be documented by Microsoft somewhere.

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Funnily enough I found the answer after searching hard again, I found it on a page I'd already read but it was one of the posts buried further down in the thread that I'd missed and hadn't tried yet - before you plug it in, hold the HOME button on the controller first, plug it in, then wait till it gets assigned a player, then let go of the HOME button.

 

This forces it to be permanently assigned to the next available slot, so if you do them all in order, this fixes the problem, even after a reboot!

 

Good to know, I have a couple of Xbox 360 Arcade Sticks connected to a Raspberry Pi that I would like to re-order.

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