Troubleshooting - HID Remapper in PS4 Device Type is not recognized correctly on PC

Super · May 24, 2025, 7:10pm

Hello. I’m reporting a troubleshooting issue I’ve been running into.

The issue: When using the HID Remapper with the “PS4 Arcade Stick” as the Emulated Device Type, the Remapper does not seem to be properly recognized on PC, compared to other emulated device types, which appear to be functioning better. This may be a issue from me missing something in the set up process; I’m open to any ideas / tips

Background: I setup the HID Remapper with the Adafruit RP2040. The mapping I use is to remap keyboard inputs and outputs them into PS4 inputs. To test its functionality on PC, I compared it against a standard Dualshock PS4 controller, a MayFlash Max Shooter One (a third party keyboard adapter), a Hori Fighting Commander, and the HID Remapper itself under different Emulated Device Types.

From what I can tell, the Hardware Tester site recognizes the Dualshock 4, Hori, HID Remapper using the Stadia and Switch device types as “gamepads”. The MayFlash and HID Remapper with the PS4 device types are only recognized as “inputs” (Reference images are shown below.)

I then tried the controls with Steam. Steam recognized all the controllers and HID Remapper device types, but the HID Remapper PS4 device type was the only control method that could not get Steam’s “Test Device Inputs” feature to show up. Lastly, I did some tests with various games, and it was the HID Remapper PS4 device type either had issues, or could not be recognized by the games I tried.

Below are images for reference, and the jsons for the mappings I used.
I am open for any ideas on how to fix this problem. I did set the outputs for the HID Remapper mappings to Port 1, and I disabled the unmapped input passthrough as well.

If it is at all possible, I would be great if a standard X-Input controller could be used as an emulated device type. That’s what the Hori Fighting Commander does, and it worked in all the tests I did. It would also help in fighting game tournaments that run on PCs or consoles other that the PS5 specifically. If there’s a way to set already that up within the HID Remapper config, please let me know! Thank you

Dualshock 4 Controller

Hori Fighting Commander (Set to PC mode)

MayFlash Max Shooter One (with a PS4 Magic Boot)

HID Remapper (Switch emulated device type)

HID Remapper (PS4 Arcade Stick emulated device type)

it also shows up as as four controllers. I don’t currently know why, but I created a separate thread on that issue

Super · May 25, 2025, 2:05am

Forgot to include the jsons. Oops
hid-remapper-config SUPER KB to Switch r2.json (9.4 KB)
hid-remapper-config SUPER KB to PS4 r2.json (9.4 KB)
hid-remapper-config SUPER KB to Stadia r2.json (9.0 KB)

jfedor · May 29, 2025, 4:48pm

Thank you for the report.

This is “normal”.

Game controllers, even though they use the same protocol underneath, are not quite like mice or keyboards when it comes to input mapping.

On a mouse, button 1 is always the left button, button 2 is always the right button, etc. Similarly with keyboards, the codes for every key are set in the specification. An operating system does not need a device-specific driver to work with every standard mouse and keyboard.

Unfortunately it is not so with game controllers. The specification does not say which button number corresponds to button A, B, X, Y, etc. And there is no de facto standard. PlayStation and Switch controllers use the same convention, but other controllers use their own.

Because of this, software like Chrome or Steam or SDL has to keep a list of known controllers (vendor/product IDs) with the correct button mapping for each. You can see this on the Gamepad Tester website. If it says “standard” under “Mapping”, it means that Chrome knows this specific controller and mapped the buttons and axes so they should work as expected. If it says “n/a”, it means it doesn’t know this controller and applied some default mapping, which is almost always incorrect.

It’s similar in Steam. Either it recognizes the controller and there’s a “Begin Test” button or it doesn’t and there’s a “Begin Setup” button. When you press the “Begin Setup” button, it asks you to press each button on your controller so that it can learn the correct button mapping. Games that run under Steam and use Steam Input or XInput will then see this controller and get the correct button mapping. Unfortunately you have to do it on each PC that you want to use the controller with.

This is one of the reasons that we have multiple game controller types on the emulated device type list. As you’ve noticed, Switch gamepad and Stadia controller are recognized by Chrome and Steam. The initial purpose of the PS4 arcade stick mode was to use it on a PS5 (in fighting games only, using a PS4 licensed stick or an authentication dongle plugged into HID Remapper). The PS5 doesn’t actually care about the device’s vendor/product IDs so it doesn’t matter for that use case. Another use for the PS4 arcade stick mode is plugging it into Brook’s FGC2 adapter. This lets you use HID Remapper in all PS5 games, not just fighting games, without additional authentication dongles etc. The FGC2 adapter does look at the vendor/product IDs. Spoofing a Sony controller makes it pass all the inputs, including the touchpad. But we didn’t want to spoof, say, a DualShock 4, because some software then expects behaviors specific to that device that we don’t have. So what we’re doing in PS4 arcade stick mode is we’re using Sony’s vendor ID and a nonexistent product ID. This works fine when plugged directly into a PS5 and when plugged into the FGC2 adapter and on a PC it works the same as if we used a completely nonexistent vendor/product ID pair.

tldr; use the other modes on PC or set up through Steam

Super · May 29, 2025, 5:55pm

Thank you for the response!
This is actually quite helpful to know. I don’t actually have a PS5 to test the PS4 Arcade Stick device type, but I do have a PlayStation 4 console.
The HID Remapper worked great with a PS4 console, so I had no issues there. I forgot to mention that in the troubleshooting write-up; my apologies.

I’ll look into the Brook’s adapter and see if that fares better; I was anticipating that the PS4 Arcade Stick device type was purpose-built for the PS5 console, but it’s helpful to get that confirmation.

I did try the “Begin Setup” process for the unrecognized HID Remapper device type on Steam, but none of the inputs seemed to register I think. I’ll give it another and see if it works.

Last question if I may, is a Standard X-Input Gamepad (xbox 360 style or what have you) possible for HID Remapper in the future, or is that not in the cards?

Thank you once again for the all the support!

jfedor · May 31, 2025, 12:51pm

It should be possible, I just like to avoid having to deal with Microsoft’s proprietary BS whenever I can (though we do support Xbox One/Series controllers on the input side).