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OS X Enabling use of PS3 / PS4 controllers on OS X

Starfox

Starfox

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 7, 2011
256
9
Hi MacRumors,

I'm working on an app that makes the experience of using a PS3 / PS4 controller a lot better on OS X. You can see battery status, manage controller orderings, get low-battery notifications and establish mappings for controller keys to keyboard / mouse actions.

I'm posting this to get an idea of what must-have features you guys think the app should have. I'd like to release an app that solves the issues a lot of people have, and multiple opinions are a must.

FYI, it's headed for the Mac App Store.
 
McGiord

McGiord

macrumors 601
Oct 5, 2003
4,558
290
Dark Castle
Have pre-set configs for the different games out there.
Enable the user to create custom profiles.
Allow easy discovery and set up.
 
lunaoso

lunaoso

macrumors 65816
Sep 22, 2012
1,332
54
Boston, MA
Making a way to export control setup profiles to be shared online would be smart. So people can set up profiles for certain games and then share them. Hope you get what I mean, I'm lost for words at the moment. :)
 
edddeduck

edddeduck

macrumors 68020
Mar 26, 2004
2,061
13
Make sure your pad doesn't block the standard signals. All Feral games just work with theses pads (no drivers needed with perfect PS3/360 layout) so please make sure you don't hijack any signals and break Feral support. If you must hijack signals then have a disable if application X is running option.

You could add in FFB support though if you like that would be great.

I spend a fair bit of time making sure we have auto support for over 100 pads and the PS3 is one of try more popular ones.

FFB support however using Apple's FFB framework would not go amiss.

Good Luck!
 
Starfox

Starfox

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 7, 2011
256
9
edddeduck said:
FFB support however using Apple's FFB framework would not go amiss.
Click to expand...

WTF is FFB?

----------
lunaoso said:
Making a way to export control setup profiles to be shared online would be smart. So people can set up profiles for certain games and then share them. Hope you get what I mean, I'm lost for words at the moment. :)
Click to expand...

Yup, you can do that. Profiles export / import as files.

----------
McGiord said:
Have pre-set configs for the different games out there.
Enable the user to create custom profiles.
Allow easy discovery and set up.
Click to expand...

Discovery and set up are handled by OS X internally - I can't change them, but I can file bugs. If you're having trouble with them let me know.
 
Starfox

Starfox

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 7, 2011
256
9
edddeduck said:
I had to laugh at you using one acronym to ask what another acronym means :)

FFB Stands for Force FeedBack aka Haptic technology that makes pads rumble etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_feedback#Video_games

Edwin
Click to expand...

Haha yeah that was intentional. I can send command to the DualShock rumble motors, but this is a data path from the app to the controller, and not the other way around - there's no way to write a wrapper to emulate that (how do I know that the app wants to send a rumble event?).

I do have an API, but it needs to be integrated with the app's source code, and can't be bolted-on as an afterthought. Simple key / axis remapping depending on the foreground app is possible however (and is in fact what my app currently does).
 
edddeduck

edddeduck

macrumors 68020
Mar 26, 2004
2,061
13
Starfox said:
Haha yeah that was intentional. I can send command to the DualShock rumble motors, but this is a data path from the app to the controller, and not the other way around - there's no way to write a wrapper to emulate that (how do I know that the app wants to send a rumble event?).

I do have an API, but it needs to be integrated with the app's source code, and can't be bolted-on as an afterthought. Simple key / axis remapping depending on the foreground app is possible however (and is in fact what my app currently does).
Click to expand...

The 360 drivers (tattiebogle) connect the pad up to Apples build in OS force feedback drivers. This means if a game sends FFB messages to the Mac OS FFB API these are passed onto the pad.

My request was for you to do something similar for PS3/4 pads too.

The tattiebogle drivers are open source so feel free to view source code and see how they do it :)

Good luck!

Edwin
 
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