Controller Slots¶
A slot is a virtual controller PadForge creates. The game sees it as a real, separate pad. Up to 16 slots in any mix of types.
What a slot owns¶
Each slot has its own:
- Controller type (Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Extended, Keyboard+Mouse, MIDI, VR)
- Button and Axis Mappings (multi-source rows, shift layers, cross-device chords, custom formulas)
- Stick Deadzones and Trigger Deadzones
- Force Feedback / rumble settings
- Bass Shakers (routes the game rumble and force feedback the slot receives to an audio output as low-frequency tones for bass shakers and subwoofers)
- Impulse Triggers (Xbox One / Elite / Series sources, routed to DualSense as AT Vibration)
- Adaptive Triggers (DualSense / DualSense Edge)
- Lighting (DualSense / DualSense Edge / DualShock 4 lightbar, PS Move sphere, Guide button LED brightness for Xbox One / Elite / Series pads and the 2015 Steam Controller, and HOME button LED brightness for the Switch Pro Controller, right Joy-Con, combined Joy-Con pair, and charging grip)
- Gyro tuning, calibration, engage gates, and Motion Passthrough
- Touchpad outputs (stick / D-pad / mouse) and gesture engine
- Controller Audio (speaker passthrough, macro sounds, volume)
- Macros
- Menus
- Shift Layers
The Pad page Copy / Paste / Copy From operations carry every per-device tuning on this list along with the mapping table. A Motion Gyro or Motion Accelerometer row that loses every input when its devices are matched to the target slot is dropped, as device cleanup does, so the target's motion auto-map fills it again. A motion row you switched off by emptying it, or one marked not to inherit, copies as it is. See Button and Axis Mappings for the matching rules.
Add a controller¶
Open the Add Controller popup from either spot:
- Dashboard. Click the Add Controller card at the bottom of the controller list.
- Sidebar. Click the + button in the controller section.
Pick the type you want.
Type buttons¶
| Button | Creates |
|---|---|
| Xbox icon | Xbox virtual controller (needs HIDMaestro) |
| PlayStation icon | PlayStation virtual controller (needs HIDMaestro) |
| Switch logo icon | Nintendo virtual controller (needs HIDMaestro) |
| Joystick icon | Extended DirectInput joystick (needs HIDMaestro) |
| Keyboard icon | Keyboard+Mouse output (no driver) |
| Musical note icon | MIDI output device (Windows MIDI Services, or the legacy MIDI API without it) |
| VR icon | SteamVR hand pair (needs SteamVR) |
Dimmed buttons¶
A type button shows faded when:
- Type at capacity. The cursor turns into a "no" icon. The tooltip shows the cap.
- Missing dependency. Two types dim when what they need is absent: MIDI when no MIDI API starts ("MIDI (not running, see the Windows MIDI Services card in Settings)") and VR without SteamVR ("VR (requires SteamVR)"). Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Extended, and Keyboard+Mouse never dim for a missing driver. See Driver Management.
The Add Controller card disappears when all 16 slots are in use.
Pick a type¶
Pick the type when you create the slot. You can also switch an existing slot's type by clicking the type icons on its Dashboard card.
Xbox¶
The default. 2 sticks, 2 triggers, 1 D-Pad, 11 buttons, plus Share on the Xbox Series presets. HIDMaestro-backed. Almost every PC game with controller support reads Xbox-style input natively, so this is what to pick when you do not know what to pick.
PlayStation¶
HIDMaestro-backed. 2 sticks, 2 triggers, 1 D-Pad, 12 buttons including the touchpad click. The DualSense presets add Mic Mute, and the DualSense Edge adds its back paddles and Fn buttons. The two DualShock 3 presets have 11 buttons, Select and Start where the others have Share and Options, and no touchpad, as on the real pad. The slot ships as a DualSense. Switch to DualShock 4, DualShock 3, or DualSense Edge from the slot's profile picker. Pick this type for PlayStation PC ports with Circle / Cross / Triangle / Square prompts, emulators that need touchpad or lightbar, or motion streaming through the DSU Motion Server.
For PCSX2 and RPCS3, pick DualShock 3 (SIXAXIS): Full. It presents a DualShock 3 the way Sony's sixaxis driver and DsHidMini's SXS mode do, with analog L2 and R2, the accelerometer and yaw gyro, and pressure on ten buttons, which its grid's button pressure rows set. A game's rumble comes back through it to your controller. The plain DualShock 3 (SIXAXIS) preset passes game rumble back too.
Nintendo¶
HIDMaestro-backed. Four presets: Nintendo Switch Pro Controller (the default), Nintendo Switch Pro Controller (USB), Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller, and Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller: Full. Pick one from the slot's preset dropdown.
The Switch Pro preset gives 2 sticks, 1 D-Pad, and 14 buttons with Nintendo lettering: B, A, Y, X, L, R, ZL, ZR, Minus, Plus, the stick clicks, Home, and Capture. Both Switch 2 Pro presets carry 21, adding C, GL, and GR among others, on their own wire order. None of the three has analog triggers (ZL and ZR are digital buttons), so the Trigger Deadzones tab does not appear. There is no Customize surface on any of them. The slot deploys the preset as-is.
On the Switch Pro preset, map a motion source on the slot, or a stick on the Motion Pitch, Yaw and Roll rows, and it streams into the virtual pad's gyro and accelerometer, so games and emulators that read Switch Pro motion get it natively. Rumble the game sends to that virtual pad is decoded, so Force Feedback to the mapped device and the Bass Shakers tab both work.
The two Switch 2 Pro presets are one pad in two forms, and the program that reads it decides which to pick.
Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller is a HID gamepad. DirectInput, Windows.Gaming.Input, browsers and every other program read its buttons and sticks. It carries neither motion nor rumble: its input report has no motion data, and HIDMaestro decodes no rumble for it.
Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller: Full is the pad as it appears over USB, with the second interface a program has to start it through. Steam reads it, and so does a program whose SDL is built with libusb. They get the gyro and the accelerometer, from a motion source on the slot or from the Motion rows, and the rumble they send comes back to the mapped device and the Bass Shakers tab. Every other program sees a gamepad that never reports, which is what a real Switch 2 Pro Controller on a cable gives it on Windows. Like the default PlayStation preset, it rides HIDMaestro's USB transport, which installs the first time a slot needs it (see Driver Management).
HIDMaestro's release tests ran the Full preset against Steam and against PadForge's own SDL build. No game has been run on it from PadForge yet, and stock SDL3 has not been run against it.
Joy-Cons, the NSO retro pads, and the GameCube adapter are not in this category. Their profiles live under Extended.
Extended (HIDMaestro)¶
A customizable virtual joystick. Up to 8 axes, 128 buttons, 4 POV hats. The slot's configuration bar sets how many of each the device exposes and picks the Custom entry or one of the 96 HIDMaestro profiles the Extended picker lists (HOTAS, wheels, third-party gamepads, and Valve's controllers). The DirectInput device name Windows reports comes from the active profile. A schematic view shows the live HID layout, except on the Valve profiles, which draw the pad itself.
Sim titles (DCS World, MSFS, X-Plane, iRacing) read DirectInput best. Extended slots also deliver force feedback to sim titles that support it.
Valve personas¶
Five profiles in the Extended picker are Valve pads. Pick one and the slot takes that pad's identity, its control names in the mapping grid, and its body in the Preview tab.
| Profile | Identity | Input frame |
|---|---|---|
| Steam Deck Controller | Valve 28DE:1205, product string "Steam Deck", a standard HID gamepad (6 axes, 21 buttons, 1 hat) |
Field-encoded HID, like any other Extended profile |
| Steam Deck Controller (Composite) | Valve 28DE:1205 on a USB persona, product string "Steam Controller", five interfaces taken from a real unit's USB dump: the lizard-mode mouse and keyboard, the vendor controller interface, and a CDC pair |
The Deck's native 64-byte state report |
| Steam Controller (Wired) | Valve 28DE:1102, product string "Steam Controller", the 2015 pad's vendor-page descriptor |
The 2015 pad's native 64-byte report |
| Steam Controller (Composite) | Valve 28DE:1102 on a USB persona, product string "Wired Controller", three interfaces from a real unit's dump |
The same 2015 frame |
| Steam Controller (2026) | Valve 28DE:1302 on a USB persona, one HID interface carrying the mouse, keyboard, and controller state as separate report ids |
The 2026 pad's native 54-byte report |
A composite persona rides the real USB stack, so Steam and SDL see Valve hardware and run their own handshake against it. On the bench, live Steam claimed the Steam Controller (Composite) persona: it opened the device, reserved an XInput slot, took the input stream, and loaded its Steam Controller configuration. Stock SDL3 claims it as a Steam Controller with two touchpads, a gyro, and an accelerometer. What Steam does with the persona's motion data and haptics has not been checked on a live session.
The mapping grid uses Valve's names. Buttons are A, B, X, Y, L1, R1, L3, Steam, and the pad clicks (Left Pad Click, Right Pad Click) on every profile, plus R3 on the Steam Deck and the 2026 pad, then per pad:
| Control | Steam Deck | Steam Controller (2015) | Steam Controller (2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Center buttons | View, Menu, Quick Access | Back, Start | View, Menu, Quick Access |
| Rear buttons | R4, L4, R5, L5 | Left Grip, Right Grip | R4, L4, R5, L5 |
| D-Pad | POV hat | POV hat, which the pad reports from the left trackpad's four click zones | Four discrete buttons |
| Right stick | Real stick | The right trackpad, ridden as a stick | Real stick |
| Touch sensors | Left Stick Touch, Right Stick Touch | None | Left Stick Touch, Right Stick Touch, Left Grip Touch, Right Grip Touch |
Every profile carries Left Stick X / Y, Right Stick X / Y, Left Trigger, Right Trigger, both trackpads as Left Pad X, Left Pad Y, Left Pad Touch, Right Pad X, Right Pad Y, Right Pad Touch, the Motion Gyro and Motion Accelerometer rows, and the Motion Pitch, Motion Yaw, and Motion Roll rows. The virtual pad carries one finger per trackpad, so the left pad follows the slot's first touch finger and the right pad the second.
Assign a Steam Deck, a Steam Controller, or any other gamepad and the slot auto-maps it: the face buttons, bumpers, sticks, triggers, View / Menu, Steam, and Quick Access from the pad's buttons, the rear buttons from SDL's four paddle positions (the two grips on the 2015 wire), the D-Pad from the device's hat, each trackpad from the device's matching touchpad (a one-pad device lands on the left pad), the pad clicks from the click buttons the device advertises, gyro and accelerometer from the device's sensors, and the stick and grip touch sensors from the ones the pad has. A Steam Deck lists its two stick tops and a 2026 Steam Controller its stick tops and grips under the pad's own name in the source picker. Over the preview, a row of capsules shows each sensor the slot's pad carries: a capsule lights while its output is on, and a click on it records its row.
Switching one Valve profile to another moves every binding to the same control on the new pad, drops bindings for controls the new pad lacks, and auto-maps the controls the old pad never had, such as the 2026 pad's D-Pad buttons after a Steam Deck. A profile restored at launch changes nothing. The same rule covers the two Nintendo presets.
Keyboard+Mouse¶
Always available. Sends keyboard and mouse input instead of emulating a gamepad. Map buttons to keys, sticks to mouse movement, triggers to scroll. Good for older PC games without controller support, accessibility setups where a gamepad is easier to hold than a keyboard, and desktop or non-game use. An interactive keyboard-and-mouse preview lights up in real time as you press buttons.
A bar above the slot's tabs picks what each half sends through. Keyboard and Mouse both start at Windows Input, which needs no driver: PadForge types and moves the pointer through Windows itself, and programs can tell that the input came from software. Either half can instead pick one of HIDMaestro's 51 keyboard or 52 mouse models. The slot then sends through a virtual keyboard or mouse that Windows and the programs that read devices see as that hardware, and HIDMaestro installs itself the first time a slot needs it. Each picker shows while the slot's surface mode drives its half, and each has a reset button.
Tags beside a picked model say what it can send: Keys at Once (how many keys it holds down together, or Any), Media Keys and Lock Lights on a keyboard, and Buttons, Wheel and Tilt Wheel on a mouse. The mapping table hides the rows the model cannot send and keeps their bindings, so they come back with Windows input or a model that has them. A keyboard with a mouse report of its own, such as the ThinkPad Compact Keyboard with its TrackPoint, also appears in the Mouse picker as Same Device as the Keyboard, and a mouse with keys appears in the Keyboard picker as Same Device as the Mouse. Picking it makes one device serve both halves, as the hardware does. Supported Devices lists every model.
The preview draws a picked keyboard as its own board, with the legends of the active input layout, and shows Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock as Windows sets them on a keyboard that has lock lights. A picked mouse shows the buttons, wheel and tilt it has. Every key, mouse control and lock light in the preview is a control as well: a click records its row. See Keyboard + Mouse preview.
The key rows run past F12: F13 to F24, the key an ISO keyboard has beside Left Shift (Non-US \ |), the Japanese Hankaku/Zenkaku, No Convert, Convert and Kana, and the media, browser and launch keys. A virtual keyboard presses the key that types a row's character in the foreground window's input layout, the key Windows input types, so a mapped A types "a" on AZERTY too.
Numpad Enter has its own row, apart from Enter, and its own entry in the SOCD key lists. The preview keyboard drew the key, but no row existed for a click on it to record into.
The Output tab carries a Simultaneous Opposite Cardinal Directions (SOCD) card. On a Keyboard+Mouse slot it cleans opposing key pairs, Snap Tap style: when both keys of a pair are held, the chosen rule decides which press the game sees. The modes are Off, Last Wins (Snap Tap), Neutral, and First Wins. Add your own key pairs. This keeps fighting-game and platformer inputs legal on keyboard.
When a mouse is the slot's selected device, a Mouse tab appears carrying the Mouse Gestures card. Hold a gesture button, flick, and one action fires on release: left, right, up, down, or a plain click below the flick distance. Any of the five mouse buttons can arm the recognizer, each carrying its own five gestures, and a Custom option arms it from a recorded input on any device instead. Flick Distance is in raw counts and Cooldown is in milliseconds. Map the five gestures on the Mappings tab, or use them as macro triggers.
Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, and Extended slots get the same card for button pairs, with the same four modes. There it applies to the slot's final combined output, so physical, mapped, and macro presses are all cleaned. Xbox and PlayStation slots pick named buttons for each pair. Nintendo and Extended slots enter raw button indices.
MIDI¶
Backed by Windows MIDI Services. Axes send Control Change (CC) messages. Buttons send Note On / Note Off. A configuration bar on the slot's page sets channel, CC count, note count, starting CC and note numbers, and velocity. Changes reach a running slot on its next poll, on the same port, so a DAW listening to it stays connected. A sustain pedal or other on/off controller (CC 64 to 69) that PadForge left on is turned off on its old channel and CC number when either changes, and when the slot stops. Creates a system-wide virtual MIDI device with no third-party loopback software needed. Turn any gamepad into a MIDI controller for DAWs (Ableton Live, FL Studio, Reaper), VJ software, or stage lighting.
Without Windows MIDI Services, the slot runs on the legacy MIDI API, which cannot create a device. The configuration bar then adds Output Port, and the slot sends to the existing port picked there, such as a MIDI interface, a synth or a loopback driver. A slot that cannot open its port says why in the status bar: no port picked ("Virtual Controller N has no Output Port. Pick one on its page."), a port that is not connected, a port already in use, or a port that did not open. See The legacy MIDI API.
VR¶
Backed by HIDMaestro's OpenVR driver and needs SteamVR installed. One slot drives both SteamVR hands, left and right, so only one VR slot can exist at a time. There is no per-slot VR config: the driver ships one identity and haptics fan out like game rumble. The driver registers its devices only while a consumer is live, so an idle machine shows no phantom controllers.
The Sticks, Triggers, and Output tabs hide on a VR slot. See Virtual VR Controllers.
Note: You can switch any slot to MIDI or VR and back to a gamepad type. Switching to MIDI needs a MIDI API that starts (Windows MIDI Services or the legacy MIDI API), and switching to VR needs SteamVR. Each switch re-runs auto-mapping for the new type.
Quick type reference¶
| Situation | Recommended type |
|---|---|
| Steam, Epic, or Microsoft Store game (Elden Ring, Forza, Halo, etc.) | Xbox |
| PlayStation PC port with PS button prompts | PlayStation |
| Streaming gyro/motion to Cemu, Yuzu, or another emulator | PlayStation + DSU |
| Emulator or game that reads a Switch Pro Controller, with native gyro | Nintendo |
| Gyro from a stick or buttons (Motion Pitch, Yaw and Roll) | PlayStation or Nintendo |
| Flight sim, racing sim, or space sim | Extended |
| HOTAS, racing wheel, or custom button box | Extended |
| Game with keyboard+mouse only | Keyboard+Mouse |
| Accessibility or desktop use | Keyboard+Mouse |
| DAW, VJ software, or stage lighting | MIDI |
| Driving a SteamVR hand pair from a gamepad | VR |
| Not sure | Xbox |
When in doubt, start with Xbox. It has the widest game support and you can switch later.
Slot limits¶
Up to 16 slots total across all types. Any mix is allowed within each type's own cap.
Per-type limits¶
| Type | Max slots | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Xbox | 16 | HIDMaestro creates all 16. XInput games see only the first 4. SDL/DirectInput games see all 16. |
| PlayStation | 16 | HIDMaestro creates all 16. SDL/DirectInput games see all of them. |
| Nintendo | 16 | HIDMaestro creates all 16. SDL/DirectInput games see all of them. |
| Extended | 16 | HIDMaestro per-type cap, same as the other gamepad types. |
| Keyboard+Mouse | 16 | Capped at the overall slot count. |
| MIDI | 16 | Capped at the overall slot count. |
| VR | 1 | One slot already drives both SteamVR hands, and SteamVR tracks one left+right pair. A second slot would fight the first over the same two devices. |
Most users need 1 to 4 slots. The 16-slot cap covers arcade cabinets, sim rigs, and multi-output MIDI stations.
XInput 4-slot visibility limit¶
The Windows XInput API only exposes 4 Xbox-type controllers. This is a Windows limit, not a PadForge one.
- 4 or fewer Xbox slots. Every game sees all of them.
- More than 4 Xbox slots. All 16 exist and work. XInput games detect only the first 4. SDL, DirectInput, and raw HID games see all 16.
- PlayStation slots are unaffected by the XInput cap.
- Nintendo, Extended, Keyboard+Mouse, MIDI, and VR slots are unaffected.
Tip: For more than 4 local-multiplayer gamepads, mix Xbox with PlayStation or Nintendo slots, or use Extended (no 4-controller cap).
DSU/Cemuhook 4-slot limit¶
The DSU/Cemuhook motion protocol supports a maximum of 4 slots. Only the first 4 broadcast motion data. Slots 5 to 16 work normally for gamepad output but skip DSU. This is a protocol limit.
Enable, disable, delete¶
Enable and disable¶
Each slot has a power flame on the left of its Dashboard card. Click to toggle on or off. Its fill and glow show the slot's state, and hovering it shows the status word.
| Flame | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Ember, with a glow | Enabled with devices mapped, output live. Stays ember through the inactivity grace period (all of the slot's mapped devices offline for the Inactivity Timeout, default 60 seconds, set on the Settings page, 0 disables it). |
| Gold | Enabled and mapped, but no live virtual controller. Nothing is connected, the engine is stopped, or the inactivity timeout fired and tore the controller down. The slot config is kept. A device coming back while the engine runs rebuilds the virtual controller. |
| Gold, hover reads "Virtual controller failed" | The driver could not create the virtual controller. Switching the slot's profile or toggling the slot retries the create. |
| Steel outline | Off, or on with no devices mapped. Games cannot see it. Settings are kept. |
| Flashing ember | Initializing. The virtual controller is coming up. |
Disabling a slot hides it from games without losing config.
Delete¶
Click the X on a slot's Dashboard card or next to its name in the sidebar.
- The virtual controller is removed from the system.
- All settings (mappings, deadzones, macros) are permanently deleted.
- Physical devices are unassigned from this slot only.
- Remaining slots shift down. Deleting slot 2 of four renumbers slots 3 and 4 to 2 and 3.
Tip: To hide a controller temporarily without losing settings, disable the slot instead.
Reorder slots¶
Drag and drop controller cards on the Dashboard or sidebar entries to change slot order.
How to reorder¶
- Click and hold a controller card or sidebar entry.
- Drag it to the spot you want.
- Release.
Why order matters¶
Slot order sets the controller number. Controller 1 is whichever slot is first. Games assign player numbers based on this order. Emulators bind slots to player ports.
What happens on reorder¶
Reordering two slots of the same type does not disconnect the game, as long as both use the same controller preset. The swap is instant and the game keeps seeing both controllers.
- Same preset on both moved slots. No rebuild. The game notices nothing.
- Different presets. Only the positions whose preset changed rebuild and reconnect at their new spot. Slots that kept their preset stay connected.
- Disabled or no-device slots. Invisible to games. Moving them changes nothing until a device comes back.
Automatic type grouping¶
New slots group by type. Xbox first, then PlayStation, Nintendo, Extended, Keyboard+Mouse, MIDI, VR. This keeps XInput numbering predictable.
Dragging reorders slots inside a type group. Cross-type drops are ignored, so the grouping itself stays fixed.
Open a slot¶
Click a controller card on the Dashboard or its sidebar entry. The slot's config page opens with a row of tabs.
Four tabs are always there:
- Preview: live interactive controller view (3D and 2D Visualization).
- Mappings: maps physical inputs to virtual outputs, with shift layers (Button and Axis Mappings).
- Macros: combo triggers and action sequences (Macros).
- Menus: on-screen ring and grid menus opened from a stick or touchpad (Menus).
Two more slot-tier tabs appear conditionally.
Bass Shakers shows on Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo slots, and on Extended slots with force feedback enabled (the Force Feedback checkbox decides when Customize is on, the profile's own descriptor when it is off). With Customize off it also shows on the Steam Deck Controller (Composite) profile, whose rumble commands PadForge decodes without a force feedback descriptor. It routes the game rumble and force feedback the virtual controller receives to an audio output as low-frequency tones for bass shakers and subwoofers. Extended slots without force feedback, Keyboard+Mouse, MIDI, and VR slots have no feedback surface and hide it.
Output carries the slot's output-behavior cards. It shows on every slot type except MIDI and VR. The SOCD cleaner is on it for every type that shows the tab. Keep Controller Awake sits beside it on Xbox and PlayStation slots only. That card holds a small stick deflection so games that switch their prompts the moment they see mouse or keyboard input keep treating the pad as the active device.
The rest appear based on the physical device selected in the slot's device dropdown, not the slot's output type. Assign a DualSense to a PlayStation slot and the Adaptive Triggers tab appears. Assign a DualShock 4 to the same slot and it does not, because the DualShock 4 has no adaptive triggers. Switch the device dropdown and the tabs follow the newly selected device.
| Tab | Appears for |
|---|---|
| Stick Deadzones | every slot except MIDI and VR (gated by slot type, not the device) |
| Trigger Deadzones | every slot except Keyboard+Mouse, MIDI, and VR (gated by slot type, not the device). Nintendo and Extended slots whose profile has no analog triggers hide it too, since the Switch Pro's ZL / ZR are digital |
| Force Feedback | a stick-class input (hidden for keyboard, mouse, touchpad, and MIDI) |
| Gyro | a gyro or an accelerometer. The gyro-rate cards need a gyro |
| Impulse Triggers | Xbox One / Elite / Series trigger motors |
| Adaptive Triggers | a DualSense or DualSense Edge |
| Lighting | a lightbar or lit sphere (DualSense family, DualShock 4, PS Move), a Guide LED (Xbox One / Elite / Series, 2015 Steam Controller), or a HOME button LED (Switch Pro Controller, right Joy-Con, combined Joy-Con pair, charging grip) |
| Touchpad | a touch surface (DualShock 4, DualSense, the Steam Controller family, Steam Deck, Windows Precision Touchpads) |
| Controller Audio | a speaker (DualSense family, DualShock 4, Wii Remote), or a haptic actuator that plays macro sounds as tones (Joy-Con, Switch Pro Controller, Steam Controller 2015, Steam Deck, Steam Controller 2026) |
| Wheel | a racing wheel. A recognized Logitech, Fanatec, or Thrustmaster model gets rotation range, auto-center, and RPM shift LEDs. A generic force feedback wheel gets the auto-center row alone |
| Pointer | an IR camera (Wii Remote) |
| Mouse | a mouse (per-device mouse-gesture settings) |
Keyboard+Mouse slots keep the Stick Deadzones tab for mapping the sticks to mouse movement and scroll. MIDI slots hide the stick and trigger tabs, since a MIDI slot maps to CC and note values, not sticks and triggers.
Multi-slot device assignment¶
One physical controller can feed multiple slots at once.
Use cases¶
- Split output. One controller drives an Xbox slot (for the game) and a MIDI slot (for music) at the same time.
- Mirrored output. Same controller into two Xbox slots so two in-game characters move identically.
- Sim rigs. Route one HOTAS to multiple Extended slots with different axis configs.
How to assign¶
- Devices page. Each device card shows numbered slot toggles. Click a number to assign or unassign.
- Sidebar. Drag a device onto a sidebar controller entry.
- The offer banner. With Assignment Prompts on, a slot's page shows a banner when a game-input device is online and not yet on that slot: "Device name just connected. Assign it to this virtual controller?" with Assign and Not Now. Two settings decide who is offered, both on by default. Offer New Devices to the Open Virtual Controller covers devices PadForge has never seen before. Offer Any Connecting Device When the Open Virtual Controller Has No Devices covers any device, new or known, while the open slot has nothing assigned. The banner is a standing condition, not a one-shot event: it appears whether the device connected before or after you opened the page, and it stays until you assign the device, click Not Now (which dismisses that device for that slot for the rest of the session), or the device goes offline. Keyboards, mice, touchpads, and media-key devices are never offered, and nothing is offered on the first device walk after the engine starts.
Each slot-device pairing has its own mappings, deadzones, and settings. The same controller in slot 1 and slot 3 can have completely different configs.
Related pages¶
- Dashboard: virtual controller cards and engine status.
- Devices: assign physical controllers to slots.
- Installation: first-time setup and driver install.
- Profiles: save and switch slot configs per game.
- Button and Axis Mappings: map physical inputs to virtual outputs, with shift layers.
- Shift Layers: per-slot overlay mapping tables.
- Macros: button combo triggers, axis triggers, and Custom Expression triggers.
- Menus: on-screen ring and grid menus.
- Stick Deadzones and Trigger Deadzones: stick and trigger tuning.
- Force Feedback and Impulse Triggers: body-rumble and trigger-motor effects.
- Adaptive Triggers and Lighting: DualSense-specific effects.
- Touchpad and Controller Audio: touchpad gestures and speaker output.
- Gyro: motion-sensor mapping.
- Wheel: native force-feedback wheel settings.
- Virtual VR Controllers: the VR slot type and its SteamVR hand pair.
- Driver Management: driver requirements per controller type.
Last updated for PadForge 5.2.0.