OK, here is what I did on the mapper....
first tried mapping the (up, down, left, right) keybaord keys to the corrisponding directions on my controller's d-pad. Nothing. only joystick works, d-pad did nothing. (games uses direction keys for movment)
So, then I tried setting the emulated controllers directions to corrispond to the with d-pad. Same exact result. joystick only, d-pad did nothing. (made sure game was set to use controller, game detected controller just fine.)
I also tried changing the joystick type on the config and tried each one with emulated joystick and keyboard mapping. 2axis is the only one that worked ok for buttons and joystick, but no d-pad. all others didn't work right.
So I assume I chose the correct joystick type in config. Now just gotta get that d-pad working.
For games like POP2 trying to move diagnal very difficult with joystick.