GameInput device appears twice, no way to deduplicate

[AshleyScirra]

Hi folks - I have an issue with GameInput on Windows and can't seem to find anywhere better to post this, so here I am.

I have an Xbox One Elite controller. If I call RegisterDeviceCallback(nullptr, GameInputKindGamepad, GameInputDeviceConnected, ...) with the gamepad already connected (via wire), the callback immediately fires twice: once for "Xbox One Game Controller", and one for "Xbox One Elite Controller".

What I want to do is support multiple connected gamepads, spawning an in-game player per connected gamepad. So I need a way to know that these devices are the same physical gamepad so I don't spawn two players for one gamepad.

However this doesn't appear to be possible. If I get GameInputDeviceInfo for each device representing the same physical device, virtually all the details are different: the deviceId, deviceRootId, hardwareVersion, firmwareVersion, containerId, displayName and pnpPath are all different. My only option seems to be to deduplicate based on vendorId, productId, and revisionNumber. But what if someone connects two of the same gamepad models? This approach will presumably fail to detect the second physical gamepad if it happens to have the same values for vendorId, productId and revisionNumber.

I thought maybe only one of these devices will send readings. But calling GetCurrentReading() with a null device returns input for both devices! Worse, if you call it once per poll with a null device, the returned device seems to randomly change as buttons are depressed and released.

So it seems my only options are:

1. Give up on multiple gamepad support and only support a single physical gamepad
2. Give up on GameInput and go back to something like XInput (which I tested and does not have this problem)

Is it really not possible to reliably support multiple physical gamepads with GameInput? Ideally there would be a new device info property like physicalDeviceId that would allow reliably deduplicating gamepads.

[AlexYatskov]

Hi @AshleyScirra , you should not be getting duplicate devices in your scenario. I've tried to reproduce this, but I'm only getting one controller. Would you be able to capture a trace for us? That should help me figure out what is going wrong here.

If you start the capture before running your application and stop it after all devices enumerate, we should get a better idea of what is going on here. Please make sure there is only one controller connected while doing this.

CaptureGameInputLogs.cmd.txt

Thanks!

[AshleyScirra]

I captured a trace which covers just starting the app, obtaining GameInput, calling RegisterDeviceCallback, and then logging the device details. Here's the trace: gameinput-issue112-trace.zip

The logged output for me was the following (with only one physical controller attached). This logs the displayName followed by the deviceId displayed as a hex string.

[GameInput] Device connected: 'Xbox One Game Controller' (00823f7facfde729895e5a7c41a8fa94fb1e834df2e7fd6c66720e665db0121a)
[GameInput] Device connected: 'Xbox One Elite Controller' (02ff978140019fc3aaf9cae1493b948d6798d5b95746828b98433aa8fe2814cd)

[AlexYatskov]

@AshleyScirra thank you for the logs, they were very helpful.

It appears that we are getting the same device over two different interfaces; could you please let me know the number of buttons reported for you on each of the devices (in the controller info).

[AshleyScirra]

Sure, the results I get are:

"Xbox One Elite Controller": controllerAxisCount 6, controllerButtonCount 14, controllerSwitchCount 0

"Xbox One Game Controller": controllerAxisCount 6, controllerButtonCount 18, controllerSwitchCount 0

I double-checked this - it's definitely the "Xbox One Game Controller" that has a higher button count, not the "Xbox One Elite Controller".

[AlexYatskov]

@AshleyScirra thanks -- this confirms my theory here, we will have a fix for this in the next release.

[AlexYatskov]

One last question -- are you on a preview/insider build of Windows of any kind or just general audience?

[AshleyScirra]

I'm not using any preview/insider build, just the general audience version of Windows 11. winver says Version 25H2 (OS Build 26200.7840).

Do you have any idea when that next release will be out? It'd be nice to know so we can update our code, as currently our workaround is to only support a single gamepad.

[AlexYatskov]

Hey @AshleyScirra , I've just pushed a 3.2.138.0 hotfix to NuGet, which should fix the issue you are seeing. Thanks for reporting this, it was an issue specific to your specific revision of the elite controller.

[AshleyScirra]

Thanks for the quick turnaround. However I'm afraid after updating to Microsoft.GameInput v3.2.138, rebuilding all, and re-testing, the issue still reproduces the same as before. (The controllerButtonCount are also the same as before.)

[AlexYatskov]

Did you run the included installer? Please verify that GameInputRedist.dll in system32 has been updated to 3.2.138.0. With the fix, you should still see the button counts as before, but no longer get duplicate devices.