[SOLVED] Trouble with Pinnacle Game Profiler and Bootleg

[Veovis Muaddib]

First time playing Final Fantasy VII on PC, had it sitting in my inventory for awhile but never got around to actually trying it.  I started out by running the launcher and configuring, then I quit out and used one of the torrents available on this site to set up the game as I wanted through BFE.exe.  I then launched the game, and realized that the controls are awful on my 360 controller by default, so I installed Pinnacle for the first time in years and downloaded a Final Fantasy VII profile.

If I launch FF7_Launcher.exe, Pinnacle alters the inputs exactly as I had hoped, sticks have analog walk/run, start is on my start button, etc....  Note that Pinnacle is a.) Set to listen for FF7.exe itself, not the launcher.  b.) launching the profile as persistent, and c.) mapped keys are sent to any other applications as well when they're focused, such as Chrome.

If I launch Bootloader.exe, none of the Pinnacle mapped controls take effect and everything is based on the original control scheme.  Worse yet attempts to change the input configuration through FF7_Launcher.exe don't take effect when launching through Bootloader.exe.

Is this something to do with the Steam to 1998 conversion that automatically took place?  Do I have to choose between decent controls and hooves-for-hands unless I go buy the older version of the game instead?

[Vgr]

Did you install the keyboard laptop patch? It changes the default controls which would make the FF7 profile not work properly.

[Veovis Muaddib]

Not intentionally, and launching BFE shows it to be unchecked while other settings changes I made are still applied, so I'm going to say 99% sure I didn't.

Is there a file I can look for to verify that it's not installed?

[Vgr]

If it's not checked, chances are it's not installed. Perhaps the default controls for the Steam version are different than those of the 1998 version, thus causing the profile to fail? Can anyone validate or invalidate that?

[Covarr]

Steam version definitely has different default controls. I don't remember them offhand.

[Vgr]

The profile might be made for the Steam controls, then. Perhaps you can change them in the profile (or create a new one). The default controls for the 1998 version are all on the numpad. Enter to confirm, 0 to cancel, + is Menu, - is Change/Assist, 5 is Start, . is select, 2 4 6 8 are the movement keys and 1 3 7 9 are the four triggers (don't remember the exact order).

[Veovis Muaddib]

That's absolutely true, the profile has the commands set up differently.

However, I set up the D-Pad and analog sticks to use 2468, and launched again.  The D-Pad still doesn't respond appropriately.  Not sure what's going on here.

EDIT before posting: I was testing to make sure the D-Pad assignments worked inside of this textbox before I posted.  They do, AND the inputs are sent to the game as well.  So I can do this as long as the game doesn't have focus?  I'll finish converting the profile to 1998 controls and see what happens, maybe I'll just have to have some other window eat the input on my second monitor in order to play this game.

[Veovis Muaddib]

Okay.  The bit at the end of the last post led me to discover that you can run Pinnacle as an Admin whenever a game does weird things like that.  So I have input working fine.

I then assigned the correct controls to everything in Pinnacle, and I'm almost there.  I just have overlaps between what the game wants to do and what I want to do.  Most of the controls I could get away with remapping in game and removing the Pinnacle assignment, but it seems like I can't do that overall.

In fact it looks like the best way to accomplish what I'm after is to unassign all the default joystick controls and just use Pinnacle.  Unfortunately FF7 swaps an already assigned control with the current control if you try to override things, so I'm not able to assign everything to a single key (Say left thumb down) and then ignore that.

However I know FF7 uses DirectInput, so should theoretically allow for many more buttons than the 360 controller reports having.  Any ideas how I might assign controls to something like buttons 20 and up?

EDIT:
Alright.  I mapped the controls in game as they would be on the PSX controller, except that the D-Pad is not mapped and L2/R2 are mapped to Left/Right thumb down.  I then have an "overlay" setup in pinnacle, which maps the D-Pad, (but does not accept diagonal presses, this is what I'm using for menus) maps 80%+ on the thumbsticks to Run (And the game handles move) and maps L2/R2 to the triggers.

I have duplication between left/right thumbstick down and triggers, but that's not a problem.  Other than that I have everything I need including analog run and D-Pad support.  Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

Let me know if you're interested in doing this but can't quite get it to work on your own.