What dongle do people use with an Xbox 360 controller to connect it to a PC?

[Johnny T]

Hi all,

My son in law has given me an old Xbox 360 controller.

Firstly, is this the best all round controller for the older systems that require a controller such as Playstation 1 / 2, Dreamcast, N64 etc?

Secondly, I've read that I need a wireless dongle in order to get it connected to my PC but I've found a few different types online. I only want this controller for certain emulators via BigBox so I wondered if anyone had any tried and tested recommendations?

Thanks for all your help

?

[damageinc86]

7 hours ago, Johnny T said:

Hi all,

My son in law has given me an old Xbox 360 controller.

Firstly, is this the best all round controller for the older systems that require a controller such as Playstation 1 / 2, Dreamcast, N64 etc?

Secondly, I've read that I need a wireless dongle in order to get it connected to my PC but I've found a few different types online. I only want this controller for certain emulators via BigBox so I wondered if anyone had any tried and tested recommendations?

Thanks for all your help

?

I'm still trying to find an answer to whether or not windows changes the joyid once you turn the wireless controller off and back on.  Because then mapping it to an emulator is useless, as the mappings won't apply next time it's turned on if it happens to not land on the right order. 

[kotakid94]

It works pretty well with most emulators I have tried

I am using an old receiver I bought online awhile back. It isn't the official Microsoft one so you have to set it up differently because windows 10 broke the Chinese knockoffs. https://medium.com/@etarantulo/how-to-install-drivers-for-xbox-360-chinese-wireless-receiver-af0e6a98387f This is the guide I used to install mine. I tried a different YouTube video but they never went into the fact you could turn off testing mode. And I am pretty sure it doesn't change the joyid because I turn mine on and off all the time without remapping.

[Johnny T]

13 hours ago, kotakid94 said:

It works pretty well with most emulators I have tried

I am using an old receiver I bought online awhile back. It isn't the official Microsoft one so you have to set it up differently because windows 10 broke the Chinese knockoffs. https://medium.com/@etarantulo/how-to-install-drivers-for-xbox-360-chinese-wireless-receiver-af0e6a98387f This is the guide I used to install mine. I tried a different YouTube video but they never went into the fact you could turn off testing mode. And I am pretty sure it doesn't change the joyid because I turn mine on and off all the time without remapping.

That's great news! And thanks for the link! I ordered this https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B076GZ261P/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 after I read your reply and it's arriving tomorrow.

I'll go through the guide and hopefully get things set up.

Thanks again for your help. Very much appreciated ?

[Headrush69]

17 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

I'm still trying to find an answer to whether or not windows changes the joyid once you turn the wireless controller off and back on.  Because then mapping it to an emulator is useless, as the mappings won't apply next time it's turned on if it happens to not land on the right order. 

If you're using Retroarch it doesn't matter as it reorders controllers automatically, and MAME allows you to set up static IDs. If you are using standalone emulators, devreorder is a god send.

I use it with a small AHK to swap ini files so only specific controllers are seen per emulator. With LB's ability to run additional apps before the emulator, just swap in the right ini file and no issues and can "fake" force static IDs.

 

[damageinc86]

On 9/12/2020 at 5:06 AM, Headrush69 said:

If you're using Retroarch it doesn't matter as it reorders controllers automatically, and MAME allows you to set up static IDs. If you are using standalone emulators, devreorder is a god send.

I use it with a small AHK to swap ini files so only specific controllers are seen per emulator. With LB's ability to run additional apps before the emulator, just swap in the right ini file and no issues and can "fake" force static IDs.

 

Yeah I heard about devreorder, but couldn't get anything to influence anything.  So I gave up. 

[Headrush69]

10 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

Yeah I heard about devreorder, but couldn't get anything to influence anything.  So I gave up. 

Did you try installing it system wide? The instructions can be confusing if you don’t follow it exactly. It does work though and can help with make dealing with some input device issues easier. 
 

 

[damageinc86]

56 minutes ago, Headrush69 said:

Did you try installing it system wide? The instructions can be confusing if you don’t follow it exactly. It does work though and can help with make dealing with some input device issues easier. 
 

 

Well, I honestly could be too dumb to understand it.  But I just opened it up and moved things around, and none of my emulators saw the new order.  So I don't know anything past that.  It was probably a year ago.  Have they made any updates lately?

[Headrush69]

No real updates, but didn’t really need any.

Sounds like you didn’t have it set up right. If you every want to try again, help is available. Depending on your number of devices, which emulators you are using, and how you want it to work, might not even be needed.

Since I have a cabinet I over engineer it and hide all extra devices when not needed even if not required. I don’t want any issues or problems from a future Windows update, or emulator upgrade that might screw up my cabinet from being config free for the users.

 

[Johnny T]

On 9/19/2020 at 5:50 AM, damageinc86 said:

Yeah I heard about devreorder, but couldn't get anything to influence anything.  So I gave up. 

I didn't to "install" anything as such. I just altered the .ini file to ignore all the devices I didn't want to use and then dropped the .ini file and another file (haven't got it in front of me at the moment but it might have been a .dll file) into the emulator folder with the emulator exe (in my case it was Retroarch for my Atari 2600 emulator) and it worked a treat. 

Previously, when I started the Atari 2600 I had loads of stuff pop up saying "Found 12 way rotary joystick" "Found blah blah"... but after putting the devreorder files in it just says "Found Microsoft xbox 360 controller". It's a brilliant bit of software - albeit completely different to configure than anything else I've seen ?

[damageinc86]

11 hours ago, Johnny T said:

I didn't to "install" anything as such. I just altered the .ini file to ignore all the devices I didn't want to use and then dropped the .ini file and another file (haven't got it in front of me at the moment but it might have been a .dll file) into the emulator folder with the emulator exe (in my case it was Retroarch for my Atari 2600 emulator) and it worked a treat. 

Previously, when I started the Atari 2600 I had loads of stuff pop up saying "Found 12 way rotary joystick" "Found blah blah"... but after putting the devreorder files in it just says "Found Microsoft xbox 360 controller". It's a brilliant bit of software - albeit completely different to configure than anything else I've seen ?

Yeah i dropped a dll i think, and an ini file in there.  Nothing.  I must have done something wrong, but it seemed pretty straight forward, so I don't know what I might have done incorrectly.  But, oh well. Maybe someday I'll give it another shot.