Hi all.
I have a full Virpil HOTAS setup consisting of three controllers (joystick, throttle, and pedals) running on Windows 11 via Steam. I am playing in AirSim and need proper axis and button mapping across all three devices. I have spent considerable time troubleshooting and have exhausted most of the common solutions I can find online, so I am hoping someone with a Virpil + War Thunder setup specifically can help.
The Core Problem: Every time I relaunch War Thunder, my button mappings reset or scramble. Buttons that were mapped to C2 appear as C1 on next launch, making saved profiles useless. The game was also initially treating my Virpil hardware as a Saitek X52 due to leftover Logitech/Saitek software.
Everything I Have Already Tried:
- Removed all Logitech/Saitek software — eliminated the X52 misidentification for axes, but button mapping still breaks between sessions
- Edited the BLK config file — found and changed the
basePresetPathsreference fromhotkey.saitek_X52.blkto the generichotkey.blk, then set the file to read-only to prevent War Thunder overwriting it - Installed VJoy, Joystick Gremlin, and HidHide — mapped all three physical Virpil devices to three separate VJoy virtual devices, hid the physical devices from War Thunder via HidHide. This eliminated the X52 issue entirely, but introduced a new problem where all buttons report as C1 regardless of which physical controller they come from
- Tried devreorder — attempted to lock the VJoy device order to prevent C1/C2 shuffling between sessions. DeviceLister.exe failed to run on Windows 11 due to DirectX 9 and DLL compatibility errors. Deployed the devreorder.ini and dinput8.dll directly into the War Thunder Steam installation folder — did not resolve the C1/C2 button mapping issue
- Investigated single VJoy device consolidation — ruled this out because VJoy is limited to 8 axes per device and my setup requires 12+ axes across the three controllers
Current Situation: Axes appear to map correctly across the VJoy devices but don’t hold upon saving. Buttons are also the persistent problem — on each reload of WT they all show up as C1:Button #. I can override the mappings and they show, but don’t come back on saving the BLK when I restart the game. Any thing that I saved as C2 or C3 will come back as a C1 when I relaunch the game.
Questions:
- Has anyone successfully gotten a multi-device Virpil HOTAS setup working stably in War Thunder?
- Is there a known working method to lock the controller device order or button assignments that survives restarts?
- Are there any Virpil-specific BLK config files or workarounds that solve this?
Any help greatly appreciated — I have invested significant time and money into this setup and just want to fly.