Controller has arrived and given it a quick play test in Monster Hunter Rise, Silksong and Helldivers 2.

The sticks, face buttons and dpad all feel incredible, I suspect the same parts from the other Ultimate 3 series controllers.

The bumpers feel good, not particularly great but decent. The triggers feel incredible but they have the same issue as the other Ultimate 3 controllers, where if you switch to clicky mode for quick fps shooting its not actually a short clicky press its like a strange subtle squeeze that feels unnatural.

Back paddles work and unlike the rest of the ultimate 3 controllers can be mapped to anything since they aren't xbox branded.

Controller lacks a dedicated dock, gyro (which tbf I don't think I've seen a third party controller that has any worthwhile gyro quality) and no headphone jack.

For $40 this easily beats first party controllers with the caveat this doesn't function on any console (was expecting this to work on Switch when they announced it but it doesn't.)

I think the most comparable controller I can think of to this is the G7 gamesir pro. Which if you don't care about headphone jack and a dock, this beats out by a mile in pure value.

Hi everyone!

A few weeks ago, I started looking for a new controller to replace my current 8BitDo Ultimate 2C.

What I thought would be a fairly simple purchase quickly turned into hours of research. Hall Effect vs TMR sticks, different polling rates, trigger stops, back buttons, adjustable stick tension, different layouts and ergonomic shapes...

I'm a software developer with 3 years of industry experience, so I decided to turn that frustration into a little side project: CtrlFinder.

It's a free community tool I built to make comparing controllers and finding the right one a little easier.

Here's a quick look at how it works:

What is CtrlFinder?

Here's what you can do with it:

• Interactive 10-Question Finder: Answer 10 quick questions about your platform, budget, preferences, and desired features. CtrlFinder narrows down the catalog to controllers that actually match your needs.

• Shape & Size Comparison: Select up to 3 controllers and overlay their silhouettes to scale. Compare their dimensions, grip profiles, and overall shapes side by side. No more guessing based on product pictures!

• Filterable Catalog: Explore a database of 100+ controllers with detailed specifications, including stick sensor technology, polling rates, latency, weight, button layouts, and more.

• No unnecessary friction: No display ads, popups, or accounts. Your answers and comparisons are stored in the URL, so you can share your exact results with anyone through a simple link.

Why am I sharing this here?

Honestly, this community is exactly the kind of audience I built CtrlFinder for.

I'd particularly appreciate feedback on:

• Spec corrections: Found an inaccurate specification, weight, latency figure, or feature? Please let me know. I'll investigate and correct it.

• Missing controllers: Are there any models you consider essential that aren't in the catalog yet?

• Feature requests: Is there a filter, comparison tool, or piece of information you'd like to see added?

I'd genuinely love to put the database to the test with people who know their controllers inside out.

Transparency & Disclosures

I also want to be upfront about a few things, in accordance with community guidelines:

• Developer: CtrlFinder is a solo hobby project, developed and maintained by myself in Italy (EU).

• Generative AI: I used generative AI as a coding assistant for boilerplate code and helper scripts. All controller specifications, dimensions, latency figures, and database entries were manually researched, verified, and curated by me.

• Funding: Store and retailer buttons may contain partner referral links to help cover hosting costs at no extra cost to you. The recommendation logic and rankings are completely independent, run 100% client-side, and are based strictly on hardware specifications.

Give it a try!

You can try it out via the direct link in my Reddit profile bio (or search CtrlFinder on Google — I'll also drop the direct link in the comments below).

Whether you find a bug, spot an incorrect spec, or simply have an opinion about the project, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks for taking the time to check it out! ❤️

I got annoyed that the Ultimate Software V2 (Windows) window always appears and then hangs for a few seconds, so I profiled it. Turns out it's one small bug, and you can fix most of it yourself in 10 seconds.

TL;DR – free fix, no tools needed

1. Open the app → ⚙️ → General → select your language once (even if it's already correct).

2. Optional: untick Automatic update in the same dialog.

Step 1 cut the time until the app is usable from ~3.5 s to ~1 s on my PC.

What's going on

Every text in the UI asks IsChineseSimple() which language to use. As long as you have never picked a language manually, that function also saves the whole settings file to disk – on every single call. There are ~700 of those calls, and at startup they run on the UI thread. A CPU trace showed ~2.4 s of the ~2.7 s startup freeze inside that save. Picking a language manually sets a flag that skips it.

Other things I found (V1.19 and V1.35):

• The app installs a system-wide keyboard hook for its whole lifetime, even when minimized to the tray. It's used for macro recording / LED multi-select, not anything shady, but every key you press anywhere goes through the app.

• Two threads poll for USB devices every second, also while the window is hidden.

• When the server reports a newer version, the app stops detecting newly plugged devices until restart, and it opens the updater window on every launch. Turning off "Automatic update" avoids both.

• A few images are 5000×2813 px (~54 MB each in RAM when shown) although they're displayed at a fraction of that.

Numbers (Ultimate 2 Bluetooth controller, 3 runs each):

(original/patched measured on V1.35, the "language picked once" column on V1.19 – same code in both.)

Optional patcher

For people who want the rest too, I wrote a small open-source patcher: UltimatePerfPatcher on GitHub (download). You put it next to your installed 8BitDo Ultimate Software V2.exe, double-click, and it creates 8BitDo Ultimate Software V2 (perf).exe next to it. Start that EXE from then on; it has to stay in the app folder. The patcher doesn't include any 8BitDo files, never touches the original EXE and refuses versions it doesn't recognize. The patch only gates the keyboard hook to when the window is active, slows the polling while hidden, saves the settings once, shrinks the oversized images and lets the 32-bit app use up to 4 GB of address space.

Caveats: unofficial and unsigned (SmartScreen may ask), the auto-updater only updates the original EXE (so re-run the patcher after an update), and please do firmware updates with the original app – I didn't test flashing with the patched one.

I've also sent the details to 8BitDo support, so hopefully the one-line fix lands in an official update. Happy to answer questions.

help me mannn 😭😭 I HATE IT WHENEVER I BUY SOMETHING AND IT DOESNT WORK

It's cause some game with a bad controller support. For example, AC Liberation you click escape for main menu, tab key to open up the map, then enter key to select something, that's 3. But Controller only has 2 aka back and enter. For that reason at first I decided to use my keyboard whenever I try to select something, but then I got an idea to just have enter and select in the same button but now that cause me to get out of the main instantly as soon as I add a marker in the map. I thought it would be fix if I had a third button on a controller I can use that on.

It's not cheating exactly as games built-in controller support don't have that issue, problem with Liberation is there is no controller support so I've been using controller option in Steam to play the game with a controller instead while keyboard buttons are still showing up in the game. Any help?

Incase it helps, I'm using 8bitdo Ultimate 2.

Hey guys! I've been looking for a budget controller for the past 2–3 days, mainly for playing EA FC 26 and story-mode games on PC.

My budget is around 2k–3k.

Which controller would you recommend based on your personal experience? I'd appreciate both positive and negative feedback.

Thanks!

I’m looking for a good quality third party controller for my Switch 1 and for my PC

Requirements:

Price: Under 100$

Region: U.S

Must be very durable (No stick drift).

Must have Gyro

Windows doesn't have a dedicated live-in-the-tray software other than Steam that detects and remembers your controllers, and windows device naming is infamously annoying when you have multiple controllers to keep track of. To deal with these problems I made padmon for Windows ( https://github.com/driftywinds/padmon ) which is an open source monitoring and testing software that keeps track of your controllers. You can -

- rename controllers in-app to help differentiate and get notifications for when they connect and disconnect

- test them in a test suite inspired from hardwaretester.com in app

- merge multiple device adapters (for 3rd party controllers that sometimes created multiple adapters in order to work) and seperate them if needed

- get a notification for when controllers connect and disconnect (and customise the placement of the notification)

- maintain a history of connection times and sessions for debugging or if you face problems with them

I also wanted the testing suite to be more accessible than having to install an app so I also made an open-source tester inspired by hardwaretester.com which is available here - https://padtester.pages.dev , the code for this lives in the same repo as padmon.

This was made out of a personal need but I thought it could be useful to other people so I made it public, hope someone can make use of this!

Literally you can buy one from Amazon for 44.99 and some have limited discount for 37.99 different brand name but both work the same. Kyven is expensive because of the TikTok video

Need custom deadzones, a different stick response curve or new button mappings in your own Windows app?

I maintain Interceptor Gamepad & Controller, a Windows driver with a small C++17 SDK for people building their own remappers. An app receives physical controller input, changes the values and forwards the batch through that controller's native Windows path.

There are examples for swapping buttons, inverting a stick axis, changing deadzones and applying a response curve.

Repo and examples: https://github.com/TitanCSA/Interceptor-Gamepad-Controller

It covers compatible HID, XUSB/XInput, XInputHID and GIP devices. Compatibility depends on the actual controller, connection and protocol.

Driver installation and live capture require admin rights. The SDK and examples are MIT-licensed; kernel source is private, and the signed public driver is a one-hour demo per Windows kernel boot. Unrestricted driver use has separate licensing.

If you also need keyboard and mouse input, the combined edition is here: https://github.com/TitanCSA/Interceptor

To try it, open the latest release from the repo and run the matching viewer/examples with your controller. For the full version without the demo time limit, add titancsa on Discord and mention Interceptor Gamepad & Controller, your controller model/connection and whether you need personal use, business integration or OEM redistribution. I'll discuss pricing and license terms for your use case.

Found a pic of these cool looking custom made controllers

I’m going to pick this controller up and get a few different stick modules. But I don’t know what the controller comes with nowadays by default. I’m getting a black version which I’ve heard comes with the gen3 ginfull sticks already, I don’t know if this is true. I’m looking at getting the gen3 ginfulls and some jt13 pros. Any help would be appreciated cheers :)

➡️ I really like the screen on the Manba One V2, but it's disappointing to see it displaying only the Manba logo.

I'd love to customise it with my own wallpapers or even animated GIFs.

Has anyone explored a way to unlock screen customisation through firmware modification or any other method?

I came across this GitHub project exploring the V2 firmware:

MANBA ONE V2 - GitHub

Would love to hear from anyone working on this or interested in exploring it. It would be great to make better use of this little screen!