Emulators reward patience in their settings menus, but controller setup does not have to be the hard part. If you play PlayStation 2 games through PCSX2 or PlayStation 3 games through RPCS3 and you want to use a DualShock 4 — the pad those games were designed around — the simplest path is to give each emulator a standard Xbox 360 controller to bind. InputMapper creates exactly that controller in Windows, and this guide shows how to set it up once and reuse it in both emulators.
Why a Virtual XInput Pad Is the Simple Path
PCSX2 and RPCS3 are emulators that can bind XInput controllers. That single fact does most of the work in this guide. If Windows has an XInput controller available, each emulator can select it in its pad settings like any physical pad, and every button, stick, and trigger can be bound in the usual way.
InputMapper, the DSDCS freeware tool in its final build 1.7.7452.13622 from May 2020, maps supported physical controllers — the DS4 and DS4 V2, Xbox 360 and Xbox One pads, and generic DirectInput and XInput devices used as inputs — to a virtual Xbox 360 controller through ViGEmBus 1.22.0, the final archived release of that driver. Because the mapping happens at the Windows OS level, any program that reads XInput can see the virtual pad. The emulators are not being patched and no per-game hacks are involved; they are binding a controller Windows genuinely reports as connected.
There are other ways to make a DS4 talk to an emulator, including wrappers inside specific emulator configurations. The advantage of the InputMapper route is consistency: one profile, one virtual controller, and the same behaviour in PCSX2, RPCS3, and your regular PC games. If you already use InputMapper for PC titles, your emulator setup becomes a small extension of a system you already trust, as described in how to use InputMapper.
Set Up InputMapper Before the Emulators
Do the Windows-level setup first, before opening either emulator’s settings. Install ViGEmBus, then InputMapper, both from the download page. Connect your DS4 by USB or Bluetooth, launch InputMapper, and run a profile with Xbox 360 controller output. Then open the Windows Game Controllers panel — search for “Set up USB game controllers” — and confirm an Xbox 360 controller is listed and responds when you test its properties.
Download InputMapper and ViGEmBus
This order matters for the same reason it matters with PC games: programs usually enumerate controllers when they start or when you open their input settings. If the virtual pad appears after an emulator has already scanned for devices, you may need to reopen the pad settings or restart the emulator before it shows up. Starting InputMapper first, every time, removes that confusion entirely.
Selecting the Virtual Controller in PCSX2
In PCSX2, open the controller or pad settings, choose the input source or device list, and select the Xbox 360 controller entry rather than your physical DualShock listing. Then bind each emulated PlayStation 2 control by pressing the matching button or moving the matching stick on your DS4. Work through the face buttons, shoulders, triggers, sticks, D-pad, Start, and Select methodically, then test in the binding screen itself by pressing each control and watching the correct entry light up.
Save that configuration before launching a game. The most common PCSX2 mistake with any virtual pad is binding carefully and then closing the settings without applying them, so the next session starts from a blank or default layout. Once saved, your binding belongs to the virtual controller, which means it will still be correct next time as long as InputMapper is running before PCSX2 starts.
Selecting the Virtual Controller in RPCS3
RPCS3 follows the same pattern through its pads configuration. Open the Pads settings, pick a player slot, choose the XInput-style handler or device option your build presents, and select the Xbox 360 controller as the device for that slot. Bind the controls by pressing them on your DS4, confirm each input registers in the configuration window, and save the pad profile.
Assign the virtual controller to the player one slot for single-player use. If a second player joins, give them a separate physical controller bound directly, rather than trying to split one virtual device across two slots. Keeping one clear owner per slot avoids the mirrored-input problems that make co-operative sessions confusing to debug.
Use a Separate InputMapper Profile per Emulator
PCSX2 and RPCS3 do not need wildly different button maps — both emulate PlayStation pads, so your DS4 layout is already close to natural. What does differ is the fine detail: stick deadzones you prefer for PS2 games, a swapped confirm and cancel habit from a particular library, or trigger behaviour you only want in one emulator. InputMapper profiles let you keep those differences tidy instead of re-editing one global profile every time you switch emulators.
Create one profile for PCSX2 and one for RPCS3, both with Xbox 360 output, and adjust each to taste. The full method, including profiles that switch automatically when a specific program starts, is covered in InputMapper profiles. Start with identical copies of your known-good global profile and change only what an emulator actually needs — small, deliberate differences are far easier to troubleshoot than two profiles built from scratch.
Rumble and Touchpad: An Honest Accounting
Rumble deserves a straight answer. When an emulator sends rumble to an XInput device, that signal reaches the virtual controller, and InputMapper passes standard rumble through to the physical DS4 in normal use. In practice, rumble support also depends on the emulator and the game, so treat working rumble as the expected outcome for standard effects, not a guarantee for every title and every effect style ever shipped.
The touchpad is the honest limit. A virtual Xbox 360 controller has no touchpad, so touchpad-specific input does not carry over as touchpad input — there is simply no equivalent control on the device being emulated at the Windows level. In InputMapper profiles you can assign the touchpad click or areas to ordinary buttons, which covers games that only need an extra button press, but it does not recreate genuine touch gestures inside PCSX2 or RPCS3. Likewise, extras an Xbox 360 pad never had should not be expected to appear magically on the other side. What carries over cleanly is everything an Xbox 360 controller has: buttons, triggers, sticks, D-pad, and standard rumble.
A Note for Retro-Pad Fans and Double Input
Some players prefer a modern retro-style pad for PS2-era games rather than a DualShock 4. That is a perfectly good choice, and a pad that already presents itself as an XInput device can be bound in PCSX2 and RPCS3 directly, with no mapper required. InputMapper matters most when the controller in your hands is not the controller your software expects.
Finally, watch for double input in emulator menus: if presses register twice, the emulator may be seeing both your physical DS4 and the virtual pad. Select only the virtual controller as the bound device, and if a program still reads both, HidHide v1.5.230 can hide the physical pad from other software while InputMapper uses it, as explained in our double input fix and HidHide guide.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why use InputMapper with PCSX2 and RPCS3 instead of binding my DS4 directly?
PCSX2 and RPCS3 can bind XInput controllers, and InputMapper presents your DS4 to Windows as a virtual Xbox 360 controller. Binding that one standard device gives you a consistent setup that also matches your regular PC games, instead of a separate workaround per emulator.
What should I select in each emulator’s pad settings?
Select the Xbox 360 controller — the virtual device InputMapper creates — in PCSX2’s controller settings and in the player slot of RPCS3’s Pads settings, then bind each control by pressing it on your DS4 and save the configuration.
Does rumble work through InputMapper in emulators?
Standard rumble sent to the XInput device passes through to the DS4 in normal use, though the result also depends on the emulator and the game. Treat standard effects as expected to work rather than guaranteed for every title.
Can I use the DualShock 4 touchpad in PCSX2 or RPCS3 this way?
Not as a touchpad, because a virtual Xbox 360 controller has no touchpad to carry that input. You can assign touchpad clicks to ordinary buttons in an InputMapper profile, but genuine touch gestures do not transfer to the emulators through a virtual XInput pad.