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Electronicks / JoyShockMapper

A tool for PC gamers to play games with DualShock 4s, JoyCons, and Pro Controllers. Gyro aiming, flick stick.
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JoyShockMapper

The Sony PlayStation DualSense, DualShock 4, Nintendo Switch JoyCons (used in pairs), and Nintendo Switch Pro Controller have much in common. They have many of the features expected of modern game controllers. They also have an incredibly versatile and underutilised input that their biggest rival (Microsoft's Xbox One controller) doesn't have: a 3-axis gyroscope (from here on, “gyro”).

My goal with JoyShockMapper is to enable you to play PC games with DS, DS4, JoyCons, and Pro Controllers even better than you can on their respective consoles -- and demonstrate that more games should use these features in these ways.

Download JoyShockMapper to use right away here!

For developers, version 2.2 and older serve as a reference implementation for using JoyShockLibrary to read inputs from DualShock 4, DualSense, JoyCons, and Pro Controller in your games. It now uses SDL2 for controller support, and I've made code contributions to SDL2 to make sure it covers the same features.

JoyShockMapper is also a reference implementation for many of the best practices described on GyroWiki.

JoyShockMapper is primarily developed on Windows. JoyShockMapper should now be able to be built on and for Linux. See the instructions for that below. Please let us know if you have any trouble with this.

Contents

Installation for Devs

JoyShockMapper is written in C++ and is built using CMake.

The project is structured into a set of platform-agnostic headers, while platform-specific source files can be found in their respective subdirectories. The following files are platform-agnostic:

  1. include/JoyShockMapper.h - This header provides important type definitions that can be shared across the whole project. No variables are defined here, only constants.
  2. include/InputHelpers.h - This is platform agnostic declaration of wrappers for OS function calls and features.
  3. include/PlatformDefinitions.h - This is a set of declarations that create a common ground when dealing with platform-specific types and definitions.
  4. include/TrayIcon.h - This is a self contained module used to display in Windows an icon in the system tray with a contextual menu.
  5. include/Whitelister.h - This is another self contained Windows specific module that uses a socket to communicate with HIDCerberus and whitelist JSM, the Linux implementation, currently, is a stub.
  6. include/CmdRegistry.h - This header defines the base command type and the CmdRegistry class that processes them.
  7. include/JSMAssignment.hpp - Header for the templated class assignment commands
  8. include/JSMVariable.hpp - Header for the templated core variable class and a few derivatives.
  9. src/main.cpp - This does just about all the main logic of the application. The core processing logic should be kept in the other files as much as possible, and have the JSM specific logic in this file.
  10. src/CmdRegistry.cpp - Implementation for the command line processing entry point.
  11. src/operators.cpp - Implementation of all streaming and comparison operators for custom types declared in JoyShockMapper.h

The Windows implementation can be found in the following files:

  1. src/win32/InputHelpers.cpp
  2. src/win32/PlatformDefinitions.cpp
  3. src/win32/Whitelister.cpp.cpp
  4. include/win32/WindowsTrayIcon.h
  5. src/win32/WindowsTrayIcon.cpp

The Linux implementation can be found in the following files:

  1. src/linux/InputHelpers.cpp
  2. src/linux/PlatformDefinitions.cpp
  3. src/linux/Whitelister.cpp.cpp
  4. include/linux/StatusNotifierItem.h
  5. src/linux/StatusNotifierItem.cpp

Generate the project by runnning the following in a command prompt at the project root:

Linux specific notes

Please note that JoyShockMapper is primarily written for Windows and is a program in rapid development.

While JSM can be built for Linux, please note that the rapid pace of development and limited number of Linux maintainers means that the Linux release may not always build.

In order to build on Linux, the following dependencies must be met, with their respective development packages:

Distribution-Specific Package Names:

Due to a bug in GCC, the project in its current form will only build with Clang.

JoyShockMapper was initially developed for Windows, this has the side-effect of some types used through the code-base are Windows specific. These have been redefined on Linux. This was done to keep changes to the core logic of the application to a minimum, and lower the chance of causing regressions for existing users.

The application requires rw access to /dev/uinput, and /dev/hidraw[0-n] (the actual device depends on the node allocated by the OS). This can be achieved by chown-ing the required device nodes to the user running the application, or by applying the udev rules found in dist/linux/50-joyshockmapper.rules, adding your user to the input group, and restarting the computer for the changes to take effect. More info on udev rules can be found at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Udev#About_udev_rules.

The application will work on both X11 and Wayland, though focused window detection only works on X11.

Installation for Players

The latest version of JoyShockMapper can always be found here. All you have to do is run JoyShockMapper.exe.

Included is a folder called GyroConfigs. This includes templates for creating new configurations for 2D and 3D games, and configuration files that include the settings used for simple Real World Calibration.

Quick Start

  1. Connect your controller either with a usb cable or via bluetooth. Most modern controllers will be suported, including all Xbox, Playstation and Switch controllers, although Xbox and many others don't have the gyro sensor required for gyro controls.

  2. Run the JoyShockMapper executable, and you should see a console window welcoming you to JoyShockMapper.

    • In the console you can start entering bindings : [button name] = [key name]. See Digital Inputs section for details on how buttons and keys are named.
    • Sticks, the gyro and analog triggers require some more configuration: typically some MODE you want to set, a sensitivity value and some other settings. Each is explained in the corresponding section. They follow the same format : [setting name] = [value]
    • Buttons and settings will display their current values if you only enter their name in the console.
    • Settings can display a short description of what they do if you enter [setting name] HELP
    • There are quite a few commands that do not work as assignments like above but just runs a function. For example RECONNECT_CONTROLLERS will update the controller listing, and RESET_MAPPINGS will set all settings and bindings to default. README will lead you to this document!
    • You will find a JoyShockMapper icon in the system tray: right click on it to display a quick list of commands and configuration files.

  3. JoyShockMapper can load all the commands contained in a text file.

    • Enter the file's path and name in the console. If the file path is too long, or contains unusual characters, enter the relative path instead (eg: GyroConfigs/config.txt).
    • Every line of the text file will be run as a command typed directly into the console. The pound # symbol starts a comment until the end of the line and will be ignored by JoyShockMapper.
    • You can find example configuration files in the GyroConfigs folder. Files can refer one another : feel free to edit those in GyroConfigs as your customized gyro configuration for example.
    • Find more details in the Configuration Files section.

  4. If you're using a configuration that utilises gyro controls, the gyro will need to be calibrated (to be told what "not moving" is). See Gyro Mouse Inputs section for more info on that, but here's the short version:

    • Put all controllers down on a still surface;
    • Enter the command RESTART_GYRO_CALIBRATION to begin calibrating them;
    • After just a couple of seconds, enter the command FINISH_GYRO_CALIBRATION to finish calibrating them.
    • These commands are also accessible via the tray icon contextual menu as well.
    • JoyShockMapper relies on a Real World Calibration value for some features such as flick stick. If you didn't find this value in the online database, check the Real World Calibration section to calculate it yourself.

  5. If you run into some issues, make sure you check the Troubleshooting section and Known and Perceived Issues. If you couldn't find your answer, you can find more help online on the GyroGaming subreddit and its affiliated Discord Server.

Commands

Commands can be executed by simply typing them into the JoyShockMapper console windows and hitting 'enter'. You can see the list of all available commands by entering HELP, or all commands containing STICK by typing HELP STICK for example. Since there's a quite a lot of them, they are organized in this document by what part of the controller or software they affect.

Commands can mostly be split into 8 categories:

  1. Digital Inputs. These are the simplest. Map a button press or stick movement to a key or mouse button. There are many binding options available, such as tap & hold, simultaneous press, chorded press and more.
  2. Analog Triggers. Many controllers have 2 analog triggers: L2 and R2 on Playstation for example. JoyShockMapper can set different bindings on both "soft pull" and "full pull" of the trigger, maximizing use of those triggers. This feature is unavailable to controllers that have digital triggers, like the Nintendo Pro and Joycons.
  3. Stick Configuration. Joysticks can drive the mouse or trigger key presses in many different ways, such as flick stick or scroll wheel. They need to be set a mode, and some settings particular to that mode. This is all explained in this section.
  4. Gyro Mouse Inputs. Controlling the mouse with gyro generally provides far more precision than controlling it with a stick. Think of a gyro as a mouse on an invisible, frictionless mousepad. The mousepad extends however far you're comfortable rotating the controller. For games where you control the camera directly, stick mouse inputs provide convenient ways to complete big turns with little precision, while gyro mouse inputs allow you to make more precise, quick movements within a relatively limited range.
  5. Real World Calibration. This calibration value makes it possible for flick stick to work correctly, for the gyro and aim stick settings to have meaningful real-life values, and for players to share the same settings between different games.
  6. ViGEm Virtual Controller. JoyShockMapper can connect to Nefarius' ViGEm bus software to create virtual xbox controllers and virtual DS4 controllers. To make use of this feature you need to download and install the latest release at this link.
  7. Modeshifts. The controller configuration can dynamically change depending on the current button presses, in a way akin to chorded presses. This is handy to handle weapon wheels for example. These are called modeshifts to echo the Steam Input naming convention.
  8. Miscellaneous Commands. These don't fit in the above categories, but are nevertheless useful. They typically are related to JoyShockMapper itself rather than the controller configuration.

So let's dig into the available commands.

1. Digital Inputs

Digital inputs are really simple. They are structured mostly like the following:

[Controller Input] = [Key or Mouse Button]

For example, to map directional pad LEFT to the F1 key, you'd enter:

LEFT = F1

One important feature of JoyShockMapper is that a configuration that works for a PlayStation controller works the same for a pair of JoyCons or a Pro Controller. Because JoyCons can have slightly more inputs than the DualShock 4, the button names are mostly from the Nintendo devices. The main exceptions are the face buttons and the stick-clicks. Because they are named more concisely, the stick-clicks are named after the DualShock 4: L3 and R3.

The face buttons are a more complicated matter.

The Xbox layout has become the defacto layout for PC controllers. Most PC gamers who use some sort of controller will be familiar with the Xbox layout, whether from Xbox controllers, Steam controller, or other 3rd party controllers that can be interpreted by a game as an Xbox controller. Even PlayStation users will be somewhat used to interpreting Xbox face button names. Nintendo devices have the same face buttons in a different layout. X and Y are swapped, and so are A and B. Nintendo's layout has also been around for longer, but is less familiar to PC players.

So the best solution, in my opinion, is to use neither layout, and use an unambiguous layout with button names that aren't used by any controller, but still have obvious positions: the cardinal layout. North, East, South, West, denoted by N, E, S, W, respectively.

So, here's the complete list of digital inputs:

UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT: D-pad directional buttons
L: L1, LB or L the top left shoulder button
ZL: L2, LT or ZL the bottom left shoulder button (or trigger)
R: R1, RB or R, the top right shoulder button
ZR: R2, RT or ZR, the bottom right shoulder button
ZRF: Full pull binding of right trigger, only on controllers with analog triggers
ZLF: Full pull binding of left trigger, only on controllers with analog triggers
-: Share, Back or -
+: Options, Start or +
HOME: PS, Guide or Home
CAPTURE: Touchpad click or Capture
LSL, RSL: SL on JoyCons, or left paddles on Xbox elite
LSR, RSR: SR on JoyCons, or right paddles on Xbox elite
L3: L3 or Left-stick click
R3: R3 or Right-stick click
N: The North face button, △, Y (Xbox) or X (Nintendo)
E: The East face button, ○, B (Xbox) or A (Nintendo)
S: The South face button, ⨉, A (Xbox) or B (Nintendo)
W: The West face button, □, X (Xbox) or Y (Nintendo)
LUP, LDOWN, LLEFT, LRIGHT: Left stick tilted up, down left or right
LRING: Left ring binding, either inner or outer.
RUP, RDOWN, RLEFT, RRIGHT: Right stick tilted up, down, left or right
RRING: Right ring binding, either inner or outer.
MUP, MDOWN, MLEFT, MRIGHT: Motion stick tilted forward, back, left or right
MRING: Motion ring binding, either inner or outer.
LEAN_LEFT, LEAN_RIGHT: Tilt the controller to the left or right
TOUCH : The Playstation touchpad senses a finger
MIC: The Sony Dualsense microphone button

These can all be mapped to the following keyboard and mouse inputs:

0-9: number keys across the top of the keyboard
N0-N9: numpad number keys
ADD, SUBTRACT, DIVIDE, MULTIPLY, DECIMAL: numpad operator and decimal keys
F1-F29: F1, F2, F3... etc
A-Z: letter keys
UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT: the arrow keys
LCONTROL, RCONTROL, CONTROL: left Ctrl, right Ctrl, generic Ctrl, respectively
LALT, RALT, ALT: left Alt, right Alt, generic Alt, respectively
LSHIFT, RSHIFT, SHIFT: left Shift, right Shift, generic Shift, respectively
LWINDOWS, RWINDOWS, CONTEXT: Both Windows keys and the context menu key
TAB, ESC, ENTER, SPACE, BACKSPACE, CAPS_LOCK, SCROLL_LOCK, NUM_LOCK, 
PAGEUP, PAGEDOWN, HOME, END, INSERT, DELETE
LMOUSE, MMOUSE, RMOUSE: mouse left click, middle click and right click respectively
BMOUSE, FMOUSE: mouse back (button 4) click and mouse forward (button 5) click respectively
SCROLLUP, SCROLLDOWN: scroll the mouse wheel up, down, respectively
VOLUME_UP, VOLUME_DOWN, MUTE: Volume controls
NEXT_TRACK, PREV_TRACK, STOP_TRACK, PLAY_PAUSE: media control
SCREENSHOT: print screen button
NONE, DEFAULT: No input
CALIBRATE: recalibrate gyro when pressing this input
GYRO_ON, GYRO_OFF: Enable or disable gyro
GYRO_INVERT, GYRO_INV_X, GYRO_INV_Y: Invert gyro, or in just the x or y axes, respectively
GYRO_TRACKBALL, GYRO_TRACK_X, GYRO_TRACK_Y: Keep last gyro input, or in just the x or y axes, respectively
; ' , . / \ [ ] + - `
"any console command": Any console command can be run on button press, including loading a file
SMALL_RUMBLE, BIG_RUMBLE, Rhhhh: rumble commands. The 'h' are capital hex digits, such as 'R8000' or 'RFFFF'

For example, in a game where R is 'reload' and E is 'use’, you can do the following to map □ to 'reload' and △ to 'use':

W = R
N = E

Those familiar with Steam Input can implement Action Layers and Action Sets using the quotation marks to load a file on demand. That file can contain partial or full remapping of the controller bindings. This is very useful for having a different scheme for vehicles, menus or characters.

# Load the driving control scheme.
HOME = "Autoload/GTA5/GTA_driving.txt" # That file should bind HOME to loading the walking scheme file!

Take note that the command bound in this way cannot contain quotation marks, and thus cannot contain the binding of a command itself. In this case, you should put the command in a file and load that file.

1.1 Tap & Hold

Since a keyboard has many more inputs available than most controllers, console games will often map multiple actions to the same button while the PC version has those actions mapped to different keys. In order to fit keyboard mappings onto a controller, JoyShockMapper allows you to map taps and holds of a button to different keyboard/mouse inputs. So let's take that same game and make it so we can tap □ to 'reload' or hold □ to 'use':

W = R E

If you want □ to 'reload' when tapped, but do nothing at all when held, you can do the following:

W = R NONE

The time to hold the button before enabling the hold binding can be changed by assigning a number of milliseconds to HOLD_PRESS_TIME. The default value is 150 milliseconds.

See the tap press and hold press event modifiers below for more details on how keybinds are applied.

1.2 Binding Modifiers

Taps and holds are the most common bindings used on a controller. But sometimes, you will find the need to require bindings that are somewhat more complicated, either because you want to work around an in-game behaviour, or you want to create some unusual key press combination. In any case, JoyShockMapper allows you to highly customize how mappings are assigned to your button through binding modifiers.

Before we dive in, there's a few notions to understand. A key press always involves a key down and a key up action. In a simple binding, JoyShockMapper will match the button down and button up events with a key down and key up action respectively. However when you use Tap and Hold bindings, JoyShockMapper will bind the key down and key up to different events that will happen a certain time while the button is down and after the button is released. Some bindings do not have a matching "key up" action such as scroll wheel bindings and console command bindings.

There are two kinds of modifiers that can be applied to key bindings: action modifiers and event modifiers. They are represented by symbols added before and after the key name respectively. And each binding can only ever have one of each. You can however have multiple keys bound to the same events, thus sending multiple key presses at once.

Action modifiers affect how the key down and key up actions are bound to the events. They come in two kinds: toggle (^) and instant (!).

Event Modifiers affect what button events the key up and key down actions will be bound to. They come in five kinds: start press (\), release press (/), tap press ('), hold press (_),\ and turbo (+).

These modifiers can enable you to work around in game tap and holds, or convert one form of press into another. Here's a few example of how you can make use of those modifiers.

ZL = ^RMOUSE\ RMOUSE_ # ADS toggle on tap and release the toggle on hold
E  = !C\ !C/          # Convert in game toggle crouch to regular press
UP = !1\ 1            # Convert Batarang throw double press to hold press
W  = R E\             # In Halo MCC, reload on tap but apply E right away to cover for in-game hold processing
-,S = SPACE+          # Turbo press for button mash QTEs. No one likes to button mash :(
R3 = !1\ LMOUSE+ !Q/  # Half life melee button
UP,UP = !ENTER\ LSHIFT\ !G\ !L\ !SPACE\ !H\ !F\ !ENTER/ # Pre recorded message
UP,E = BACKSPACE+     # Erase pre recorded message if I change my mind

Take note that the Simultaneous Press below introduce delays in the raising of the events (notably StartPress) until the right mapping is determined. Those time windows are not added but events will be pushed together within a poll callback or two.

Also, Double Press bindings has some special timing handling in order to give the user the option to have the first binding skippable or not. See its dedicated section below for details

Finally, Here is a graph containing a comprehensive description of when the button events are raised over the course of a press.

                                        less than 150 ms hold time
    150 ms hold time    80ms turbo period          V         500 ms for gyro and calibration
            V                 V                    |------|< actions or 40 ms otherwise
______|-----|---|---|---|---|---|--|___________|---|____________
      \____________________________/           \___/      |
      |     |   |   |   |   |   |  |           |   |      |
     (a)   (b) (c) (c) (c) (c) (c)(d)         (a) (d)    (g)
           (c)                    (f)             (e)
a: start press \
b: hold press _
c: turbo +
d: release press /
e: tap press '
f: hold release
g: tap release
Events a, b, c, d and e have an Instant Release event attached to them 40ms after they occur.

1.3 Simultaneous Press

JoyShockMapper additionally allows you to map simultaneous button presses to different mappings. For example you can bind character abilities on your bumpers and an ultimate ability on both like this:

L = LSHIFT # Ability 1
R = E      # Ability 2
L+R = Q    # Ultimate Ability

To enable a simultaneous binding, both buttons need to be pressed within a very short time of each other. Doing so will ignore the individual button bindings and apply the specified binding until either of the button is released. Simultaneous bindings also support tap & hold bindings as well as modifiers just like other mappings. This feature is great to make use of the dpad diagonals, or to add JSM specific features like gyro calibration and gyro control without taking away accessible buttons.

The time window in which both buttons need to be pressed can be changed by assigning a different number of milliseconds to SIM_PRESS_WINDOW. This setting cannot be changed by modeshift (covered later).

1.4 Chorded Press

Chorded press works differently from Simultaneous Press, despite being similar at first blush. A chorded press mapping allows you to override a button mapping when the chord button is down. This enables a world of different practical combinations, allowing you to have contextual bindings. Here's an example for Left 4 Dead 2, that would enable you to equip items without lifting the thumb from the left stick.

W = R E # Reload / Use
S = SPACE # Jump
E = CONTROL # Crouch
N = T # Voice Chat

L = Q NONE # Other weapon, hold to select with face button.
L,W = 3 # Explosives
L,S = 4 # Pills
L,E = 5 # Medpack
L,N = F # Flashlight

A button can be chorded with multiple other buttons. In this case, the latest chord takes precedence over previous chords. This can be understood as a stack of layers being put on top of the binding each time a chord is pressed, where only the top one is active. Notice that you don't need to have NONE as a binding : the chord binding could very well be bound to a button that brings up a weapon wheel for example.

1.5 Double Press

You can also assign the double press of a button to a different binding. Double press notation is the same as chorded button notation, except the button is chorded with itself. It supports taps & holds and modifiers like all previous entries.

The double press binding is applied when a down press occurs within 150 milliseconds from a previous down press. The regular binding will apply any on press event on the first press, but will only apply the tap binding if the second press is ommitted and with a delay. The double press binding also supports tap & hold bindings as well as modifiers. The time window in which to perform the double press can be changed by assigning a different number of milliseconds to DBL_PRESS_WINDOW.

N = SCROLLDOWN # Cycle weapon
N,N = X        # Cycle weapon fire mode

W = !E\        # Pick up item
W,W = I        # Pick up item and open Inventory

E = C'         # Crouch
E,E = Z        # Don't crouch but go prone

1.6 Gyro Button

Lastly, there is one digital input that works differently, because it can overlap with any other input. Well, two inputs, but you'll use at most one of them in a given configuration:

GYRO_OFF
GYRO_ON

When you assign a button to GYRO_ON, gyro mouse only work while that button is pressed. GYRO_OFF disables the gyro while the button is pressed. This is a really important feature absent from most games that have gyro aiming -- just as a PC gamer can temporarily "disable" the mouse by lifting it off the mousepad in order to reposition it, a gyro gamer should be able to temporarily disable the gyro in order to reposition it. This binding doesn't affect other mappings associated with that button. This is so that the gyro can be enabled alongside certain in-game actions, or so that the gyro can be disabled or enabled instantly regardless of what taps or holds are mapped to that button.

For games that really need to use all the buttons available on the controller, but one of those inputs is rarely used and can be toggled easily (like crouching, for example), it might make sense to make that input tap-only, and make it double as the gyro-off button when held:

E = LCONTROL NONE
GYRO_OFF = E

Or if you really can't spare a button for disabling the gyro, you can use LEFT_STICK or RIGHT_STICK to disable the gyro while that input is being used:

GYRO_OFF = RIGHT_STICK # Disable gyro while aiming with stick

I prefer to be able to use stick aiming (or flick stick) at the same time as aiming with the gyro, but this can still be better than having no way to disable the gyro at all if your game doesn't have an obvious function to tie to enabling gyro aiming (like a dedicated "aim weapon" button as is common in third-person action games).

GYRO_ON is really useful for games where you only sometimes need to aim precisely. If ZL causes your character to aim their bow (like in Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Shadow of Mordor), maybe that's the only time you want to have gyro aiming enabled:

ZL = RMOUSE   # Aim with Bow
GYRO_ON = ZL  # Turn on gyro when ZL is pressed

GYRO_ON and GYRO_OFF can also be bound as an action to particular buttons. Contrary to the command above, this takes the spot of the action binding. But you can still find creative ways with taps & holds or chorded press to bind the right gyro control where you need it.

Take note that taps apply gyro-related bindings for half a second. Another option is inverting the gyro input with GYRO_INVERT. Such a binding can be handy if you play with a single joycon because you don't have a second stick. When that action is enabled, the inversion makes it so that you can recenter the hands by continuing to turn in the opposite direction!

SL + SR = GYRO_OFF GYRO_INVERT  # Disable for .5s / Invert axis on simultaneous bumper hold

Bound gyro actions like those have priority over the assigned gyro button should they conflict.

The command NO_GYRO_BUTTON can be used to remove the gyro-on or gyro-off mapping, making gyro always enabled. To have it always disabled, just set GYRO_ON = NONE or leave GYRO_SENS at 0.

If you're using GYRO_TRACKBALL or its single-axis variants, you can use TRACKBALL_DECAY to choose how quickly the trackball effect loses momentum. It can be set to 0 for no decay. Its default value of 1 halves the gyro trackball's momentum over each second. 2 will halve it in 1/2 seconds, 3 in 1/3 seconds, and so on. Some smoothing is applied when getting the trackball initial velocity in order to reduce the effects of noise or controller instability when pressing the button.

2. Analog Triggers

2.1 Analog to digital

The following section does not apply to Joycons and Switch Pro controllers because they only have digital triggers.

Analog triggers report a value between 0% and 100% representing how far you are pulling the trigger. Binding a digital button to an analog trigger is done using a threashold value. The button press is sent when the trigger value crosses the threashold value, sitting between 0% and 100%. The default threashold value is 0, meaning the slightest press of the trigger sends the button press. This is great for responsiveness, but could result in accidental presses. The threashold can be customized by running the following command:

TRIGGER_THRESHOLD = 0.5   #Send Trigger values at half press

The same threashold value is used for both triggers. A value of 1.0 or higher makes the binding impossible to reach.

Hair trigger is also implemented: to enable it, assign a value of -1 as the trigger threshold. When hair trigger is used, the binding is enabled when the trigger is being pressed and held, and released when the trigger is being released. This allows quick tap shooting by pulsing the trigger.

2.2 Full pull and modes

JoyShockMapper can assign different bindings to the full pull of the trigger, allowing you to double the number of bindings put on the triggers. The way the trigger handles these bindings is set with the variables ZR_MODE and ZL_MODE, for R2 and L2 triggers. Once set, you can assign keys to ZRF and ZLF to make use of the R2 and L2 full pull bindings respectively. In this context, ZL and ZR are called the soft pull binding because they activate before the full pull binding does at 100%. Here is the list of all possible trigger modes.

NO_FULL (default): Ignore full pull binding. This mode is enforced on controllers who have digital triggers.
NO_SKIP: Never skip the soft pull binding. Full pull binding activates anytime the trigger is fully pressed.
NO_SKIP_EXCLUSIVE: Never skip the soft pull binding. When Full pull binding is active, the soft pull binding isn't.
MUST_SKIP: Only send full pull binding on a quick full press of the trigger, ignoring soft pull binding.
MAY_SKIP: Combines NO_SKIP and MUST_SKIP: Soft binding may be skipped on a quick full press, and full pull can be activated on top of soft pull binding.
MUST_SKIP_R: Responsive version of MUST_SKIP. See below.
MAY_SKIP_R: Responsive version of MAY_SKIP. See below.

For example, in Call of Duty you have a binding to hold your breath when aiming with a sniper. You can bind ADS on a soft trigger press and hold breath on the full press like this:

ZL_MODE = NO_SKIP   # Enable full pull binding, never skip ADS
ZL = RMOUSE         # Aim Down Sights
ZLF = LSHIFT        # Hold breath

Using NO_SKIP mode makes it so that LSHIFT is only active if RMOUSE is active as well. Then on the right trigger, you can bind your different attack bindings: use the skipping functionality to avoid having them conflict with eachother like this:

TRIGGER_THRESHOLD = -1 # Use hair trigger for primary fire
ZR_MODE = MUST_SKIP    # Enable full pull binding, soft and full bindings are mutually exclusive
ZR = LMOUSE            # Primary Fire
ZRF = V G              # Quick full tap to melee; Quick hold full press to unpin grenade and throw on release

Using MUST_SKIP mode makes sure that once you start firing, reaching the full pull will not make you stop firing to melee.

The "Responsive" variants of the skip modes enable a different behaviour that can give you a better experience than the original versions in specific circumstances. A typical example is when the soft binding is a mode-like binding like ADS or crouch, and there is no hold or simultaneous press binding on that soft press. The difference is that the soft binding is actived as soon as the trigger crosses the threshold, giving the desired responsive feeling, but gets removed if the full press is reached quickly, thus still allowing you to hip fire for example. This will result in a hopefully negligeable scope glitch but grants a snappier ADS activation.

2.3 Adaptive Triggers

The Dualsense controller features adaptive trigger that allow software to control the force feedback applies on the triggers. JoyShockMapper makes use of this feature to provide useful feedback depending on the trigger mode and position of the trigger. If you don't want JSM to use this feature, it can be disbaled across the board with the following command:

ADAPTIVE_TRIGGER = OFF # Don't use force feedback in my triggers

While adaptive triggers are enabled, the Dualsense controller will ignore hair trigger threshold, and consider it to be simply threshold zero. This is because the adaptive triggers fulfill the purpose of hair triggers by restricting uneccessary travelling distance. With adaptive triggers turned off, regular hair trigger is then accessible.

Each trigger and each devices might have slightly different trigger properties, which causes a mismatch between the reported trigger position and the position setting in the resistance packet. Each trigger thus gets 2 new settings, an offset and a range, that can be determined through a single-time calibration procedure. You can start this procedure by entering the command CALIBRATE_TRIGGERS : you will be required to gently press on a trigger just until you feel the resistance push back. Then you press a button and you will feel the trigger slowly lower : make sure you press gently. Once you reach full press JSM will display to you the calculated offset and range for your trigger. The same procedure is done on the other trigger after.

You should set these values in your OnReset.txt file so that they are always set properly for your controller.

LEFT_TRIGGER_OFFSET = 20     # My DS trigger calibration values
LEFT_TRIGGER_RANGE = 167
RIGHT_TRIGGER_OFFSET = 31
RIGHT_TRIGGER_RANGE = 175

User Nielk1 has reverse engineered the adaptive trigger data and developped a C# utility for it. With his permission (and under MIT licence) I've C++-ified the code and integrated it into JSM. Two new settings are then available LEFT_TRIGGER_EFFECT and RIGHT_TRIGGER_EFFECT. They can be set to OFF or ON (JSM handling) or be provided with one of Nielk1's functions.

RESISTANCE start[0 9] force[0 8]: Some resistance starting at point
BOW start[0 8] end[0 8] forceStart[0 8] forceEnd[0 8]: increasingly strong resistance
GALLOPING start[0 8] end[0 9] foot1[0 6] foot2[0 7] freq[Hz]: Two pulses repeated periodically
SEMI_AUTOMATIC start[2 7] end[0 8] force[0 8]: Trigger effect
AUTOMATIC start[0 9] strength[0 8] freq[Hz]: Regular pulse effect
MACHINE start[0 9] end[0 9] force1[0 7] force2[0 7] freq[Hz] period: Irregular pulsing

3. Stick Configuration

Each stick has 8 different operation modes when you're not using a virtual controller:

AIM: traditional stick aiming
FLICK: flick stick
FLICK_ONLY: flick stick without rotation after tilting the stick
ROTATE_ONLY: flick stick rotation without the initial flick
MOUSE_RING: stick angle sets the mouse position on a circle directly around the center of the screen
MOUSE_AREA: stick position sets the cursor in a circular area around the neutral position
NO_MOUSE: don't affect the mouse, use button mappings (default)
SCROLL_WHEEL: enable left and right bindings by rotating the stick counter-clockwise or clockwise.
HYBRID_AIM: adds together traditional behavior of a stick with a mouse-like behavior.

The mode for the left and right stick are set like so:

LEFT_STICK_MODE = NO_MOUSE
RIGHT_STICK_MODE = AIM

Regardless of what mode you're in, you can have additional input bound to a partial or full tilt of either stick. For example, you might want to always be pressing LSHIFT when the stick is fully tilted:

LEFT_RING_MODE = OUTER # OUTER is default, so this line is optional
LRING = LSHIFT

Or you might want to always be pressing LALT when the stick is only partially tilted:

LEFT_RING_MODE = INNER
LRING = LALT

For backwards compatibility reasons, there are two extra options for LEFT_STICK_MODE and RIGHT_STICK_MODE that set the corresponding STICK_MODE and RING_MODE at the same time:

INNER_RING: Same as _STICK_MODE = NO_MOUSE and _RING_MODE = INNER
OUTER_RING: Same as _STICK_MODE = NO_MOUSE and _RING_MODE = OUTER

If you're holding the controller in an unusual orientation (such as for comfort reasons or when using a single JoyCon), you can set CONTROLLER_ORIENTATION to reflect how you're holding the controller:

Once set, JoyShockMapper will rearrange the stick's X and Y axis data to match your perspective. CONTROLLER_ORIENTATION only affects sticks (including motion stick). It doesn't affect the arrangement of the face buttons, d-pad, etc. Look up Gyro Mouse Inputs section for how to remap gyro axis to mouse axis.

Let's have a look at all the different operations modes.

3.1 Standard AIM mode

When using the AIM stick mode, there are a few important commands:

3.2 FLICK mode and variants

When using the FLICK stick mode, there is less to configure. There are no deadzones and no sensitivity. When you press the stick in a direction, JoyShockMapper just takes the angle of the stick input and translates it into the same in-game direction relative to where your camera is already facing, before smoothly moving the camera to point in that direction in a small fraction of a second. Once already pressed, rotating the flick stick X degrees will then instantly turn the in-game camera X degrees. This provides a very natural way to quickly turn around, respond to gun-fire from off-screen, or make gradual turns without moving the controller.

Since flick stick only turns the camera horizontally, it's generally only practical in combination with gyro aiming that can handle vertical aiming.

Flick stick will use the above-mentioned STICK_DEADZONE_OUTER to decide if the stick has been pressed far enough for a flick or rotation. Flick stick relies on REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION to work correctly (covered later, as it affects all inputs that translate to mouse-movements). This is because JoyShockMapper can only point the camera in a given direction by making the right mouse movement, and REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION helps JoyShockMapper calculate what that movement should be. A game that natively implements flick stick would have no need for calibration. Flick stick has a few settings if you really want to mess with it:

*Developer note: The DualSense and DualShock 4's stick input resolution is low enough that small flick stick rotations can be jittery. JoyShockMapper applies some smoothing just to very small changes in the flick stick angle, which is very effective at covering this up. Larger movements are not smoothed at all. This is more thoroughly explained for developers to implement in their own games on GyroWiki. JoyShockMapper automatically calculates different smoothing thresholds for the PlayStation and Switch controllers, but you can override the smoothing threshold by setting ROTATE_SMOOTH_OVERRIDE any small number, or to 0 to disable smoothing, or to -1 to return to the automatically calculated threshold.

The FLICK_ONLY and ROTATE_ONLY stick modes work the same as flick stick with some features blocked out. The former means you'll get the initial flick, but no subsequent rotation when rotating the stick. The latter means you won't get the initial flick, but subsequent rotations will work.

You can also emulate flick stick with a virtual controller, but it's more limited. Set FLICK_STICK_OUTPUT to RIGHT_STICK or LEFT_STICK instead of its default value of MOUSE. When outputting flick stick to a virtual controller, FLICK_TIME and FLICK_TIME_EXPONENT won't do anything. Instead, the virtual stick will be tilted at its full strength in the desired direction for enough time to complete the flick. This will generally be much less precise than MOUSE mode, but it's still useful. Tune the size of a flick stick flick/rotation by setting VIRTUAL_STICK_CALIBRATION. Ideally, this should be set to the maximum horizontal turning speed of the in game camera in degrees per second.

3.3 HYBRID_AIM mode

When using HYBRID_AIM stick mode, the output consists of the sum of the behavior of a traditional stick, i.e. stick position sets cursor speed, as well as the positional behavior, i.e. stick travelling sets cursor travelling. Additionally, there is an 'edge push' feature to preserve the motion speed when pushing the stick to the edge. Moving the stick quickly gives a large output that is dominated by the mouse-like component, whereas moving it slowly gives an output that in more influenced by the stick-like component.

With this input method it is easier to do accurate small movements of the camera while being able to do faster turns than with a traditional stick method as the combined behavior results in a high dynamic range.

This mode shares STICK_SENS*, STICK_POWER, (LEFT / RIGHT)_STICKAXIS, (LEFT_ / RIGHT)STICK_DEADZONE_DEADZONEINNER and (LEFT / RIGHT_)STICK_DEADZONE_OUTER with AIM.

It is recommended to keep STICK_DEADZONE_OUTER as small as possible for the best experience. STICK_DEADZONE_INNER matters less, as this mode is very responsive even with a large inner deadzone.

The other settings of this mode are:

3.4 Other mouse modes

When using the MOUSE_RING stick mode, tilting the stick will put the mouse cursor in a position offset from the centre of the screen by your stick position. This mode is primarily intended for twin-stick shooters. To do this, the application needs to know your screen resolution (SCREEN_RESOLUTION_X and SCREEN_RESOLUTION_Y) and how far you want the cursor to sit from the centre of the screen (MOUSE_RING_RADIUS). When this mode is in operation (i.e. the stick is not at rest), all other mouse movements are ignored.

When using the MOUSE_AREA stick mode, the stick value directly sets the mouse position. So moving the stick rightward gradually all the way to the edge will move the cursor at the same speed for a number of pixel equal to the value of MOUSE_RING_RADIUS ; and moving the stick back to the middle will move the cursor back again to where it started. Contrary to the previous mode, this mode can operate in conjunction with other mouse inputs, such as gyro.

3.5 Digital modes

When using stick mode NO_MOUSE, JSM will use the stick's UP DOWN LEFT and RIGHT bindings in a cross gate layout. There is a small square deadzone to ignore very small stick moves.

Finally, SCROLL_WHEEL turns the stick into a rotating scroll wheel. Left bindings are pulsed by rotating counter-clockwise and right bindings are pulsed by rotating clockwise. The setting SCROLL_SENS allows you to change the amount of degrees you need to perform to trigger a pulse. Unlike other sensitivity parameters, a higher value is less sensitive.

# Left stick moves
LLEFT = A
LRIGHT = D
LUP = W
LDOWN = S
LEFT_RING_MODE = INNER
LRING = LALT # Walk

3.6 Motion Stick and lean bindings

Using the motion sensors, you can treat your whole controller as a stick. The "Motion Stick" can do everything that a regular stick can do:

The gyro needs to be correctly calibrated for motion stick to work best (see calibration commands below under Gyro Mouse Inputs).

By default, the neutral position is approximately the position the controller is when left on a flat surface. You can set a different neutral position by entering the command SET_MOTION_STICK_NEUTRAL. When this command is executed, however you're holding the controller at the time will be considered the "neutral" orientation.

A common use for the motion sensors is to map left and right leans of the controller. This isn't quite the same as motion stick -- regardless of whether you hold your controller flat or upright, lean mappings should still work the same. You just need:

4. Gyro Mouse Inputs

The first thing you need to know about gyro mouse inputs is that a controller's gyro will often need calibrating. This just means telling the application where "zero" is. Just like a scale, the gyro needs a point of reference to compare against in order to accurately give a result. This is done by leaving the controller still, or holding it very still in your hands, and finding the average velocity over a short time of staying still. It needs to be averaged over some time because the gyro will pick up a little bit of "noise" -- tiny variations that aren't caused by any real movement -- but this noise is negligible compared to the shakiness of human hands trying to hold a controller still.

If you have gyro mouse enabled and the gyro moves across the screen (even slowly) when the controller is lying still on a solid surface, your device needs calibrating. That's okay -- I do it at the beginning of most play sessions, especially with Nintendo devices, which seem to need it more often.

If you set AUTO_CALIBRATE_GYRO to ON, JoyShockMapper will try to detect when your controller is being held still or left on a steady surface and calibrate the gyro automatically. This is imperfect, though -- every automatic calibration solution will sometimes interpret slow and steady movement as the controller being held still. This can interrupt you making small adjustments to your aim or tracking slow/distant targets. It's also only a new feature, and we try not to change default behaviour. Also, it doesn't yet give you any settings to tweak its thresholds. For all of these reasons this setting is OFF by default, and it's recommended that you calibrate your gyro manually instead.

To manually calibrate your gyro, place your controller on steady surface so that it's not moving at all, and then use the following commands:

It should only take a second or so to get a good calibration for your devices. You can also calibrate each controller separately with buttons mapped to CALIBRATE. This is how you using them assuming you use the built-in mappings:

The reason gyros need calibrating is that their physical properties (such as temperature) can affect their sense of "zero". Calibrating at the beginning of a play session will usually be enough for the rest of the play session, but it's possible that after the controller warms up it could use calibrating again. You'll be able to tell it needs calibrating if it appears that the gyro's "zero" is incorrect -- when the controller isn't moving, the mouse moves steadily in one direction anyway.

The second thing you need to know about gyro mouse inputs is how to choose the sensitivity of the gyro inputs:

A single GYRO_SENS setting may not be enough to get both the precision you need for small targets and the range you need to comfortably navigate the game without regularly having to disable the gyro and reposition the controller.

JoyShockMapper allows you to say, "When turning slowly, I want this sensitivity. When turning quickly, I want that sensitivity." You can do this by setting two real life speed thresholds and a sensitivity for each of those thresholds. Everything in-between will be linearly interpolated. To do this, use MIN_GYRO_THRESHOLD, MAX_GYRO_THRESHOLD, MIN_GYRO_SENS, and MAX_GYRO_SENS:

Finally, there are a bunch more settings you can tweak if you so desire:

5. Real World Calibration

Flick stick, aim stick, and gyro mouse inputs all rely on REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION to provide useful values that can be shared between games and with other players. Furthermore, if REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION is set incorrectly, flick stick flicks will not correspond to the direction you press the stick at all.

Every game requires a unique REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION value in order for these other settings to work correctly. This actually really simplifies sharing configuration files, because once one person has calculated an accurate REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION value for a given game, they can share it with anyone else for the same game. GyroWiki has a database of games and their corresponding REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION (as well as other settings unique to that game). You can use this to avoid having to calculate this value in games you want to play with JoyShockMapper, or if a game isn't in that database, you can help other players by calculating its REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION yourself and contributing it to GyroWiki!

For 3D games where the mouse directly controls the camera, REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION is a multiplier to turn a given angle in degrees into a mouse input that turns the camera the same angle in-game.

For 2D games where the mouse directly controls an on-screen cursor, REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION is a multiplier to turn a given fraction of a full turn into a mouse input that moves the same fraction of the full width of the screen (at 1920x1080 resolution in games where resolution affects cursor speed relative to the size of the screen).

5.1 Prerequisites

Before we get into how to accurately calculate a good REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION value for a given game, we first need to address two other things that can affect mouse sensitivity:

Even if REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION is set correctly, your in-game mouse settings will change how the camera or cursor responds to mouse movements:

There’s one other factor that some games need to deal with. Windows mouse settings:

In summary, when preparing to share a configuration file for others to use, please consider whether COUNTER_OS_MOUSE_SPEED should be included. When using someone else’s configuration file, please remember to set the file’s IN_GAME_SENS to whatever your in-game mouse sensitivity is.

Once you've done this, you're ready to calculate your game's REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION value.

5.2 Calculating the real world calibration in a 3D game

For 3D games where the mouse directly controls the camera, the most accurate way to calculate a good REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION value is to enable flick stick along with a first-guess REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION value like so:

RIGHT_STICK_MODE = FLICK
REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION = 40

Now, in-game, use your mouse to fix your aimer precisely on a small target in front of you. Press your right stick forward, and rotate it until you've completed a full turn, releasing the stick once your aimer is in the same position it started before you pressed the stick.

JoyShockMapper remembers the last flick stick flick and rotation you did, so now you can simply enter the following command:

CALCULATE_REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION

This tells JoyShockMapper that your last flick and rotation was exactly one full in-game turn, and that you'd like to know what REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION value you should have. JoyShockMapper will respond with something like, "Recommended REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION: 151.5" (for example). Now you can verify that everything worked correctly by changing your REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION setting like so:

REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION = 151.5 (or whatever value JoyShockMapper gave you).

Now check in-game if this value works by completing a flick stick rotation again. The angle you turn in-game should match the angle you turned the stick.

If you want to be even more precise, you can do more than one turn. If, for example, you complete 10 turns in a row without releasing the stick in order to average out any imprecision at the point of releasing the stick, you can add the number of turns after the CALCULATE_REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION command:

CALCULATE_REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION 10

You can do this with non-integer turns, as well, such as 0.5 for a half turn.

5.3 Calculating the real world calibration in a 2D game

For 2D games where the mouse directly controls an on-screen cursor, flick stick doesn't have a practical use in general gameplay, but it's still the most useful way to calculate your REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION value. Again, make sure your IN_GAME_SENS and COUNTER_OS_MOUSE_SPEED are set as needed, and then we'll start by enabling flick stick alongside a first guess at the REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION.

RIGHT_STICK_MODE = FLICK
REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION = 1

Notice that this time, our first guess REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION value is 1 instead of 40. 2D cursor games tend to have a much lower REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION value than 3D camera games, and it's better to underestimate your first guess than overestimate, so you can complete more stick turns and get a more accurate result.

For 2D cursor games, one full rotation of the flick stick should move the cursor from one side of the screen to the other. Unlike with 3D camera games, the edges of the screen clamp the mouse position, and will interfere with the results if we try to go through them. When calibrating 3D camera games, it's OK if we overshoot our rotation, because we can still move the stick back the way it came until we precisely land on our target, and it'll work fine. But when calibrating 2D cursor games, overshooting in either direction means that some stick input goes through JoyShockMapper, but the corresponding mouse input is ignored in-game.

So, start by manually moving the mouse to the left edge of the screen, then press your right stick forward but slightly to the right, so as to avoid accidentally going slightly to the left (and pressing against the left of the screen). Now rotate the stick clockwise until you barely touch the other side of the screen, and then release the right stick. As before, you can now ask JoyShockMapper for a good REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION as follows:

CALCULATE_REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION

JoyShockMapper will then give you your recommended REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION. It might be something like: "Recommended REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION: 5.3759".

You don't have to tell JoyShockMapper whether you're calibrating for a 2D game or a 3D game. Flick stick and other settings rely on a REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION calculated this way for 3D games, but there's no direct translation between the way 3D games work (in angles and rotational velocity) to the way 2D games work (across a 2D plane), so calibrating 2D cursor games as described is simply convention.

With such a calibrated 2D game, you can choose your GYRO_SENS or other settings by thinking about how much you want to turn your controller to move across the whole screen. A GYRO_SENS of 1 would require a complete rotation of the controller to move from one side of the screen to the other, which is quite unreasonable! But a GYRO_SENS of 8 means you only have to turn the controller one eighth of a complete rotation (45 degrees) to move from one side of the other, which is probably quite reasonable.

6. ViGEm Virtual Controller

JoyShockMapper can create a virtual xbox or DS4 controller thanks to Nefarius' ViGEm Bus and ViGEm Client softwares. The former needs to be installed by the user before the latter can be used. Once installed, you can set which virtual device you desire to create for each connected device using the command VIRTUAL_CONTROLLER = XBOX or VIRTUAL_CONTROLLER = DS4. The default value is NONE, which is no virtual controller at all. Rumble will then work on DS4 controllers, but obviously support is game dependant. Using virtual controllers is most likely to work well only if whitelisting is active (HIDGuardian/HIDCerberus), in order to hide the original controller entry from the game and only expose the virtual one. Funny thing to note is that hiding DS4s with HIDGuardian will also hide the virtual DS4 from ViGEm, since Windows cannot tell the virtual controller form the physical one.

6.1 Xbox bindings

If you have set the virtual controller to the xbox scheme, then the following becomes available to you:

While these map very simply from your real sticks to the virtual sticks, there are other new stick modes available for giving finer control over a single axis:

LEFT_ANGLE_TO_X
LEFT_ANGLE_TO_Y
RIGHT_ANGLE_TO_X
RIGHT_ANGLE_TO_Y

These will take the stick's angle into account for inputs that are normally only in one axis. For example, steering a car: instead of just moving the left stick left and right for adjusting your steering, rotating it around the edge of the stick will give you more precision and finer control over how hard you're steering. Set up the relevant UNDEADZONEs and UNPOWER for best effect.

These stick modes have inner and outer deadzones, set in degrees:

ANGLE_TO_AXIS_DEADZONE_INNER = 0
ANGLE_TO_AXIS_DEADZONE_OUTER = 10

There's also:

LEFT_WIND_X
RIGHT_WIND_X

These also use the angle of the stick to control the virtual stick in a single axis, but these are relative instead of absolute, and can use a much wider range. This means pointing the stick in a direction doesn't really do anything, but rotating the stick does, letting you wind the stick left or right to adjust the stick position left or right. When you release the stick the virtual stick will quickly pull back to its neutral position. Here are the relevant options:

For MOTION_STICK_MODE in particular, there are two new options:

LEFT_STEER_X
RIGHT_STEER_X

These will map leaning the controller to the X axis of either the left or right stick. For steering a car, this works better than mapping MOTION_STICK to a stick. But like mapping it to a stick, UNPOWER and UNDEADZONE come into play. Make sure to set MOTION_DEADZONE_INNER and MOTION_DEADZONE_OUTER to suitable values -- they're both in degrees, with the max motion / lean angle being 180 degrees.

Using both analog and digital trigger bindings at the same time leads to undefined behaviours. Use modeshift as defined in the next section to disable analog triggers while a digital trigger binding is active.

You will also find a default xbox layout in the GyroConfigs folder that you can use to set up a standard xbox controller configuration. But of course, you can remap buttons elsewhere, or combine them in using the event modifiers, chords, simultaneous presses and such.

GyroConfigs/xbox.txt # load the generic xbox mapping

# Map the dpad as chords of the face buttons
L3 = NONE
L3,N = X_UP
L3,W = X_LEFT
L3,S = X_DOWN
L3,E = X_RIGHT

S,S = X_LS # Double click jump to sprint instead

L+R = X_RS # I don't like to stick click often

MOTION_STICK_MODE = RIGHT_STICK # Gyro driving

6.2 DS4 bindings

ViGEm also the ability to emulate a Dualshock 4 controller. This can allow you to use a switch pro as a DS4 in a game that has this support built in for example. Setting the virtual controller to DS4 enables the use of these features as well. Take note that these names are aliases to the xbox names, so the logs might display the other label.

A ds4 can also use the more advanced angle-to-axis stick modes described in the xbox section:

LEFT_ANGLE_TO_X
LEFT_ANGLE_TO_Y
RIGHT_ANGLE_TO_X
RIGHT_ANGLE_TO_Y
LEFT_WIND_X
RIGHT_WIND_X

As well as the MOTION_STICK-specific modes:

LEFT_STEER_X
RIGHT_STEER_X

If there is multiple sources of analog data (such as a trigger and a digital binding) the two sources will add up and clamp within the limit of the data. Soft and full pull chords will still be available for use and for the gyro button.

6.3 Virtual Controller Gyro

While the virtual controller can't output gyro, JoyShockMapper can convert gyro input to stick output. For example:

GYRO_OUTPUT = RIGHT_STICK

GYRO_OUTPUT can also be set to LEFT_STICK or left at its default value of MOUSE, which means gyro will be converted to mouse input.

Because games tend to do a lof of processing on stick input to turn it into camera movement, you'll want to counter that processing to convert it to a decent camera movement. So far, here are your options:

Games sometimes do a lot of other processing to the stick input: easing in, acceleration, direction warping, angular deadzones, for example. JSM does not yet have a way to counter these effects.

7. Modeshifts

Almost all settings described in previous sections that are assignations (i.e.: uses an equal sign '=') can be chorded like a regular button mapping. This is called a modeshift because you are reconfiguring the controller when specific buttons are pressed. The only exceptions are those listed here below.

AUTOLOAD
JSM_DIRECTORY
SIM_PRESS_WINDOW
TICK_TIME
GRID_SIZE
HIDE_MINIMIZED
VIRTUAL_CONTROLLER

Here's some usage examples: in DOOM (2016), you can use the right stick when you bring up a weapon wheel even when using flick stick:

RIGHT_STICK_MODE = FLICK # Use flick stick
GYRO_OFF = R3 # Use gyro, disable with stick click

R = Q # Last weapon / Bring up weapon wheel

R,GYRO_ON = NONE\ # Disable gyro when R is down
R,RIGHT_STICK_MODE = MOUSE_AREA # Select wheel item with stick

Other ideas include changing the gyro sensitivity when aiming down sights, or only when fully pulling the trigger.

GYRO_SENS = 1 0.8 # Lower vertical sensitivity

ZL_MODE = NO_SKIP # Use full pull
ZL = RMOUSE # ADS
ZLF = NONE # No binding on full pull

ZLF,GYRO_SENS = 0.5 0.4 # Half sensitivity on full pull

These commands function exactly like chorded press bindings, whereas if multiple chords are active the latest has priority. Also the chord is active whenever the button is down regardless of whether a binding is active or not. It is also worth noting that a special case is handled on stick mode changes where upon returning to the normal mode by releasing the chord button, the stick input will be ignored until it returns to the center. In the DOOM example above, this prevents an undesirable flick upon releasing the chord.

To remove an existing modeshift you have to assign NONE to the chord. There is special handling for the gyro button because NONE is a valid assignment. Add a backslash to indicate it is the button assignment rather than clearing the modeshift

GYRO_OFF = RIGHT_STICK   # Gyro off when using right stick
ZLF,GYRO_OFF = NONE\     # RS does not turn gyro off when ZLF is pressed
ZLF,GYRO_OFF = NONE      # oops undo

8. Touchpad

The touchpad always offers the TOUCH button binding. It will be pressed if there is any touch point active. This binding will overlap with other touch buttons and can be useful to disable gyro for example, or bring up the game map. There is also a dual stage mode setting for the touchpad touch and click: TOUCHPAD_DUAL_STAGE_MODE which can be any mode explained in the analog triggers, where CAPTURE is the full press or click and TOUCH is the soft press. The default setting is NO_SKIP.

The most important setting for the touchpad is simply TOUCHPAD_MODE which will determine the primary functionality of the touchpad. Here are two possible values:

Here's an example of grid usage to add some more buttons that otherwise would not be worth putting on a controller

TOUCHPAD_MODE = GRID_AND_STICK
GRID_SIZE = 2 1   # split the pad in two buttons, left and right
GYRO_OFF = TOUCH  # disable the gyro when I touch either button

# Bind on clicks
CAPTURE = NONE   # Chorded with touch buttons
T1,CAPTURE = F1  # View Help
T2,CAPTURE = F10 # Quick Save

Or a typical touchapd in cursor mode

TOUCHPAD_MODE = MOUSE
TOUCH = LMOUSE'            # Quick tap means select
TOUCH,TOUCH = RMOUSE       # Double tap for right click
CAPTURE = LMOUSE ^LMOUSE   # Or click pad to toggle click (dragging)

8.1 Touch Sticks

A touch stick is a virtual joystick mapped unto the touchpad. As such, a touch stick has and uses all of the familiar binding names and settings, plus one new setting.

TUP, TDOWN, TLEFT, TRIGHT, TRING : The touchstick four directions when in NO_MOUSE mode.
TOUCH_STICK_MODE: Set the touchstick to any  stick mode (AIM, FLICK_ONLY, MOUSE_AREA, etc...)
TOUCH_DEADZONE_INNER: Sets how large the area with no output is. There is no TOUCH_DEADZONE_OUTER, as it is replaced with TOUCH_STICK_RADIUS. See below.
TOUCH_RING_MODE: Sets what ring should be used for TRING, either INNER or OUTER.
TOUCH_STICK_RADIUS: Sets the size of the stick, or in other words, the amount of touchpad units to travel to the edge of the stick.
TOUCH_STICK_AXIS** (default STANDARD) - Select whether you want to invert the axis. To assign a separate vertical value, provide a second parameter.

The touchstick center is always the point of contact. As such, one can easily configure swipes by setting a very large touch stick radius and binding values to the 4 directions.

The touch stick differs from other input methods in one particular way. The four stick directions cannot be used as a chord for other buttons, but you can chord the four direction with the grid buttons. As such, you can control two touch sticks at the same time on either side of the touch pad with each having different bindings. The example below showcases the numbers 1 to 4 bound to swipe gestures on the left half of the pad, and 5 to 8 bound to swipe gestures on the right half of the pad.

TOUCH_STICK_MODE = GRID_AND_STICK
GRID_SIZE = 2 1 # Left and Right
TOUCH_STICK_RADIUS = 800 # Use a larger value to use stick as swipe gestures

T1,TLEFT = 1
T1,TUP = 2
T1,TRIGHT = 3
T1,TDOWN = 4

T2,TLEFT = 5
T2,TUP = 6
T2,TRIGHT = 7
T2,TDOWN = 8

9. Miscellaneous Commands

There are a few other useful commands that don't fall under the above categories:

Configuration Files

All of the commands layed out in the previous section can be saved in a text file and run all at once. In Windows, you can also drag and drop a file from Explorer into the JoyShockMapper console window to enter the full path of that file. These configuration files can additionally reference one another. This allows you to group a few settings as a "building block" for your configurations: such as your gyro sensitivity and acceleration preferences.

If you enter a relative path to the file, it should be relative to the folder where JoyShockMapper.exe is located. If however your files don't seem to get picked up, you can manually set where to look for the configuration files by entering the command JSM_DIRECTORY = D:\JSM for example. You can also set that working directory as a command line argument when running JoyShockMapper, which can be done in a shortcut properties. Putting all your configuration files in a synchronized folder allows you to have those configurations across all computers you use for gaming!

What more? There are some configuration files that can be run automatically to streamline your experience.

1. OnStartup.txt

When JoyShockMapper first boots up, it will attempt to load the commands found in the file OnStartup.txt. This file should be in the JSM_DIRECTORY, which is next to your executable by default. This is a great place to automatically calibrate the gyro, load a default configuration for navigating the OS, and/or whitelisting JoyShockMapper.

2. OnReset.txt

This configuration is found in the same location as OnStartup.txt explained above. This file is run each time RESET_MAPPINGS is called, as well as before OnStartup.txt. This file is a good spot to set a CALIBRATE button for your controller and/or set your GYRO_SPACE if you're not using the default value.

3. Autoload feature

JoyShockMapper can automatically load a configuration file for your games each time the game window enters focus. Drop the file in the AutoLoad folder where JSM_DIRECTORY refers to. JoyShockMapper will look for a name based on the executable name of the program that's in focus. When it goes into focus and autoload is enabled (which it is by default), JoyShockMapper will tell you the name of the file it's looking for - case insensitive.

This enables the user to swap focus between your text editor of choice and the game, and each time the configuration will be automatically reloaded with your latest edits (assuming you've saved!). This system also avoids to step on your toes by NOT reloading your configuration if you do change focus between JoyShockMapper itself and the game: any mappings you enter by hand won't be thrown away when you return to your game.

Autoload can be turned off by entering the command AUTOLOAD = OFF. You can enable it again with AUTOLOAD = ON.

Troubleshooting

Some third-party devices that work as controllers on Switch, PS4, or PS5 may not work with JoyShockMapper. It only officially supports first-party controllers. Issues may still arise with those, though. Reach out, and hopefully we can figure out where the problem is.

But first, here are some common problems that are worth checking first.

Known and Perceived Issues

Bluetooth connectivity

JoyCons and Pro Controllers normally only communicate by Bluetooth. Some Bluetooth adapters can't keep up with these devices, resulting in laggy input. This is especially common when more than one device is connected (such as when using a pair of JoyCons). There is nothing JoyShockMapper or JoyShockLibrary can do about this. JoyShockMapper experimentally supports connecting Switch controllers by USB.

Credits

JoyShockMapper was originally created by Julian "Jibb" Smart. As of version 1.3, JoyShockMapper has benefited from substantial community contributions. Huge thanks to the following contributors:

As of version 3, JoyShockMapper development is lead by Nicolas Lessard, who was already a long-time contributor and responsible for many of JoyShockMapper's powerful mapping features, autoload, tray menus, and much more. Have a look at the CHANGELOG for a better idea of who contributed what. While Jibb continues on as a contributor, JoyShockMapper is Nicolas' project now. This means updates won't be bottlenecked by Jibb's availability to approve and build them, and Nicolas has final say on what features are included in new versions. As such, make sure you're on Nicolas' fork for the latest developments.

JoyShockMapper versions 2.2 and earlier relied a lot on Jibb's JoyShockLibrary, which it used to read controller inputs. Newer versions use SDL2 to read from controllers, as the latest versions of SDL2 are able to read gyro and accelerometer input on the same controllers that could already be used with JoyShockLibrary, but also support many non-gyro controllers as well.

Since moving to SDL2, JoyShockMapper uses Jibb's GamepadMotionHelpers, a small project that provides the sensor fusion and calibration options of JoyShockLibrary without all the device-specific stuff.

Helpful Resources

License

JoyShockMapper is licensed under the MIT License - see LICENSE.md.