Dashboard
The Dashboard is the first thing you see when PadForge launches. It gives you an at-a-glance overview of everything that matters: is the engine running, which virtual controllers are active, what devices are connected, and whether your drivers are installed.
The Dashboard is organized into five sections, stacked vertically:
- Input Engine -- the master power switch and real-time performance readout.
- Virtual Controllers -- a card for every controller slot you have created, plus a card to add more.
- Motion Server -- DSU/cemuhook gyroscope broadcasting for emulators.
- Web Controller -- a browser-based controller accessible from phones and tablets.
- Drivers -- installation status of every optional driver PadForge can use.
You can think of the Dashboard as PadForge's "home screen." If something is wrong -- a missing driver, a disconnected controller, a stopped engine -- you will see it here first.
The Input Engine card sits at the very top and shows four pieces of information in a single row:
| Element | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Power button | Click to start or stop the engine. Its color tells you the engine state at a glance (see the color table below). |
| Status text | Plain-language status: "Running", "Stopped", or "Idle". |
| Polling frequency | The actual measured polling rate in Hz (for example, "987.3 Hz"). This is how many times per second PadForge reads your physical controllers and writes to the virtual ones. If the engine is stopped, a dash is shown instead. |
| Device count | Shows online versus total devices (for example, "2 / 3 devices online"). "Online" means physically plugged in right now. "Total" includes devices PadForge remembers from earlier sessions. |
| Color | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Green | The engine is running and processing input normally. |
| Yellow (Idle) | The engine is in an idle state -- it has been started but no virtual controller slots have been created yet, so there is nothing to process. |
| Red | The engine is stopped. Your virtual controllers are not active and games will not see any input from PadForge. |
Tip: The engine must be running for your virtual controllers to work in games. If you do not want to click the power button every time, enable "Auto-start engine on launch" in Settings.
Below the engine card, you will see one card for each virtual controller slot you have created. Each card packs a lot of information into a compact space. Here is what every element means:
| Element | Where on the card | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Power icon | Top-left | A small power symbol whose color indicates this slot's status (see the color table below). Click it to enable or disable the slot. |
| Gamepad icon + slot number | Next to the power icon | A gamepad icon followed by the global controller number (1, 2, 3, ...). This is the slot's position among all your virtual controllers. |
| Type icons | After the separator bar | Five small icons representing Xbox, PlayStation, DirectInput, Keyboard+Mouse, and MIDI. The currently active type is fully bright; the others are dimmed. Click a dimmed icon to switch this slot to that output type. Icons for types whose drivers are not installed will be very faint and unclickable. |
| Per-type instance number | After the type icons | Shows which instance of the current type this slot is. For example, if you have two Xbox 360 slots, the second one shows "2". |
| Device name | Second row | The name of the primary physical device mapped to this slot, or "No device" if nothing is assigned yet. Long names scroll automatically. |
| Status text | Third row, left | "Active", "Idle", "No mapping", or "Disabled". |
| Mapped / Connected counts | Third row, right | How many devices are mapped to this slot and how many of those are currently plugged in (for example, "2 mapped, 1 connected"). |
| Delete button | Upper-right corner (X) | Removes this virtual controller slot entirely. |
| Color | Condition | Tooltip |
|---|---|---|
| Green | The slot is enabled and at least one mapped device is connected | "Active" |
| Yellow | The slot is enabled but something is preventing it from working: no devices are connected, the engine is stopped, or the required driver (ViGEm, vJoy) is not installed | Tooltip tells you the specific reason: "Awaiting controllers", "Engine stopped", or "ViGEmBus not installed" |
| Flashing green | The virtual controller for this slot is currently initializing (being created by the driver) | "Initializing" |
| Red | The slot has been manually disabled by clicking its power icon | "Disabled" |
Click anywhere on a controller card (except the delete or power buttons) to navigate to that controller's configuration page, where you can set up Button and Axis Mappings, Stick Dead Zones, Trigger Dead Zones, Force Feedback, and Macros.
If at least one controller type still has capacity (each type has its own maximum -- for example, 4 Xbox 360, 4 DualShock 4, 16 DirectInput), an Add Controller card appears at the bottom of the list. Click it to open a popup where you choose the type for the new slot. See Controller Slots for details on type limits and slot management.
When all type limits have been reached, the Add Controller card disappears.
The Motion Server section lets you enable the DSU/cemuhook server, which broadcasts gyroscope and accelerometer data from your physical controllers over UDP. Emulators like Cemu, Dolphin, Yuzu, and Ryujinx use this protocol for motion controls -- for example, aiming with the gyroscope in Breath of the Wild or Splatoon.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Enable DSU motion server (cemuhook) | Check this box to start the server. Uncheck to stop. |
| Port | The UDP port the server listens on. The default is 26760, which is the standard port most emulators expect. Only change it if you have a port conflict or are running another cemuhook-compatible server at the same time. Valid range: 1024-65535. |
| Status indicator | A colored dot with status text. Green dot = running. Red dot = stopped. |
The DSU protocol supports a maximum of 4 controller slots. If you have more than 4 virtual controllers, only the first 4 will broadcast motion data.
For full details, see DSU Motion Server.
The Web Controller section lets you enable a browser-based controller interface accessible from any device on your local network -- your phone, a tablet, or another PC.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Enable web controller | Check this box to start the web server. |
| Port | The HTTP/WebSocket port the server listens on. Default is 8080. Change if another application is already using that port. Valid range: 1024-65535. |
| Status indicator | Green dot = server running. Red dot = stopped. When running, a clickable URL appears showing your machine's local network address (for example, http://192.168.1.42:8080). Open this URL on any device connected to the same network. |
For full details, see Web Controller.
The Drivers section shows the installation status of every optional driver and service PadForge can use. Each driver is shown as a row with its name on the left and its status ("Installed" or "Not Installed") on the right.
| Driver / Service | What it does | When you need it |
|---|---|---|
| HidHide | Hides your physical controllers from games so they only see PadForge's virtual controllers. Prevents the "double input" problem where a game reads both the real and virtual controller at the same time. | Install this if games are receiving duplicate input -- for example, every button press registers twice, or your character walks diagonally when you push straight up. |
| ViGEmBus | Creates virtual Xbox 360 and DualShock 4 controllers that games recognize as real gamepads. Required for Xbox and PlayStation output types. | Install this first -- it is the most commonly needed driver. Without it, Xbox and PlayStation type icons on controller cards will be dimmed and unusable. |
| vJoy | Creates custom DirectInput virtual joysticks with configurable numbers of axes, buttons, and POV hats. Used for the DirectInput output type. | Install this when you need to output to older games or specialized software that expects a DirectInput joystick rather than an Xbox or PlayStation controller. Also useful when you need more than the standard button/axis layout. |
| Windows MIDI Services | Enables MIDI virtual controller output. PadForge creates its own MIDI device for each MIDI-type slot. Requires Windows 11 24H2 (build 26100) or later. | Install this only if you want to send MIDI Note and Control Change messages to music software (DAWs, synthesizers, VJ tools, etc.). |
If a driver is not installed, the corresponding controller type icons on the virtual controller cards will be greyed out and unclickable. You can install or manage drivers from the Settings page.
- Controller Slots -- Learn how to add and manage virtual controllers
- Devices -- See your physical controllers and assign them to slots
- Settings -- Configure the engine, appearance, and drivers