Joystick Mapping To Keys for PC Games

[Wombat]

I know there's a million ways to do things but I want to ask the assembled intelligentsia how they may do something so I can assess if it too suits my needs.

My config is that I have two Ultrastik 360s on my panel with 8 buttons each attached to the joystick via the harness so they function as joysticks. The emulators that I use (Mame, CCS64 etc.) responds to these nicely after initial setup inside the emulator.

I also incorporate a stack of PC games on my cabinet and they play quite nicely using my panel's trackball and mouse buttons if they apply or the joysticks and buttons if the program permits such input to be mapped.

But I'm sure you've all wandered across PC programs that only accept keyboard input, and probably non-changeable keys at that. So... my questions are what sofware should I use to accomplish a joystick/button remap to particular keys and how to launch it prior to a game and deactivate it afterwards.

What I'd like to do is something like have the joystick U/D/L/R send the U/D/L/R keyboard arrows and have some of the fire buttons send other keys like {space} or 'S' or whatever is deemed necessary for that game and then have it "unloaded"/"killed" when the game is over.

Please keep in mind that I like having all my PC games set up as ONE emulator so I cannot use the default registered GameEx feature to remap controls from something to something else since I belive that applies to the emualtor as a whole (For my PC game collection I do use an advanced script so mainly to disable the generic ESCape key functionality which is necessary in many PC games to return to a main menu or whatever. I do however use such a GameEx feature with Visual Pinball so that my joysticks can be used in the Baby Pac-Man table...needs keyboard L/R/U/D for the internal video game control). My PC games are all setup as links in one folder so it's conceivable they could be pointed elsewhere (like a compiled AutoHotKey script?) which in turn takes over the game execution and all other necessary remaps etc. when needed.

But can AutoHotKey "remap" the joystick movement and fire buttons in the manner I envisage in a timely manner? I also see posts about Xpadder but it seems to me on the surface that AutoHotKey may be a one-stop-shop if it does what I need (and I'm not sure if Xpadder development is still ongoing).

If anyone uses AutoHotKey to manage just one or a few games that remap controllers to keys (even better for me if you too use U360s) would you mind posting the uncompiled script/batch file/whatever else so furnish me with ideas/a solution?

Or... if I'm completely off-base with how I'm thinking of doing it... please enlighten me.

[Stu1983]

Xpadder may not be in development any more but it does everything you need and a whole lot more. You can load different key layouts from the command line, so all you need for do is create a batch file to remap your buttons, launch your game and then kill xpadder after the game has finished.

Stu