Does it show any error message?

RandomDOSUser, your post is a little confusing. What exactly is it you want to do? Are your Joysticks detected by DOSBox? If they are, you should see something like "Using joystick XBCD XBox Gamepad with 6 axes and 24 buttons" in the DOSBox Status Window. If this isn't happening, you could try to remove one of the Joysticks, and retry.

Are you aware of the "Mapper" screen inside DOSBox? It can be accessed by pressing "CTRL-F1", and will allow the mapping of keys and Joystick controls. The maps can be saved, and loaded later to activate specific configurations (see the readme for details). With the mapper, it should be possible to handle all possible configurations. For example, i've mapped many of the keyboard commands of "TIE Fighter" and "Tomb Raider" to Joystick buttons, and it works like a charm. If you want to use more than 4 buttons on your Joystick, you have to set "buttonwrap=false" in dosbox.conf.

If you really want to use an external application for mapping, i'd suggest you try out Xpadder. I have recently found this application, and i think it's the best in it's field. It may look a little complicated at first, but it really isn't that hard to setup.

I'll try the suggestions, thanks for the reply 😀

Xpadder works superbly!

Just one more question - is there a way to disable joystick emulation in dosbox? Setting the joysticktype=none doesn't seem to prevent games from detecting and using joysticks...

it should prevent it, could you name the games in question ?

I'm encountering some oddities regarding a joystick in DOSBox and was wondering if anyone could confirm them...

By default, my config file is set as JOYSTICKTYPE=AUTO, and all the games I have installed are fine with this setting, and recognize the device OK.

However, if I manually change this setting within DOSBox, by typing JOYSTICKTYPE=2AXIS, 4AXIS, AUTO etc., the joystick will no longer be recognized by any program, regardless of the setting. Using the arguments CONFIG -SET JOYSTICKTYPE= have the same effect.

Only by closing and re-opening DOSBox can I get the joystick to be recognized again. I'm using a USB Logitech rumblepad, if it makes any difference.

Thanks.

possibly. Mapper related things (under which the joystick falls) can currently not be changed correctly during runtime.
Nothing you can do about it.