Gamepad test

How to use the gamepad test

1. Connect the controller by USB or Bluetooth and press any button. It shows up with its slot number, name and mapping. Several controllers can be connected at once; pick one from the list.
2. Press every button, the D-pad and both stick clicks. Each one lights up while held and keeps a green outline afterwards, and the counter shows how many you have covered.
3. Pull each trigger slowly. The bar should climb smoothly from 0.00 to 1.00 and return to 0.00. A trigger that jumps, sticks partway or never reaches 1.00 may be worn or need calibration.
4. Roll each stick slowly around its outer edge two or three times. The purple outline shows the farthest it reached in every direction, and the circularity reading appears once most of the circle is covered.
5. Put the controller on a table, take your hands off and press Start drift check. After five seconds you get the resting values for each stick.

Keep this tab in front while you test. Browsers stop sending controller input to background tabs, and some programs, such as game launchers and remapping tools, can change what the browser sees.

What stick drift is and how to read the results

Stick drift is a thumbstick reporting movement when nobody is touching it. In a game, that shows up as the camera slowly turning, the character walking on its own, or menus scrolling by themselves. Most controller sticks measure position with potentiometers, where a contact slides over a resistive track; wear, dirt and loose parts there are common reasons a stick stops reading zero at rest. Hall effect and TMR sticks read position with magnets and sensors instead of a sliding contact.

The drift check gives four numbers per stick, all on the browser's scale where full tilt is 1.0:

• Largest resting value: the farthest from centre the stick reported while you were not touching it. This is the number a deadzone has to cover.
• Average offset: where the stick sits on average. A steady offset in one direction is a stick that does not re-centre properly.
• Jitter: how much the reading wobbles around that average. A stick can be centred on average but still twitch.
• Suggested deadzone: the largest resting value plus 0.02, rounded up. Games usually show the deadzone as a percentage or a 0 to 100 slider, so 0.08 is roughly 8%. Games scale and shape deadzones differently, so treat it as a starting point and test in the game.

The Centred, Small offset and Visible drift labels are a rule of thumb used on this page (under 0.05, 0.05 to under 0.15, and 0.15 or more), not a standard. Run the check two or three times; if one run says "Moved", a hand or the table bumped the stick.

How to fix or live with stick drift

1. Raise the deadzone in the game. Most games with controller support have an inner deadzone setting per stick. Set it to the suggested value from the drift check and test again. This is the quickest fix and it is reversible.
2. Calibrate and update. Update the controller firmware with the maker's app, for example the Xbox Accessories app for Xbox controllers or the PlayStation Accessories app for a DualSense on Windows. Steam's controller settings include calibration and deadzone options for many controllers, and some controllers have a calibration option in Windows' Game Controllers panel (joy.cpl).
3. Clean around the stick. Dirt under the stick cap can stop it from re-centring. With the controller off, a few short bursts of compressed air around the base of the stick while you roll it is a low-risk thing to try. Avoid opening the controller while it is under warranty.
4. Use the warranty. If the drift is large or keeps getting worse, check the warranty with the maker or the shop. Save a screenshot of the drift check result to show what you measured.
5. Replace it. If you are buying a new controller because of drift, look for Hall effect or TMR sticks in the listing. My gaming controller guide covers which pad fits PC or console.

Testing the rest of your setup? The keyboard test and mouse test check every key and button the same way, and the input-lag calculator adds up where your input delay comes from.