raza_debug

Since the button works in PinballX but not while VPX is running, the issue is that VPX is taking control of the input and not passing it back to PBX.The clean way to fix this is: Do not map Exit inside VPX. In PinballX Setup map your controller button to Exit Emulator only (not Quit). In VPX make sure the Exit key is set to ESC (default). In PBX confirm that ESC is the key being sent to close the emulator. Also make sure: VPX is not running as administrator (and PBX isn’t either — both should match). In PBX settings “Hide Backglass” and “Hide DMD” are enabled if used. “Launch Before/After” isn’t interfering. If that still doesn’t work, JoyToKey mapping your button to ESC (like you are doing now) is honestly a perfectly fine and reliable solution. Many people use it for exactly this reason.

If it’s saving as joystickDevice=GenericUSBJoystick but the dropdown is blank when you reopen the wizard, that usually means GameEx isn’t actually detecting the device on startup even though the name is still sitting in the ini. First thing I’d check: open Windows “Set up USB Game Controllers” (joy.cpl) and confirm the pad shows up there consistently with the exact same name every time. Some generic USB pads change their reported name or instance ID depending on the port, which breaks GameEx’s binding. Also make sure the controller is plugged in and fully initialized before launching the Setup Wizard or GameEx itself. GameEx only reads available devices at startup it won’t populate the list if the device wasn’t present at launch. If it shows in joy.cpl but not in GameEx, try deleting the joystickDevice line entirely from the ini, save, then reopen the wizard and reselect it. If it still comes back blank, it’s likely a DirectInput issue with that specific generic controller. Xbox controllers work out of the box because they use XInput; a lot of “GenericUSBJoystick” devices are flaky with older DirectInput-based detection. Knowing the exact controller model would help — some of the cheap generic ones are notorious for this behavior.