Can a Dualshock 4 replace a Xbox 360 controller on the PC?

Question

The PS4 is now released in the EU, but due to shipment shortages is not available for sale unless pre-ordered a long time ago. Luckily, it seems as though Dualshock 4 controllers are availble for sale in a number of shops already.

I've long decided to buy the PS4 as well as a second Dualshock 4 controller, so I've been considering buying the "second" controller now in order to replace my old Xbox 360 controller, whose D-Pad is useless and whose RB button no longer responds correctly. But before I buy the Dualshock 4 early, I wanted to know how well my PC will support it.

I already know that "basic functionality" such as analog sticks and some buttons work on the PC, but what exactly does work, and what doesn't?

Can I expect the same key-mapping on the PC as on a PS4?

Basically, can I replace my Xbox 360 controller with a Dualshock 4 and still play games like Batman Arkham Asylum/City/Origins as if I were using the old Xbox 360 controller?

Answer 1

I decided to buy a Dualshock 4 and see for myself what works and what doesn't.

First off: As promised, the Dualshock 4 works on Windows without the need to install additional drivers.¹ Connection is established via a Micro-B USB cable, or via Bluetooth on computers with a Bluetooth receiver. (Hold down the Home and Share buttons together for several seconds to enable Bluetooth pairing mode. The light bar will continuously flash when pairing mode is activated.)

Game support is extremely lacking. The Dualshock 4 is a DirectInput device while the Xbox 360 controller uses XInput, which is the only API that most - if not all - modern games use. In order to use the Dualshock 4 in games that only support the Xbox 360 controller, a wrapper is needed². Here's to hoping Sony will release drivers to add XInput support to the Dualshock 4.

As for the default key-mapping; even if games accept input from the Dualshock 4, you might want to calibrate the controller to match the Xbox 360 controller's key mapping.
Matching inputs are:

• Left analog stick: main X/Y Axis
• D-Pad: Point of View Hat
• Y/: button 4
• LB/L1: button 5
• RB/R1: button 6

The Xbox 360 controller uses 3 Axis and 2 Rotations as input for its two analog sticks and 2 triggers; the triggers both share the Z-Axis.
The Dualshock 4 on the other hand uses 3 Axis and 3 Rotations for the same.

According to Windows' very own Game controller settings:
The Xbox 360 offers a total of 10 buttons³.
The Dualshock 4 offers a total of 14 buttons⁴.

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¹: Tested on Windows 7 and 8.1
²: I found one such wrapper here
³: Excluding the home button, which does not seem to map to a controller input
⁴: 2 buttons are mapped to the L2/R2 triggers, which are also mapped to the X and Y Rotations

Answer 2

Well as stated before the dualshock 4 works with no aditional drivers in a cable and bluetooth connection to a PC.

Note: i only tested with windows 8.1, but sources say it also works on win7 and win8, but in win7 the bluetooth connection keeps getting lost sometimes. I read somewhere enabling a option in the bluetooth driver settings will fix that, dunno what exactly tough.

Wathever the connection cable/bluetooth windows will install the drivers needed on the fly.

Everything works normally except the touchpad and headset function, still.. sometimes my windows detects a bluetooth headset, and im pretty sure its from the Dualshock4, i need to spend more time checking that out.

Regarding game support, its pretty limited, if you have a game able to costumize gamepad direct inputs, should work fine.. (like some emulators) but most games only have support for a few gamepads, and xbox360 is normally one of them.

So for now, if you want full compatibility in games "xboxce" driver or something called DS4tool (its pretty recent) should do the trick. Anyways i suspect any tool that allows to remap a general gamepad to a xbox360 pad should work.

Im sure there are other ways, and im sure in the future the support will be way better, the dualshock3 PC support years ago was awful (lets say NON existent) and ended up great, still use it everyday. ("better DS3" rocks ^^)

So im sure with dualshock 4 things will be even better in the near future.

Answer 3

This article on Playstation's US support site states:

You can connect a DualShock 4 controller to your computer using a USB cable or via Bluetooth (your computer must have Bluetooth support). Basic functions are supported via these methods.

Unfortunately, it doesn't explain what constitutes "basic functions".

It also states:

We do not have any information on full compatibility with individual games.

Answer 4

It seems I might be a little late to the party but I believe I've found a way to use the PS4 controller that could theoretically work with any PC game you own.

It simply involves downloading a piece of free software which you can use to map all sticks, buttons and triggers to any corresponding keys on your keyboard or buttons on your mouse.

By downloading XPadder from here: http://www.techspot.com/downloads/5869-xpadder.html you are able to map the DS4 controls to the relevant keys for the majority of PC games you wish to play.

If you're interested there's a tutorial here on how to set it up on an example game:

For this game all the buttons work perfectly so I'd imagine similar results could be achieved on other games also!

Answer 5

I was just looking into this, thinking I might want to upgrade from my ds3... but I'll wait, probably until the next ones come out and these are cheap, and hopefully fully supported (NONE OF THE STANDOUT FEATURES WORK).

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Anyway, per a site I found, even with an xinput wrapper (and certainly with xpadder or other mapping software) the things that do not seem to function are:

• the rumble motors (don't work at all)
• the touch pad (doesn't work at all)
• the headphone jack (doesn't work at all)
• the lights (they work, but do not display current battery status... apparently, they just stay on)
• the bluetooth's auto off/disconnect/sleep or whatever it's called function doesn't work at all.
• The controller will not automatically shut off but instead remain fully powered and connected even if it's idle. I think you can manually shut the controller off by pressing and holding the ps button.
• total mapping isn't supported, as the xbox controller has 12 buttons and the ds4 has 14, not counting the ps button (the extra two are the sticks, which push down and function as buttons on the ds3 and ds4). The ps button still works to connect via bluetooth.

there seems to be some funky business with the axis, as the xbox only uses 2 axis and the ds4 (like the ds3) uses 3, but I haven't actually heard of that not translating properly, it's just a concern that it may not work properly on some games. I have definitely had some funny issues with this and my ds3sixaxis, but only when using the dinput mode (ds3tool allows different controller modes). - there seem to be issues getting the controller to work properly via bluetooth on anything but Windows 8 or 8.1 (disconnects, drop signal, etc). - No mention on the speaker, I don't think it works at all. ( I See someone mentioned above that it doesn't, but seems to want to).

seems pretty hopeful that it will work down the line though, fingers crossed.

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NOTE: I do not own a DS4 or any XBox controller (360 or one), I found this info on http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/11/18/ps4-dualshock-4-on-pc-how-to-make-it-work/ as you can see, the article is dated 11/18/2013. I saw the same complaints on other similar sites and gaming forums.

Here's a link to a post by inhexSTER for his DS4Tool on PCSX2 http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-DS4-To-XInput-Wrapper also from Nov '13... he was then still working on the touch pad features... couldn't find any newer news.