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Advanced Linux Driver for Xbox One Wireless Gamepad

Quote from @atar-axis (Florian Dollinger), creator of the initial driver:

This is the first driver for the Xbox One Wireless Gamepad (which is shipped with the Xbox One S). I wrote it for a student project at fortiss GmbH and it is fully functional but does only support the connection via Bluetooth as yet - more will follow.

Many thanks to Kai Krakow who sponsored me a Xbox One Wireless Controller 🎮 (including Wireless Adapter) and a pack of mouthwatering guarana cacao ☕

Other Projects

• xone is a driver aiming for fully supporting all Microsoft GIP devices thus replacing the xpad driver in the kernel. It supports Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S accessories.
• xow is an unmaintained driver for the Xbox One S controllers, which has been superseded by xone. Kudos to @medusalix for working together on finding some work-arounds for controller firmware bugs.
• xpad supports this and many other controllers in USB mode.
• MissionControl aims to support the controller on Nintendo Switch via Bluetooth.

These other projects may not support some of the advanced features of xpadneo.

Heads Up Package Maintainers

Licensing of the project has changed, so please update your packaging if you maintain a package for this driver. Please refer to LICENSE.md for details. If you have any questions, please ask.

The project introduced some packaging helpers and changed the installation process. Please see Packaging.

Version v0.11 dropped the dependency on CONFIG_INPUT_FF_MEMLESS and uses a more precise method to run rumble effects, eliminating aliasing effects due to different frequencies of games (60 fps and above) and ff-memless (20 hz). Our new method allows frequencies up to 100 hz which is the limit of the controller's hardware.

Breaking Changes

Kernel 4.18 or newer required

As of xpadneo v0.10, we require kernel 4.18 or later to utilize HID_QUIRK_INPUT_PER_APP which splits the gamepad into multiple sub-devices to fix problems and incompatibilities at several layers.

Paddle Button Codes Changed

To stay compatible with SDL and current kernel development, the button codes for the grip paddles of XBE2 controllers have been moved to the official kernel standards as of kernel 6.17. We will also reflect this change for older kernel versions so user-space can rely on a consistent mapping. If you remapped those buttons with third-party software, you will need to redo those mappings.

SDL2 2.28 Compatibility

Thanks to @slouken from SDL2, xpadneo mappings are now auto-detected in the upcoming SDL2 2.28 release. This will fix long-standing problems with Steam Input and SDL2 games. With this release, we will also have full paddle support.

If you still see problems, ensure that you didn't create custom controllerdb entries. See also:

• https://github.com/atar-axis/xpadneo/issues/428
• https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/commit/9567989eb3ce9c858f0fe76806c5ccad69da89ba
• https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/commit/0f4b15e16b7f07a46db6dc8e651f8c1849d658c5

Known issues:

• The Share button will currently not be recognized by SDL2, scheduled to be fixed in xpadneo v0.11
• If SDL2 uses hidraw, mappings will be wrong, export SDL_JOYSTICK_HIDAPI=0 in your profile or find which software enabled hidraw device access to all drivers

Quirks by Design

With BLE firmware, all models switched to a unified HID report descriptor, only the XBE2 controller identifies with PID 0x0B22 while the other models identify with PID 0x0B13. This has some known consequences:

• All non-XBE2 controllers will claim to have a Share button no matter if it physically exists. As HID doesn't report the internal model number, xpadneo cannot fix it currently. The button is currently mapped to F12, so this has no consequences.
• All XBE2 controllers will claim to have a full keyboard and the Share button is actually the Profile button. Since Share is currently mapped to F12, this will have no consequences.

Advantages of this Driver

• Supports Bluetooth
• Supports direct rumble effects avoiding aliasing effects by not using ff-memless (streaming mode only)
• Supports Trigger Force Feedback in every game by applying a pressure-dependent effect intensity to the current rumble effect (not even supported in Windows)
• Supports adjusting rumble intensity including disabling rumble
• Offers a consistent mapping, even if the Gamepad was paired to Windows/Xbox before, and independent of software layers (SDL2, Stadia via Chrome Gamepad API, etc)
• Working paddles (buttons on the backside of the controller)
• Correct axis range (signed, important for e.g. RPCS3)
• Supports battery level indication (including the Play 'n Charge Kit)
• Easy installation
• Exposes the currently selected profile to user-space (Xbox Elite 2 controllers, or emulated)
• Supports customization through profiles (work in progress)
• Supports grip paddles (as shipped with the Xbox Elite 2 controller)
• Optional high-precision mode for Wine/Proton users (disables dead zones so games don't apply an additional one)
• Share button support on supported controllers
• Works as a mouse if you are in couch-mode (press Guide+Select)

Unavailable Features

Across all models, xpadneo won't support audio features of the controllers because the firmware doesn't support audio in Bluetooth mode. In the future, xpadneo may support audio when USB and dongle support will be added.

There are two modes for rumble: Streaming and non-streaming. Streaming means, a game will send one rumble command per frame. Non-streaming means, effects are sent in advance, planned into the future, and can potentially play at the same time. This is mostly useful for force feedback effects, which Xbox controllers cannot replicate, they only support haptic feedback. Thus, non-streaming rumble programming is not supported, and we found no game that uses it. We will still detect it and log that incident to dmesg once, so users can report if they found a game that uses it.

Xbox One S Wireless Controller

This is the initial controller supported from the first version of xpadneo. All features are fully supported. This controller uses emulated profile switching support (see below).

Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller

Basic support for the Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless controller is present, covering all the features of the driver. The following features are missing:

• Upload of profile mappings and sensitivity curves is currently not supported.

This controller uses native profile switching support (see below).

Xbox Series X|S Wireless Controller

Full support for the Xbox Series X|S controller is present including the share button. This is currently statically mapped to keyboard event KEY_F12 to take screenshots with Steam. It will be configurable in the future. This controller uses emulated profile switching support (see below).

This controller uses BLE (Bluetooth low energy) and can only be supported if your Bluetooth dongle also supports BLE.

Known problems: The controller may not properly set its connection parameters, resulting in laggy and choppy input experience. See also: Troubleshooting.

8BitDo Controllers

This driver supports the Nintendo layout of those controllers to exposes them correctly as button A, B, X, and Y as labelled on the device. This is swapped compared to the original Xbox controller layout. However, this feature is not enabled by default. If you want to use this feature, you have to add a quirk flag to the module options:

# /etc/modprobe.d/99-xpadneo-quirks.conf
options hid_xpadneo quirks=E4:17:D8:xx:xx:xx+32

where you replace xx:xx:xx with the values from your controller MAC (as shown in dmesg). The value 32 enables Nintendo layout. If you'll want to add other quirk flags, simply add the values, e.g. 32 + 7 (default quirks for 8BitDo) = 39. After changing this, reload the driver or reboot.

This controller uses emulated profile switching support (see below).

Breaking change: Users of previous versions of the driver may want to remove their custom SDL mappings. Full support has been added for these controllers and broken mapping of previously versions no longer needs to be applied. See also: SDL.

GuliKit KingKong Controller Family

This driver supports the GuliKit King Kong controller family, the driver was tested with model NS09 (using firmware v2.0) and NS39 (aka KK3 MAX, firmware v3.6) but should work just fine for the older models, too. If in doubt, follow the firmware upgrade guides on the GuliKit home page to receive the latest firmware. Both the Android mode and the X-Input mode are supported but it may depend on your Bluetooth stack which mode works better for you (Android mode didn't pair for me).

This driver supports the Nintendo layout of those controllers to exposes them correctly as button A, B, X, and Y as labelled on the device. This is swapped compared to the original Xbox controller layout. However, this feature is not enabled by default. If you want to use this feature, you have to add a quirk flag to the module options:

# /etc/modprobe.d/99-xpadneo-quirks.conf
options hid_xpadneo quirks=98:B6:EA:xx:xx:xx+32

where you replace xx:xx:xx with the values from your controller MAC (as shown in dmesg). The value 32 enables Nintendo layout. If you'll want to add other quirk flags, simply add the values, e.g. 32 + 131 (default quirks for GuliKit) = 163. After changing this, reload the driver or reboot.

However, alternatively the controller supports swapping the buttons on the fly, too: Just press and hold the settings button, the click the plus button. Thus, the quirks flag is just a matter of setting the defaults.

This controller uses emulated profile switching support (see below).

GameSir T4 Cyclone Family

This driver supports the GameSir T4 Cyclone controller family, tested by the community. The Pro-models also support trigger rumble but since we cannot distinguish both models by the Bluetooth MAC OUI, we simply enable the trigger rumble protocol for both variants. This should not introduce any problems but if it does, and your model does not have trigger rumble support, you can explicitly tell the driver to not use the trigger rumble motors by adding a quirk flag:

# /etc/modprobe.d/99-xpadneo-quirks.conf
options hid_xpadneo quirks=A0:5A:5D:xx:xx:xx+2

This controller uses emulated profile switching support (see below).

GameSir T4 Nova Lite Family

This driver supports the GameSir T4 Nova Lite controller family, tested by the community. These models have quirks of only allowing rumble when all motor-enable bits are set, not having trigger rumble motors, and not supporting pulse timing parameters. It looks like these models are available with different MAC OUIs, so your particular controller may not be automatically detected. In this case, manually add the quirk flags for your controller:

# /etc/modprobe.d/99-xpadneo-quirks.conf
options hid_xpadneo quirks=3E:42:6C:xx:xx:xx+7

This controller uses emulated profile switching support (see below).

This manufacturer uses random MAC addresses, so we cannot rely on known OUIs. Heuristics try to detect this controller.

A Note About GameSir Devices

GameSir devices do not use officially registered MAC OUIs on the Bluetooth radio part, and they come with various flaky firmware behavior and bugs, while mimicking all other identifiable feature of genuine Microsoft controllers perfectly. This makes such devices hard to detect to work around the bugs in the rumble implementation but we will need a correct implementation in a future version of xpadneo. This means that xpadneo will probably drop official support for GameSir devices in the future: Base functionality should work out of the box but advanced future rumble features may show erratic behavior. There's nothing we can do about that and you should instead complain at the manufacturer: either properly implement the full rumble protocol, or just stick to officially registered OUIs.

If you've come here because your kernel logged enabling heuristic GameSir Nova quirks but you don't have a GameSir device, try the following module option and report the incident on our issue tracker:

# /etc/modprobe.d/99-xpadneo-quirks.conf
options hid_xpadneo quirks=78:86:2E:xx:xx:xx+512

Profile Switching

The driver supports switching between different profiles, either through emulation or by using the hardware switch that comes with some models. This switching can be done at any time even while in a game. The API for customizing each profile does not exist yet.

The currently selected profile is exposed to user-space as an additional axis ABS_PROFILE (supported since kernel 6.0-rc1) with 4 positions, indicating which profile has currently been selected. For user-space to make full use of this knowledge, one would need to remap the paddles to distinctive, unique buttons in each profile. Otherwise you are limited to the generic gamepad buttons. Thus, the "profile axis" can be used as a shift operator in software that supports it.

Native Profile Switching Support

The driver support native profile switching for the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller. However, the feature is not finalized yet:

• The default profile (no LED) exposes the paddles as extra buttons.
• The other three profiles behave the same way by default. While there is no support for modifying them currently, configurations set in the Xbox Accessories app (Windows only) will carry over and operate as intended.

Emulated Profile Switching Support

The driver emulates profile switching for controllers without a hardware profile switch by pressing buttons A, B, X, or Y while holding down the Xbox logo button. However, the following caveats apply:

• Profiles currently behave all the same, and there is no support for configuring them.
• Full support will be available once the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller is fully supported.
• If you hold the button for too long, the controller will turn off - we cannot prevent that.

Important: Emulated profile switching won't work if you disabled the shift-mode of the Xbox logo button (module parameter disable_shift_mode).

Mouse Profile Support

The driver can switch to emulating a mouse (and limited keyboard) on all supported controllers. Press Guide+Select to switch to mouse mode or back to controller mode:

• Left stick moves the mouse pointer
• Right stick can be used as a scrolling wheel/ball
• Triggers for left and right mouse button
• Shoulder buttons for back and forward button
• D-pad for cursor movement
• Menu to show on-screen keyboard (untested, we send KEY_ONSCREEN_KEYBOARD on the consumer device)
• A for Enter
• B for Escape

Important: The mouse profile won't work if you disabled the shift-mode of the Xbox logo button (module parameter disable_shift_mode). If you set the new disable_mouse module parameter to 1, xpadneo will no longer register a mouse device at all, so the Guide button combo will simply pass through to the desktop and no mouse emulation will be started.

Getting Started

Distribution Packages

If your distribution has a maintained package, you can just use that and do not need to follow the manual install instructions below:

Notes for Package Maintainers

To properly support module signing and UEFI secure boot, openssl and mokutil are required additionally to the prerequisites below. The DKMS readme has more instructions.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have installed dkms, linux headers and a bluetooth implementation (e.g. bluez) and their dependencies.

Kernel maintainers should also include the uhid module (CONFIG_UHID) because otherwise Bluetooth LE devices (all models with firmware 5.x or higher) cannot create the HID input device which is handled in user-space by the bluez daemon.

• On Arch and Arch-based distributions (like EndeavourOS), try sudo pacman -S dkms linux-headers bluez bluez-utils
• On Debian based systems (like Ubuntu) you can install those packages by running sudo apt-get install dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r)
• On Fedora, it is sudo dnf install dkms make bluez bluez-tools kernel-devel-$(uname -r) kernel-headers
• On Manjaro try sudo pacman -S dkms linux-latest-headers bluez bluez-utils
• On openSUSE (tested on Tumbleweed, should work for Leap), it is sudo zypper install dkms make bluez kernel-devel kernel-source
• On OSMC you will have to run the following commands sudo apt-get install dkms rbp2-headers-$(uname -r) sudo ln -s "/usr/src/rbp2-headers-$(uname -r)" "/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build" (as a workaround)
• On Raspbian, it is sudo apt-get install dkms raspberrypi-kernel-headers If you recently updated your firmware using rpi-update the above package may not yet include the header files for your kernel. Please follow the steps described here in this case.
• On generic distributions, it doesn't need DKMS but requires a configured kernel source tree, then: cd hid-xpadneo && make modules && sudo make modules_install
• Module singing and UEFI secure boot: If installing yourself, you may need to follow the instructions above for package maintainers.

Please feel free to add other distributions as well!

Installation

• Download the Repository to your local machine git clone https://github.com/atar-axis/xpadneo.git
• cd xpadneo
• If using DKMS, run sudo ./install.sh
• If not using DKMS, follow steps above (generic distribution)
• Done!

Connection

• sudo bluetoothctl
• [bluetooth]# scan on
• wait until all available devices are listed (otherwise it may be hard to identify which one is the gamepad)
• push the connect button on upper side of the gamepad, and hold it down until the light starts flashing fast
• wait for the gamepad to show up in bluetoothctl, remember the address (e.g. C8:3F:26:XX:XX:XX)
• [bluetooth]# scan off to stop scanning as it may interfere with properly pairing the controller
• [bluetooth]# pair <MAC>
• [bluetooth]# trust <MAC>
• [bluetooth]# connect <MAC> (should usually not be needed but there are open bugs)
• The <MAC> parameter is optional if the command line already shows the controller name

You know that everything works fine when you feel the gamepad rumble ;)

If it doesn't, please check our documentation in Troubleshooting.

Configuration

• If using DKMS: Use sudo ./configure.sh to configure the driver as you wish. The script will guide you through the available options.

Update

In order to update xpadneo, do the following

• Update your cloned repo: git pull
• If using DKMS: Run sudo ./update.sh
• otherwise follow the steps above (generic distribution)

Uninstallation

• If using DKMS: Run sudo ./uninstall.sh to remove all installed versions of hid-xpadneo
• otherwise follow the steps above (generic distribution)

Further Information

For further information please visit the GitHub Page https://atar-axis.github.io/xpadneo/ which is generated automatically from the content of the /docs folder.

You will find there e.g. the following sections

• Troubleshooting
• Debugging
• Compatible BT Dongles