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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. 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.

The Add Controller popup

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 (needs Windows MIDI Services)
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 without Windows MIDI Services ("MIDI (requires Windows MIDI Services)") 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 or every type is at capacity.

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. 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, 15 buttons. 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.

PlayStation slot: the preset picker selects DualShock 4, DualShock 3, DualSense, or DualSense Edge, with the controller view below

Nintendo

HIDMaestro-backed. Two presets: Nintendo Switch Pro Controller (the default) and Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller. 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. The Switch 2 Pro preset carries 21, adding C, GL, and GR among others, on its own wire order. Neither has analog triggers (ZL and ZR are digital buttons), so the Trigger Deadzones tab does not appear. There is no Customize surface on either. The slot deploys the preset as-is.

Map a motion source on the slot 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 the virtual pad is decoded, so Force Feedback to the mapped device and the Bass Shakers tab both work. Joy-Cons, the NSO retro pads, and the GameCube adapter are not in this category. Their profiles live under Extended.

Nintendo slot: the preset picker holds Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, with the controller view below

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 one of HIDMaestro's 231 device profiles (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.

Extended (HIDMaestro) Controller view: profile / customize bar at top, procedural schematic of the live HID layout below

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.

Extended slot on the Steam Controller profile: the Valve row names in the grid and the 2015 pad's own body in the preview

Extended slot on the Steam Deck profile: the Deck's body with both trackpads and the four rear buttons

The mapping grid uses Valve's names. Buttons are A, B, X, Y, L1, R1, L3, R3, Steam, and the pad clicks (Left Pad Click, Right Pad Click) on every profile, 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

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, and the Motion Gyro and Motion Accelerometer 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, and gyro and accelerometer from the device's sensors.

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

No driver. Always available. Sends keyboard and mouse input to Windows 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.

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.

The Mouse Gestures card on a Keyboard and Mouse slot

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.

Keyboard and mouse controller preview

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. 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.

MIDI controller configuration

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 Windows MIDI Services installed, 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
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

  1. Click and hold a controller card or sidebar entry.
  2. Drag it to the spot you want.
  3. 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.

The config tab row on a slot page

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). 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 sensor
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

  1. Devices page. Each device card shows numbered slot toggles. Click a number to assign or unassign.
  2. Sidebar. Drag a device onto a sidebar controller entry.
  3. 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.

Last updated for PadForge 4.5.0.