Getting started
Mini games
Tests, among a pad's tools, opens four mini games that test the pad in play, each with what it reads of the pad beside it as you go. None keeps a score: they measure the pad, never the player. Tests lists each one only for a pad that has the controls it needs.
Fighting game
Fighting game: special moves on a training dummy is a small fighting game drawn in 2D, your fighter against a dummy that never fights back. Every command you perform comes out as one of the fighter's moves, and the list beside the view marks it Performed, with how many frames it took. It works on any pad with a d-pad or a left stick, and on the keyboard.
The controls are a fighting game's, named by your pad's own labels: the d-pad or the left stick walks, crouches and jumps, and two quick taps forward or back dash; the punches and kicks attack, and light punch and light kick together throw; the right of the small middle buttons pauses, and the left one puts the fighter and the dummy back in the middle. Nothing hits the fighter, and nothing counts hits or knockdowns.
Numpad notation
Fighting games write directions as the digits of a numeric keypad, for a player facing right: 6 is forward, 4 back, 2 down and 8 up, the diagonals are 1, 3, 7 and 9, and 5 is neutral. 236 is down, down-forward, forward: a quarter-circle forward. A charge's held direction goes in brackets: [4]6 is back, held, then forward. P is a punch and K a kick, so 236P is a quarter-circle forward and a punch.
Forward is always towards the dummy. On its left, the 1P side, forward is right; once the fighter passes it, in the air too, it is on the 2P side, where forward is left and every direction is read mirrored, as fighting games read it. The arrows beside the commands turn with it, so there is nothing to set.
The fourteen commands
Each motion is listed with the button it is known by and the move it does, though any punch or kick ends it with its move, the heaviest button pressed setting its strength.
- 236P, Palm Flare, and 214K, Pinwheel Kick: quarter-circles forward and back.
- 623P, Updraft Fist: the dragon punch, forward, down, down-forward. 421K, Recoil Kick, the reverse dragon punch, mirrors it.
- 41236P, Shoulder Ram, and 63214K, Hammer Heel: half-circles forward and back.
- 236236P, Grand Flare, and 214214K, Pinwheel Storm: double quarter-circles forward and back, supers, which always come out, with no meter to fill.
- 360P, Turnstile Slam: a full circle, down, back and forward, and any of the three up directions, in any order, which grabs the dummy.
- 22P, Quake Fist: down, back to neutral, and down again.
- [4]6P, Comet Roll, and [2]8K, Crescent Flip: back or down held, then forward or up.
- 66 and 44, a dash and a back-dash: forward or back, back to neutral, and forward or back again, with no attack.
Frames
Games count time in frames, 60 a second, and so does the test, from the times the pad's source gives its inputs. The attack must come within 10 frames of the motion's last direction, with it or after it, even once the stick has moved on or is back at neutral.
Motions are read loosely, as Street Fighter V and 6 read them. Each must be done within its window, from the last frame of its first direction to its last: 11 frames for quarter-circles and dragon punches, 12 for half-circles, 20 for double quarter-circles and 32 for a full circle. In 22 and the dashes, the neutral and the second tap each come at most 8 frames after the one before, and a charge holds back or down for 40 frames. Other directions on the way are allowed: a dragon punch is any forward, then any down, then any forward, so 626, 323 and 61236 all count, and a half-circle may skip one of its diagonals. Where two motions fit, the one performed is the first in the games' order, so a walk forward into a quarter-circle is a dragon punch, as in the games.
Punches, kicks and the throw
Attacks sit where fighting games put them by default: the left and top face buttons and the right shoulder punch, light to heavy, and the bottom and right face buttons and the right trigger kick. The left shoulder presses heavy punch and heavy kick at once, and the left trigger medium punch and medium kick. Directions come from the d-pad, or from the left stick past halfway while the d-pad is at rest.
Light punch and light kick together, or up to 2 frames apart, throw a dummy standing or crouching close by. With back held, the throw lifts it over the fighter's head to land behind, and the two switch sides.
The training dummy
Under the view, the dummy's settings: it stands, crouches or jumps on the spot, and blocks nothing, everything, or everything after the first hit, standing for an overhead and crouching for a low. It never blocks a throw or a grab, and its health refills once it has stood free for a second, so it is never knocked out.
Input history
Beside the view, every input is written down as it comes, newest first: how many frames it was held, its direction as an arrow, or N for neutral, and the attacks pressed, light blue, medium yellow and heavy red, bright on the input they were pressed on and faint while held. A performed command shows beside the input that finished it.
Through the browser's Gamepad API, a quick motion can fall between two readings, so the test can miss one, but never invents one. WebHID and the Windows app read every report.
Shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up: dodging bullets flies a plane through ever thicker bullets, and reads the controls you fly it with as you go.
Fly with the d-pad or either stick: the one moved last steers. The d-pad flies at full speed, diagonals too, and a stick as far as it's pushed, with no dead zone of PadBench's own. Only the dot in the plane's middle can be hit. The longer you go unhit, the thicker the bullets come, and a hit starts over at once.
With reduced motion on in your system, the game runs slower and calmer.
What it reads
- Steering: which of the d-pad and the sticks flies the plane.
- D-pad diagonals: how many of the four the d-pad gave, each as two directions held together, and which it hasn't given yet.
- Angles reached: how many of the 72 five-degree sectors each stick reported, pushed past 10%. A stick that can't point every way shows fewer.
- Dead zone: the smallest push each stick reports past centre, below which the plane doesn't move; none, where it's as small as the stick's own steps.
Through the browser's Gamepad API the page reads once a frame, so a quick roll across a diagonal can fall between two readings. WebHID and the Windows app read every report.
First-person shooter
Shooters lean on the right stick and the triggers, so this test is a small first-person shooter, drawn in 3D, with what they report beside it as you play. Tests lists it for a pad with both sticks.
The controls are a console shooter's, named by your pad's own labels: the left stick moves and the right stick looks, the right trigger fires and the left aims down sights, the bottom face button jumps, the left one reloads, a click of the left stick sprints, and the right of the small middle buttons pauses. A pad without triggers fires and aims with its shoulders.
Bots come in waves, each harder than the one before, up to the eighth. Your health comes back once you go a few seconds unhit, and at none you start over from the first wave; nothing says which wave it is. The sticks have no dead zone of PadBench's own and there's no aim assist, so the stick's own behaviour shows: a push it doesn't report turns nothing, and a stick that moves in jumps turns the view in jumps. Fullscreen gives the game and its readings the whole screen.
What it reads
- Dead zone: the smallest push the right stick reports past centre, under which the view doesn't turn at all.
- How far it reaches: the furthest push the right stick reports. A stick that falls short of its edge never turns the view at full speed.
- Smallest step: the smallest change between two readings of an axis, and how many levels that makes across its travel.
- Press and release points: where each trigger first reads as it's pulled from rest, and where it last reads as it's let go. A trigger that jumps from rest to a third of its travel shows it, and so does one that reads only fully pulled or let go.
Pull and let go of each trigger slowly once to find its points: through the browser's Gamepad API, which reads once a frame, a quick pull can pass them between two readings. WebHID and the Windows app read every report.
Look settings
Look sensitivity, from 1 to 10, sets how fast the view turns at full push: 200° a second at 5, the default. The response curve sets how a push becomes that speed: Linear, as pushed; Exponential, finer near the centre; or Dynamic, slow near the centre, quick through the middle and level near the edge.
Gyro aim, Off, While aiming or Always, adds the pad's own turn to the right stick's, as Switch and PlayStation shooters can, for a pad whose motion sensors are read, through WebHID or the Windows app. This browser keeps the settings once you change them, and Defaults puts them back.
Racing
Racing: a circuit of real corners is a racing game drawn in 3D: a rear-driven sports car on a circuit of about 2.4 km, with a hairpin, fast esses, a chicane and a banked corner, steered by turning the pad like a wheel, as Gran Turismo 7 lets a DualSense steer. There are no laps, times or other cars to beat. Tests lists it for a pad with a left stick, and triggers or shoulders.
The right trigger is the throttle and the left the brake, each read for how far it's pulled, with no dead zone of PadBench's own; held with the car stopped, the brake reverses. A pad without triggers drives and brakes with its shoulders, fully or not at all. The left face button puts the car back on the road, the top one switches between a chase camera and one at the bumper, a click of the right stick recentres, and the right of the small middle buttons pauses. As in most racing games, ABS and traction control are on, and the grass slows the car hard.
Steering by turning the pad
Where the pad's motion sensors are read, through WebHID or the Windows app, turning the pad steers: its turn as a wheel's, held flat, tilted or upright, and kept true by gravity, so it never drifts however long you turn. Through the Gamepad API, which passes on no motion, and on a pad without motion sensors, such as an Xbox pad, the left stick steers instead, and the test says why, with Use WebHID where WebHID would read the pad's turn. A Sony pad on Bluetooth sends its motion only once it's switched to its full report.
Settings
Full lock sets how far you turn the pad for the most the front wheels turn, from 30° to 180°, 90° by default. The response curve is Linear, Exponential or Dynamic, as in the first-person shooter, and the speed shows in mph for US and UK English and in km/h otherwise. Recentre takes how you hold the pad now as straight ahead. This browser keeps the settings once you change them, and Defaults puts them back.
What it reads
- Steering by the pad's turn: how many motion readings reach the page a second, the gyroscope's drift and noise while the pad lies still, the smallest change in steering angle it reports, and how steadily the angle holds through a corner.
- Steering by the stick: the left stick's dead zone and how far it reaches, as the first-person shooter reads the right stick.
- The throttle and the brake: each one's range, how many levels its travel has, its press and release points, and how much it wanders while held steady.
Through the browser's Gamepad API the page reads once a frame, so a quick pull or let-go of a trigger can pass its points between two readings. WebHID and the Windows app read every report.
Feedback
On a DualSense read through WebHID or the Windows app, the left trigger firms up as it's pressed and buzzes while the ABS holds the brakes, and the right buzzes while traction control holds the rear tyres back. On a pad PadBench can rumble, the kerbs buzz and the grass rumbles, harder with speed. Both stop whenever the game does, and a Sony pad on Bluetooth gets neither until it's switched to its full report.