Installation

Installation

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11 (x64)
• .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (included in the single-file publish)

Download

1. Go to the Releases page
2. Download PadForge-v{version}-win-x64.zip
3. Extract the zip to any folder (e.g., C:\PadForge\)
4. Run PadForge.exe

PadForge is a single-file portable executable. No installer needed.

Optional Drivers

PadForge can install all of these for you from the Settings page:

Driver	Purpose	Required For
ViGEmBus	Virtual Xbox 360 and DualShock 4 controllers	Xbox 360 and DS4 output
vJoy	Virtual joystick with custom HID descriptors and FFB	DirectInput output
HidHide	Hide physical controllers from games	Preventing double input
Windows MIDI Services	MIDI output infrastructure	MIDI output

The Keyboard+Mouse virtual controller type is always available with no additional driver installation.

First Launch

1. On first launch, PadForge opens the Dashboard page
2. If ViGEmBus is not installed, go to Settings and click Install next to ViGEmBus
3. Click Add Controller on the Dashboard to create your first virtual controller slot
4. Go to the Devices page to see detected physical controllers
5. Assign a device to your virtual controller slot by clicking the slot badge on the device card

Auto-Elevation

If the vJoy driver is installed, PadForge will request administrator privileges on startup. This is required because vJoy device node management needs elevated access. If you decline the UAC prompt, PadForge will still run but vJoy functionality will be limited.

Start at Login

Enable Settings > Window > Start at login to have PadForge launch automatically when you log in. Combined with Start minimized and Minimize to system tray, PadForge runs silently in the background.