Everything, in full.

Mapping and control

Multi-source mappings

One row, any number of inputs, any number of devices. Six combine modes plus a drag-and-drop formula editor. Cross-device chords for free.

Multi-source mapping

Pedals, wheel, and HOTAS throttle. One virtual stick. One mapping row can read from any number of physical inputs across any number of physical devices. Six combine modes, Stick Trim, plus a drag-and-drop custom formula editor. Cross-device chords so a button on the wheel and a button on the shifter trigger one virtual press. A per-row Primary Mode picks how that source behaves: Direct, Incremental, Invert On Hold, or Ramp. Ramp turns an Up key and a Down key into a smooth stick axis, with its own attack, release, and autocenter timing.

Shift layers

Caps Lock for your controller. Each slot can carry extra mapping tables that turn on while a button, chord, or axis is held. Six activation modes: Hold, Toggle, Latch, Cycle, Sticky, and No Button. Cycle walks a queue of layers you choose, with a Previous button that can live on another device. Per-layer color and emoji icon. A Win11-style flyout confirms the active layer the moment it engages.

Starter profiles

Thirteen profiles that work on whatever pad you plug in. Pick one, assign any controller, and play. They cover a kind of game rather than a single title: Desktop, WASD and Mouse, Point and Click, Strategy, Isometric RPG, Twin-Stick, Media Remote, Hotbar, Fighting Games, Emulation, Racing, Space Sim, and Gyro Aim. They never name hardware, so one profile drives a DualSense, an Xbox pad, and a Switch Pro Controller the same way, and every profile that moves a cursor offers the touchpad and the stick at once. Hotbar puts thirty-two abilities behind two triggers. Fighting Games ships tournament-legal SOCD cleaning on both axes. Saving one adds an ordinary profile you can edit.

SOCD cleaning

Left and right at once, resolved your way. Press left and right together and something has to give. The Keyboard + Mouse controller cleans those opposing pairs across every key you map, and any slot can clean opposing virtual controller buttons the same way. Last-wins takes the newest press, the Snap Tap behavior. First-wins keeps the key you were already holding. Neutral cancels both to center.

Stick-assisted triggers

A digital trigger that pulls like an analog one. Some pads only give you a digital trigger, on or off. Stick Trim changes that. Set a trigger's combine mode to Stick Trim and a stick axis ramps the pull while you hold the button, so a bumper press plus a nudge of the stick reads as a partial squeeze in the game. Each mapping sets its own deadzone, ramp rate, and whether the pull resets on release.

Mouse gestures

Hold a mouse button. Flick. Fire. Hold any button on the mouse and flick the cursor. Up, down, left, right, or a plain click while held, five gestures off one button. Each fires its own action, so a single side button turns into five bindings. Send a flick to a shift layer, a macro, or a virtual button.

Media keys as inputs

Your keyboard's media keys, mapped. The media row on a keyboard, a media remote, a headset's transport buttons: PadForge reads them as their own device with named button chips. Map Play/Pause, Mute, Volume, or track keys to a virtual button or a macro trigger, same as any other input.

Macros with action sequences

Combo triggers and Custom Expression formulas. Key presses, mouse, scroll, volume, lightbar, rumble, and axis actions that latch, release, and scale. Twelve fire modes, from On Press through Double, Triple, Long, and Short Press to Toggle and Turbo, plus a per-macro shift-layer scope. Cursor actions to recenter the mouse, pin it at a point, or fence it inside a rectangle. Duplicate a macro in place, copy and paste between virtual controllers, or pull every macro from another in one step.

Per-app profiles

Watches the foreground window. Switches when a matching app takes focus. Win11-style flyout confirms.

Six deadzone shapes

Scaled Radial, Radial, Axial, Hybrid, Sloped Scaled Axial, Sloped Axial. Per-axis anti-deadzone. Custom sensitivity curves with unlimited draggable points.

Unknown hardware welcome

If Windows sees it, you can map it. For unrecognized gamepads, Force Raw Joystick Mode exposes every raw button and axis directly. Or click Submit Mapping on the device's card: your browser opens a pre-filled GitHub issue, you name the inputs, and once merged the mapping ships to every PadForge user on the next release.

Virtual controllers

Nintendo virtual controller

A virtual Switch Pro Controller through HIDMaestro, with gyro passed through from your physical pad. Games and emulators that speak Switch see the real thing.

Nintendo output

A virtual Switch Pro Controller. The Nintendo slot type creates a virtual Switch Pro Controller through HIDMaestro. Games and emulators that speak Switch see the real thing: the full button set, and gyro passed through from your physical pad.

Virtual VR controllers

A SteamVR hand pair, driven by whatever you already own. One slot presents a left and a right hand to SteamVR, so a gamepad, a flight stick, a keyboard, or a phone over Wi-Fi can drive them. Every stick, trigger, grip and button is a mapping target, triggers and grips stay genuinely analog, and when a game buzzes a hand the pulse comes back out through the device in your hands. PadForge installs the SteamVR runtime itself if you do not have it, with no Steam account and no Steam client. It does not fabricate positional tracking: the hands sit in front of the headset and follow where you look, so what you get is the controls.

MIDI virtual output

Channel 1-16. CC for axes, Note On/Off for buttons. Real Windows MIDI Services endpoint. No loopMIDI bridge.

Hide physical controllers

HidHide driver-level cloak. Per-device toggles auto-enable for gamepads. Cloak persists across launches.

Steam Workshop config import

Browse the community controller configs on the Steam Workshop and translate the one you pick into a PadForge profile: buttons, sticks, triggers, keyboard and mouse bindings, shift layers, and macros. Anonymous Steam connection, no account. An import report shows what came across clean and what was approximated. Off until you enable it in Settings.

Feel and feedback

Native wheel force feedback

Logitech, Fanatec, and Thrustmaster wheels driven in their own native protocols: constant force plus spring, damper, inertia, and friction. A Wheel tab for rotation range, auto-center, and RPM shift LEDs.

Force feedback both ways

Full rumble passthrough. HID PID 1.0 for wheels and joysticks. Audio bass rumble synthesized from system audio. Constant force vector.

Impulse triggers

Xbox impulse trigger passthrough on the assigned physical pad. Same data routes to DualSense as Adaptive Trigger Vibration. Audio-bass trigger rumble.

Trigger motors that feel the game

Forza, Gears, and Halo on your real Xbox pad. PadForge passes Xbox impulse trigger data straight to the assigned physical Xbox One, Elite, or Series pad. The same data routes to DualSense as Adaptive Trigger Vibration, so a DualSense playing Forza buzzes the triggers in step with an Xbox pad doing the same. Plus audio-bass-driven trigger rumble, a constant trigger force, and a Trigger Routing card that feeds the main rumble motor into the trigger motors with per-trigger source, scale, and activator settings.

Adaptive triggers and lightbar

Seven DualSense trigger modes plus a one-click GameCube preset. Fourteen lightbar modes including audio-pulse, audio-band, Strobe, and Battery.

DualSense effects in any game

Adaptive triggers and lightbar that don't need the game's blessing. Seven adaptive trigger modes with a live preview that draws the resistance curve as you drag. Fourteen lightbar modes, six of them driven by your system audio (three Audio Pulse variants and three that follow the level). The DualSense lights and triggers light up in games that have never heard of a DualSense.

Guide LED brightness

Dim the glowing button, or let it follow the battery. Set how bright the Guide button glows on an Xbox One, Elite, or Series pad over USB, the home LED on the 2015 Steam Controller, and the HOME button on a Switch Pro or right Joy-Con on any connection. Hold it at a fixed level, or let it track the battery so a full charge shines and a low one dims. A macro action changes it on demand.

Bass shaker output

Route game rumble and force feedback to any audio output as low-frequency tones. Four voices with per-voice frequency (20–120 Hz) and gain, mono or controller-stereo split, and a frequency sweep to tune your shaker.

Bass shakers

Rumble you can sit on. The Bass Shakers tab routes the game rumble and force feedback a slot receives to any audio output as low-frequency tones. Four voices, low motor, high motor, and both triggers, each with its own 20 to 120 Hz frequency and gain, a mono or controller-stereo split, and a frequency sweep to find where your shaker responds strongest.

Controller speaker audio

Play sound through the DualSense or DualShock 4 speaker. Mirror a Windows output or route a slot's macro sounds to the pad. DualSense over USB or Bluetooth, DualShock 4 over Bluetooth. Pads with haptic actuators but no speaker (Joy-Con, Switch Pro, Steam Controller, Steam Deck) play the sound as a haptic tone, and a Wii Remote through its own speaker.

Audio through the controller speaker

Sound from the speaker in your hands. The DualSense and DualShock 4 have a speaker built in, and PadForge can drive it. Mirror a Windows audio output to the pad, or send a slot's macro sounds straight to it. DualSense over USB or Bluetooth, DualShock 4 over Bluetooth. Pads with haptic actuators instead of a speaker, like a Joy-Con, Switch Pro, Steam Controller, or Steam Deck, play the same sounds as a vibrating tone, and a combined Joy-Con pair plays it through the coil the game drives. A Wii Remote plays them through its own speaker. The DualSense and DualShock 4 also get a processing chain of their own: bs2b crossfeed for the headset jack, a graphic parametric EQ you drag into shape or load from an AutoEq profile, and a limiter.

Headphone DSP chain

Crossfeed, a parametric EQ, and a limiter on the DualSense and DualShock 4 audio path, upstream of the encoder. bs2b crossfeed with the six classic presets, Jan Meier, the bs2b default, and a custom cutoff and feed. A graphic EQ you drag into shape or load from an AutoEq parametric file for your exact headphones, six band types. A feed-forward limiter so a boosted band never clips the pad.

Motion

Gyro at Steam Input parity

Local, Player, and World reference frames. Real-world calibration. Cross-device Aim Engage. Tuning saves per pad per slot.

Flick Stick

Flick to face it. Gyro to finish it. Flick the stick to its edge and the camera snaps to that direction, then rotates as you sweep the rim, while the gyro handles fine aim. Flick sources ride the right stick, the left stick, or a touchpad, and a Dots per 360 dial corrects a game whose camera over-rotates or under-rotates.

Headset head tracking

Turn your head to aim. Sony headphones that carry a head tracker become a motion source, confirmed on the WH-1000XM5 family. The whole gyro pipeline takes it: gyro-to-stick, gyro-to-mouse, aim engage, calibration, and the motion server. Discovery is by capability rather than a model list, so any headset exposing the same sensor collection is a candidate. It reports rotation, never position, and it pairs best with an engage button because head tracking that is always live is disorienting.

DSU motion server

Gyro and accel on UDP 26760. Cemu, Dolphin, Yuzu, Ryujinx all read it. Plug-and-play for any emulator that speaks Cemuhook.

Motion to emulators

Gyro into Cemu, Dolphin, Yuzu, and Ryujinx. The built-in DSU / Cemuhook server broadcasts gyroscope and accelerometer on UDP port 26760 so emulators can use real motion for Splatoon, Wii titles, 3DS games, and anything else that asks for it. Every motion source PadForge reads feeds it: DualSense, DualShock 4, Switch Pro, Joy-Con, 2026 Steam Controller, DualShock 3 sixaxis, and Wii Motion Plus.

Wii pointer modes

Point the Wii Remote like a light gun, or a mouse. The Pointer tab reads the Wii Remote's IR camera several ways. FPS Mouse drives the desktop mouse for shooters. The border modes keep the aimed area square, corrected for your screen's aspect ratio. When the camera loses the sensor bar, IR-offscreen freeze holds the last position instead of snapping to a corner. Cycle the modes live, or jump straight to one from a macro.

Joy-Con 2 optical mouse

The Joy-Con 2 is a mouse. So use it like one. A Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Con has an optical sensor on its face. Set it on a desk and slide it. Two sources, Mouse Motion X and Mouse Motion Y, drive a stick for mouse-look, a button, or the scroll wheel, each with its own Sensitivity dial. The first-generation right Joy-Con carries an IR camera where this one carries the mouse sensor, and its brightness reading maps too, so covering it works like a button.

Touch and pointer

Touchpad outputs

Map any touchpad (DualSense, DS4, laptop trackpad, phone web touchpad, overlay) to mouse X/Y with per-axis sensitivity and invert, to a virtual analog stick anchored where your finger lands, or to a wedge-thresholded D-pad. Plus the gesture stack: swipes, taps, longpress, pinch, rotate, custom shape templates. Every toggle is per slot.

Touchpad as more than a touchpad

Turn the DualSense pad into a mouse, a stick, or a D-pad. Map a finger to mouse X/Y with per-axis sensitivity, invert, and a Trackpad pointer response that moves the cursor the way a laptop touchpad does. Anchor a virtual analog stick where your finger lands. Drop a wedge-thresholded D-pad on top. Pressure-sensitive pads expose per-finger pressure as sources, and swipe haptics tick the pad as a finger travels. Plus the gesture stack: 4-way and 8-way swipes, taps, longpress, pinch, rotate, two- to five-finger gestures, and shape templates. Every toggle saves per pad per slot.

On-screen touchpad overlay

A touchpad on any monitor. Pin a transparent touchpad window to any monitor and use it as a touchpad input for the assigned DS4 or DualSense slot. Adjustable opacity, size, and position. No phone required.

Mouse as a source

Two Mouse Position sources read where the desktop cursor sits and push a stick, trigger, or button toward it. A per-row Sensitivity dial (0.1 to 5.0) sets the cursor travel for full deflection. Separate from the Mouse Speed sources that read movement. Primary monitor only.

3D and 2D visualization

Native 2D art per profile, plus 3D models for Xbox 360, Xbox One / Elite / Adaptive, Xbox Series, DualShock 4, DualSense, DualSense Edge, and the Switch Pro pads. Click any button in 3D to record its mapping.

Devices and connectivity

Remote Link

Share a controller, wheel, or HOTAS with the other PCs on your network. Both directions at once. Rumble, force feedback, adaptive triggers, lightbar, player LEDs, and speaker audio return to the real hardware. Pair once with a six-digit code. Works on your home network, and across the internet by swapping connection codes with no VPN needed.

Share controllers across your PCs

The controller is on the other PC. The game doesn't care. Remote Link shares devices across the PadForge PCs on your network. A controller, wheel, or HOTAS plugged into one PC drives a game on another, both directions at once, and the feedback comes home: rumble, force feedback, adaptive triggers, lightbar, player LEDs, and the controller speaker all play on the physical device wherever it lives. Pair once with a six-digit code. Trusted PCs reconnect on their own. A gamepad-only switch keeps a paired PC away from your keyboard, mouse, and macros.

Phone-as-controller

Browser-based gamepad over Wi-Fi. Ten controller layouts, a multi-touch touchpad, and a builder for your own. Up to 16 phones on one PC at once. Vibration API rumble back to each phone. No app install.

MIDI input

Use a MIDI keyboard or pad controller as a mapping source. Notes, CC, pitch bend, and encoders bind like buttons and axes. Same Windows MIDI Services stack as the MIDI virtual output.

A MIDI keyboard as a controller

MIDI in, gamepad out. PadForge reads MIDI input devices as mapping sources. Notes, Control Change knobs, pitch bend, and encoder dials from a MIDI keyboard or pad controller bind like any button or axis, so a piano key can press A and a mod wheel can pull a trigger. It rides the same Windows MIDI Services stack the MIDI virtual controller uses. No bridge software.

MIDI from a gamepad

A 16-channel MIDI controller, no extra hardware. Map sticks to Control Change messages. Map buttons to Note On / Note Off. Set velocity per slot. PadForge creates a real Windows MIDI endpoint that DAWs (Ableton Live, FL Studio, Reaper), VJ tools, and stage lighting apps can subscribe to. No loopMIDI bridge.

NFC tag triggers

Tap a tag. Fire a macro. Plug in an NFC reader, any PC/SC contactless reader like an ACR122U, and a tag tap runs a macro. Register a tag from the Devices page: hold it on the reader, give it a name, and it is saved for good. Each tag becomes its own trigger, next to an Any NFC Tag trigger that any tag fires. Map an amiibo, a sticker, or a card to a button combo, a profile switch, or a whole action sequence.

Wii controllers

In-app Bluetooth pairing. Press SYNC to bond once and reconnect on any button, or hold 1 and 2 for a temporary pairing. Wii Remote, Remote plus Nunchuk, Classic Controller, and Wii U Pro Controller map as pads. Accelerometer and Motion Plus gyro feed the motion pipeline. The IR camera drives an on-screen pointer, and a Balance Board reports weight and lean.

Wii controllers, paired in-app

Pair a Wii Remote without leaving PadForge. A Wii controller's PIN is six raw bytes set by the sync button, not text you can type into the Windows prompt. So PadForge runs the pairing itself: click Pair, press the red SYNC button, and the controller bonds and reconnects on any button press after that. A bare Wii Remote, Remote plus Nunchuk, Classic Controller, and Wii U Pro Controller all map as normal pads, with the accelerometer and Motion Plus gyro feeding the same motion pipeline as a DualSense. A Balance Board reports weight and lean as mapping sources.

DualShock 3, paired in-app

The PS3 pad on PC, without the driver hunt. Plug it in over USB and PadForge binds it through WinUSB on its own. Or pair it over Bluetooth from the Devices page, which installs the signed BthPS3 driver only when you pair one. Either way you get the sixaxis motion, ten pressure-sensitive buttons across the face, shoulders and D-pad, analog L2 and R2, rumble, the player LED, and the battery reading. No DsHidMini, no ScpToolkit. Remove the controller and PadForge cleans up the pairing after it.

Battery and idle disconnect

See the charge. Sleep it when idle. Every wireless pad that reports a battery shows its charge on the Devices page, with a charging glyph while it tops up. Set an Idle Disconnect timer and a Bluetooth controller drops its link after a few quiet minutes, so it sleeps instead of draining on the coffee table. A Disconnect Controller macro turns one off on command.

1000 Hz polling

Sub-millisecond jitter via high-resolution waitable timers. Bit-perfect axis passthrough at defaults. Built on SDL3.

Also included

Voice macros

Register a phrase and speak it to fire a macro. Recognition runs offline with no account and no cloud. The Vosk model downloads once on first use, and Windows' own recognizer carries the feature until it lands. Anything the recognizer hears that is not a registered phrase goes to an unknown bucket rather than firing at random.

PlayStation Move and Navigation

Both PlayStation Move devices report over Bluetooth, and the PS4-era wand streams over USB as well. The wand carries a gyroscope, an accelerometer, an analog trigger and its illuminated sphere. The Navigation controller carries a stick, a D-pad and its buttons. Motion needs the wand's own calibration data, which PadForge reads once from a USB dock. There is no camera tracking, so you get rotation and acceleration but never position.

VR devices as mapping sources

A headset's pose and its motion controllers become ordinary mapping sources, so what you hold in VR can drive a flat game.

3Dconnexion SpaceMouse

The 6DoF puck reports as a six-axis controller: three translation axes and three rotation axes moving at once, plus its buttons. Games ignore the device class, so PadForge reads it directly.

Pressure-sensitive turbo

A repeat action's rate follows how hard the input is pressed. Pick the analog source it tracks, a trigger or a DualShock 3 pressure axis, and a light press repeats slowly while a full press repeats at the interval.

Trackball momentum

Flick a stick or a touchpad and the cursor keeps traveling, coasting to a stop on constant-deceleration physics. Momentum Glide sets how far it coasts, and the touchpad adds fling controls for what a fast flick does.

Gyro Tilt

A degree-ranged tilt mode beside the existing rate mode: hold a tilt and the stick holds its deflection, the way Steam's Joystick Deflection behaves. Full Tilt Range sets the angle that reaches full deflection, and Gyro Recenter re-zeroes the resting grip.

Low-battery alerts

Get notified before a controller dies mid-game, at a percentage you set, with an optional buzz on the pad itself. The same rumble drives identify, which is how you tell several identical pads apart.

Full comparison

Every capability, against the tools people usually reach for. The product page carries a shortened version of this table.

Questions, answered in full