Measurements and tests
Trigger effects and motor test
Two tests write to a pad rather than read it. Triggers sets a DualSense's adaptive trigger effects, through WebHID in Chrome and Edge, or the Windows app; PadBench first switches a pad read through the Gamepad API to WebHID, where the browser has it. On a DualSense, a DualShock 4, a Switch Pro Controller or an Xbox One or Series pad, Vibrate opens the motor test, which plays each motor alone, through whatever reads the pad.
Trigger effects
Triggers, among a DualSense's tools, gives each trigger an Effect to choose and its settings, and draws the effect over the trigger's travel, zone by zone. Same as, on R2, sets both triggers alike. Nothing is written to the pad until you choose an effect. The DualShock 4 and the DualSense Edge don't have the test.
- Off: no effect, the trigger as it is.
- Feedback: resistance from a point you set to the end of the pull.
- Weapon: resistance between two points that gives way with a click, like a gun's trigger.
- Vibration: a buzz from a point onwards, at the strength and frequency you set.
- Slope feedback: resistance that rises or falls from one point to another, then holds.
- Multi-position feedback: a strength for each of ten zones along the pull.
- Multi-position vibration: a buzz whose strength changes zone by zone.
- Bow: resistance like a weapon's, then a force that snaps the trigger back.
- Galloping: a rhythmic pulse, like hooves.
- Machine: a buzz that swaps between two strengths.
Turning them off
A DualSense keeps an effect until something sets another or it's turned off, so a game played next would feel it. Choosing Off turns one off, and closing Triggers, choosing another pad or leaving the page turns both off. Over Bluetooth, PadBench asks before the first effect, since setting one switches the pad to its full report.
Read more in Sony pads on Bluetooth
The motor test
The motor test has a card for each side: its grip's motor, and on an Xbox One or Series pad its trigger's too, LT or RT, each playing alone at the Strength you set; Play keeps one going for four seconds, and longer while you move a slider. A Switch Pro Controller's actuators, and a DualSense's by its cable, take a Frequency too: from 41 to 1,253 Hz on a Switch Pro Controller, and to 987 Hz on a DualSense. On a phone, one panel holds them all.
Sweep plays one motor climbing. A tone climbs from the lowest frequency to the highest in four seconds, then you're asked whether you felt it rise. A motor that takes only a strength climbs from nothing to full in four seconds instead, and you press Felt it, or any button on the pad, the moment you feel it: a worn spinning motor starts late, so the strength it's first felt at shows its wear. Your answers go into the details Feedback sends, should you send them.
A DualSense plays its frequencies through its audio, which it has only by cable: over Bluetooth it plays strengths alone. In Chrome and Edge, Find its audio asks for the microphone, since the browser names a pad's audio only once a page may use it: PadBench opens it for a moment to learn the names, closes it at once and records nothing. In the Windows app, the pad's speakers must be set to Quadraphonic, in Windows' Sound settings.
A Switch Pro Controller's actuators play two bands, a low one below 320 Hz and a high one from there up, so a sweep you feel rise all the way says both bands of that motor work. Through the browser's Gamepad API they play at set frequencies, the left at 141 Hz and the right at 182 Hz and at no more than a tenth of its strength; WebHID plays them at any frequency and strength.
An Xbox One or Series pad's trigger motors play in Chrome and Edge, on Windows and on a Mac, and in the Windows app. Over Bluetooth, Windows leaves them still, so there they need the pad's cable.