A game port supports 4 analog axes and 4 buttons, so you should be able to connect two 2-button joysticks with a splitter cable. My experience is that all cards that I have had seem to be using same port address for the game port and I have not been able to change settings in any dos games to use different address for the game port.

EdmondDantes wrote:

So let's suppose that for some reason I have two controllers which are both classic game port style, and I want both hooked up (for reasons) at the same time.

But.... as far as I know, the only way to get a game port is to install a sound card.

There are three ways to get a game port in your PC. The first is a sound card, the second is a multi-I/O card (which can add serial, parallel, floppy or IDE) and the third is a dedicated game port card.

EdmondDantes wrote:

Both my PCs already have good sound cards tho, and adding a second one would just cause resource conflicts, right? And if I disable one, its game port won't work anyway.

Yes for sound cards and multi-I/O cards, you can only use one physical game port at a time. You can buy a game port splitter to allow you to use two joysticks on a single port.

EdmondDantes wrote:

Both my PCs have built-in gameports on the motherboard but its to my understanding you have to be using the onboard sound to get them working. I may test this theory with a Gravis Gamepad later, if I can find one.

Yes in the sense that you cannot disable the sound card functionality of most sound cards completely.

EdmondDantes wrote:

But like... is there a PCI card (and for me it HAS to be PCI) that simply adds game ports... and nothing else? Or is installing a second sound card really the only way?

For an ISA slot, you can get one of these : https://www.ebay.com/p/Vintage-Thrustmaster-A … s-95/1102025951 which provides a true second game port. A true second gameport uses different resources than the canonical first gameport, but it is only supported in certain vehicle simulators in DOS. Windows 9x programs may be more flexible. For a PCI solution, you may out of luck in finding a dedicated gameport card. You may be able to use Device Manager to disable the sound hardware and even possibly reassign resources to have a two working gameports in your system at the same time.

First Gameport Resources : I/O 200-207H
Second Gameport Resources : I/O 208-20FH.

I remember seeing generic ISA cards that had 2 15 pin gameports on them (and nothing else) - like these:

I've never actually used one though, so I don't know if they actually provide 2 independant game ports or are just functioning like the splitter cables already mentioned.

These are mostly ISA cards, and the PC I was thinking of adding this to only has PCI.

For the curious, this is related to my earlier post about what driver to use for my Hammerhead FX if I were to use a Gameport-to-USB adapter for Windows XP... but since that topic got no answers and most of the answers I see here amount to "basically, no, unless you're only using very simple controllers" (which I'm not--of my two Game Port controllers one is a Microsoft Sidewinder 3D and the other is the afformentioned Hammerhead FX), it seems like I might be better off just getting a decent USB controller for XP-era games.

There is a custom DIY (hardware) USB solution for the MS SideWinder 3D Pro:

https://descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15526
http://code.google.com/p/sw3dprousb/

This solution is not for the technically faint of heart, and it is, in my opinion, a bit on the expensive side.

To qoute Great Hierophant:

Great Hierophant wrote:

[..]you can only use one physical game port at a time. You can buy a game port splitter to allow you to use two joysticks on a single port.

Both ISA soundcards and PCI soundcards include a full game port. It's just that data lines (pins) for both joysticks are combined on one connector.
That came in handy at a time when joysticks became more complex, since that arrangement allowed for more axes and buttons.
Anyway, there's nothing stopping someone from using a splitter / Y-cable. A sample diagramm can be found here:
https://www.nodomainname.co.uk/wiring.htm
Edit: Found another one (more modern): http://philipstorr.id.au/pcbook/book2/games.htm