A community sourced database of game controller mappings to be used with SDL2 and SDL3 Game Controller functionality.
Download gamecontrollerdb.txt, place it in your app's directory and load it.
SDL2:
SDL_GameControllerAddMappingsFromFile("gamecontrollerdb.txt");SDL3:
SDL_AddGamepadMappingsFromFile("gamecontrollerdb.txt");The database is compatible with SDL v2.0.10 and newer.
A mapping looks like this:
030000004c050000c405000000010000,PS4 Controller,a:b1,b:b2,back:b8,dpdown:h0.4,dpleft:h0.8,dpright:h0.2,dpup:h0.1,guide:b12,leftshoulder:b4,leftstick:b10,lefttrigger:a3,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,rightshoulder:b5,rightstick:b11,righttrigger:a4,rightx:a2,righty:a5,start:b9,x:b0,y:b3,platform:Mac OS X,
It includes controller GUID (030000004c050000c405000000010000), a name (PS4 Controller), button / axis mappings (leftshoulder:b4) and a platform (platform:Mac OS X).
Please make sure to check that the name is a good description of the controller. If relevant, include the controller's name and model number.
There are a few different tools that let you create mappings.
Third party cross-platform tool with GUI (Windows, macOS and Linux)
Note: While convenient, this tool has fallen out of date as SDL has amended and added new features for gamepad support (see issue #478). As such, maps authored with this tool require greater scrutiny to ensure they will not break support for explicit mappings the SDL project provides.
Open source GUI app for authoring mappings. Builds available for Windows and Linux.
testcontroller (SDL3) and controllermap (SDL2) utilities are the official tools to create these mappings on all SDL supported platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, etc).
In Steam's Big Picture mode, configure your gamepad. Then look in [steam_installation_directory]/config/config.vdf in your Steam installation directory for the SDL_GamepadBind entry. It is one of the last entries, it will look something like this:
"SDL_GamepadBind" "030000004c050000c405000000010000,PS4 Controller,platform:Windows,a:b1,b:b2,back:b8,dpdown:h0.4,dpleft:h0.8,dpright:h0.2,dpup:h0.1,guide:b12,leftshoulder:b4,leftstick:b10,lefttrigger:a3,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,rightshoulder:b5,rightstick:b11,righttrigger:a4,rightx:a2,righty:a5,start:b9,x:b0,y:b3,"