I have two different game controllers, I’m providing the links to show what they look like but one is a thrustmaster t flight stick joystick https://www.thrustmaster.com/products/t-flight-stick-x/ and the other is a generic usb gamepad like this one https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1WLWRn0rJ8KJjSspaq6xuKpXaI/USB-Wired-Joypad-Gamepad-Joystick-Controller-For-PC-Win-7-8-XP-Double-Shock-Gamepad-For.jpg.
When I played a dos game with my joystick everything works as it should, but when I plugged my gamepad into my computer as well as my joystick suddenly the buttons on my joystick start doing different things. It seemed as if the joystick buttons were acting as a second HAT switch (the little directional knob on the top of the joystick and button 1 and 2 (trigger and button on top next to HAT) weren’t behaving like they normally do in the game.
I think retroarch got the game controllers mixed up somehow so it was reading the inputs from my joystick but was treating my joystick like it was a gamepad (I think because the gamepad has two directional sticks retroarch saw that as two HAT switches and assigned my joystick buttons to the second HAT function). I also assumed the issue was that when the joystick was alone it was game controller #1 and when I added the gamepad it was downgraded to #2 and that caused retroarch to get the two confused.
I tried changing the “mapped port” and “device type” around in Main Menu/Quick Menu/Controls/Port 1 controls but that didn’t seem to help. Instead I just unplugged the gamepad. Later when I tried that again to see if the problem was still there it wasn’t.
The problem seems to have disappeared but I do want to know what happened and if it happens again I really don’t want to keep plugging and unplugging things in my usb ports, it’s bad for the ports and wears them down.