XInput VS DirectInput (Mayflash)

[jeanvion]

I just bought myself the Mayflash wireless wii u pro controller so I can use my controller with my PC and it works awesome! I've only tested so far with PES 2015 and XInput, windows immediately recognised the controller and everything worked as a charm. Hoeray! http://www.mayflash.com/products/nintendowiiu/w009.html

Since games are the most fun when you are with more than one I would like to use several controllers. I've read however that you can only connect one controller through XInput, when using DirectInput you can connect up to 4 controllers to 1 Mayflash device. The difference between both API's however are not clear to me, I've read some windows explanation but still I don't understand especially about the left and right trigger functionality. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee417014%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Can someone share their experience between both protocols?

Do I really need XInput or can I just use DirectInput with all emulators/games?

Which functionality would I lose with DirectInput?

Thank you for your input guys!

[jeanvion]

Any advice? I tried DirectInput and I got no responds from the game.. Do I need to configure the buttons with Xpadder for DirectInput?

[Awakened]

Since the Wii U Pro Controller uses digital triggers, all you really miss out on in direct input mode is PC games that don't support direct input. A lot of games that come out now won't detect dinput controllers at all; first game that comes to mind is Dark Souls. As far as I know, all emulators support direct input. They need to to support older controllers and adapters for old controllers. The newest builds of RetroArch now have an option to switch between dinput and xinput, and actually default to dinput.

You can get many PC games that don't support dinput to work using x360ce. Basically, it makes dinput controllers look like they're xinput. There's a pretty good tutorial on how to use it on their main page.

[jeanvion]

So for emulators you should map the buttons with Xpadder?

Have you used x360ce yourself? If this would allow PES to automatically detect both controllers I would be happy

If not, maybe you can use 2 adapters to connect 2 controllers through Xinput.

[Awakened]

In emulators you can just map them in the emulator itself. Or Xpadder (AntiMicro is better; it lets you map the Home button and it's free and open source ) if you want. I used to use x360ce when I was using my PS2 USB adapter. You would basically configure it for your two pads when the adapter is in dinput mode and drop the x360ce files in your PES folder (wherever the .exe file is) and it'll detect those pads just like if the adapter was in xinput mode.