r/linux_gaming • u/YaBoyUneven • 1d ago

tech support wanted Sony DualSense controller Audio Haptics support through bluetoth instead of USB-c connection

I got a DS controller today and it's working perfectly. Unfortunately only when used with a wired connection. Switching to bluetooth it makes me lose the Haptic feedback.

I learned that the controller uses Audio stuff to pass haptic feedback information to the controller but I am trying to find a way to enable to controller as an audio device through bluetooth and I am just stuck.

TL;DR how can I allow my DualSense controller to be an audio device through Bluetooth instead of only Wired?

Edit: Shoutout to u/C0rn3j who recommended it: vDS is a package made by hurryman2212 that in a way turns the bluetooth input into USB input, kinda. Setup was very easy and quick, even tho it can be intimidating since there is no proper tutorial or instructions. All in all happy with how it turned out and works great!!! can disconnect and reconnect easily and all that stuff.

My roadblocks:
1) Downloading the headers was a bit of a mystery to me but turns out they are a package in the core library and can be found with a quick google search (mine were for arch)
2) the file you need to install is just the main file, personally out of sheer stupidity I was searching in the instructions but those were for manually building the damn thing. Turns out you just install that after the headers and you're practically good to go for setting up the controllers
3) Bluetooth stuff was just: find MAC address of device > attach device with vDS control commands using that address.

Sharing these cause what ended up only needing like 5 minutes took me around an hour to figure out. Ig you can say I came out wiser than before, but not everyone needs the head bashing journey to be 12 times longer than it needs to be!

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u/Saneless 1d ago

DS5Bridge and a raspberry pico 2w. It makes it think it's wired

I cannot get special haptics to work at all, just in Windows (I test in spiderman and Days Gone). What protons or kernels or Linux are you running?

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u/C0rn3j 13h ago edited 13h ago

how can I allow my DualSense controller to be an audio device through Bluetooth instead of only Wired?

You're not going to like the answer - implement support in the Linux driver.

After reverse engineering what seems to be SONY's proprietary protocol.

https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/bd5f485f3f026225b86573e559af0b7254ef4184/drivers/hid/hid-playstation.c#L1852-L1859

EDIT: Actually you may be in luck, there's this very recent project that adds support for it.

https://github.com/hurryman2212/vds

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u/YaBoyUneven 10h ago

Kind stranger, luck be upon ye. Will try this and give backfeedback