PadBench

Frequently asked questions

• What can PadBench test?
• My controller isn't detected. What do I do?
• My controller is paired over Bluetooth, but it doesn't show. Why?
• Which browsers work, and what does each one miss?
• Is my stick drifting, and how much is too much?
• Why does the polling rate say “Not measurable here”?
• Why doesn't Vibrate show for my controller?
• My pad is shown as the wrong model.
• Does PadBench send anything about my controller?

Getting started

The questions asked most, connecting a controller by USB, Bluetooth or a dongle, where it works, the Windows app, and the mini games.

• Connecting a controller By USB, Bluetooth or a dongle, a pad the browser doesn't list, XInput pads on a Mac, the press a browser waits for, and several pads at once.
• What works where Tables of where a controller shows, by system, browser and connection, and of which tests and tools work in each browser.
• Windows app What the Windows app adds to the website, and what it needs.
• Mini games The four tests under Tests in a pad's tools: a fighting game, a shoot 'em up, a first-person shooter and a race, and what each reads of the pad.

Measurements and tests

What each number means, how PadBench gets it, and the tests that play a pad's motors and set its lights and triggers.

• Polling rate and timing How often a pad reports, how evenly, its longest gaps, and why there's no latency figure.
• Buttons and chatter Which controls you've pressed, each one's shortest press, and chatter, a switch that registers twice.
• Opposite directions (SOCD) What a board does when left and right, or up and down, are held together.
• Sticks Where a stick rests, how far it drifts, and how far and how round it reaches.
• Triggers How far each trigger travels, and where it counts as pressed and released.
• Vibration and lights What each motor should feel like in the vibration test, where PadBench can rumble a pad, and the lights it can set.
• Trigger effects and motor test A DualSense's adaptive trigger effects, and the motor test: each motor alone, an Xbox pad's trigger motors too, by strength, frequency and sweep.
• Motion sensors The gyroscope and the accelerometer, tilt, and why yaw drifts.

How it works

Reports and connections, the ways PadBench reads a pad, how it knows which pad it is, and recordings.

• Reports and connections Reports and the polling rate, USB, Bluetooth and dongles, HID and XInput, and why one pad can read differently.
• Input sources The browser's Gamepad API, WebHID, the Windows app's engine and the keyboard: what each one reads, and what it misses.
• Recognising controllers How PadBench knows which pad it is reading, what a pad presents as, and pads it doesn't know yet.
• Recordings and captures Saving what a pad did to a file, playing it back with no pad, and capturing a pad's reports.

Troubleshooting

A controller that isn't detected, figures that can't be measured, and what Safari, Firefox and Sony's Bluetooth pads do.

• Controller not detected What to try, in order, when PadBench doesn't show your controller.
• Not measurable here Why some figures can't be measured or read in a browser, and where they can.
• Safari, iPhone and iPad What Safari, and every browser on an iPhone or iPad, can and can't read from a controller.
• Firefox When Firefox stops reading a pad, when it shows none, and what else it can't measure.
• Sony pads on Bluetooth Why a DualSense or DualShock 4 on Bluetooth asks before it vibrates, and what switching its report changes.

Privacy

PadBench reads your controllers on your device and keeps what it measures there. Nothing is sent unless you ask, and no cookie is set.