How to Use a PS3 Controller on PC in 2026

The DualShock 3 has no business being as good as it is. It came out in 2007, it has a single-axis gyroscope that was barely useful then, and its sticks are shorter than anything made since. It also has pressure-sensitive face buttons that no controller has shipped with in over a decade, it costs almost nothing used, and it remains the input device of choice for a lot of people running PS3 emulation.

Getting it onto Windows used to be miserable. It is now genuinely straightforward, provided you ignore roughly 80 percent of the guides that still rank for this search.

First: do not install ScpToolkit or MotioninJoy

Both come up constantly in search results and forum posts. Both should be avoided in 2026.

MotioninJoy was the original solution and became notorious. It bundled adware, used driver signing practices that stopped being acceptable years ago, and its installer made changes people spent evenings undoing. There is no version of this that is worth installing today.

ScpToolkit was the legitimate successor and did good work for years. Its developer abandoned the project in 2016. The approach it takes is the problem: it replaces the driver for your entire Bluetooth adapter with a custom one dedicated to the controller, which means your Bluetooth headphones, mouse and everything else stop working. On modern Windows it also fights with driver signing and Bluetooth stack behaviour that did not exist when it was written.

If either is already installed, remove it before continuing, because leftovers conflict with what you are about to install.

The current answer: DsHidMini and BthPS3

Both are from Nefarius, the same developer behind ViGEmBus and HidHide, and both are actively maintained. They are the tools the PC gaming community has settled on.

DsHidMini is a kernel driver that makes Windows understand the DualShock 3 properly. It handles the initialisation handshake the controller needs before it will report anything, and it supports rumble and the pressure-sensitive buttons.

BthPS3 is a separate Bluetooth profile driver. It sits alongside your normal Bluetooth stack rather than replacing it, which is the key improvement over ScpToolkit. Your other Bluetooth devices keep working.

You only need BthPS3 if you want to use the controller wirelessly. For USB-only use, DsHidMini alone is enough.

Get both from the Nefarius GitHub releases pages rather than from a search result. A number of domains exist specifically to rank for these tool names and serve their own installers, and these are kernel mode drivers, so where you download from genuinely matters. Look for the ViGEm organisation on GitHub.

Installation, in order

The order matters. Install the Bluetooth driver before the device driver if you want wireless.

1. Uninstall ScpToolkit or MotioninJoy if either is present, and reboot
2. If you want wireless, run the BthPS3 installer, then reboot
3. Run the DsHidMini installer
4. Connect the DualShock 3 by USB. Windows should chime and Device Manager should show it as a DsHidMini device
5. For wireless, unplug the cable and press the PS button. It should pair automatically

DsHidMini v3 also ships an ARM64 build, which makes it one of the few controller drivers that works natively on Windows on ARM hardware without emulation overhead.

If the controller connects but nothing responds, that is almost always the initialisation step. The DualShock 3 does not report input until it has been told to start, which is exactly the job DsHidMini does and exactly why the controller appears in Device Manager but does nothing on a stock Windows install.

Choosing a mode

This is the part that confuses people, and it is the most useful thing to understand.

DsHidMini exposes the controller in several different modes, and which one you want depends on what you play.

SXS mode is the default and presents the controller in a form Steam recognises natively. If you play mostly through Steam, leave it here and let Steam Input handle mapping. This is the least friction for most people.

XInput mode creates a virtual Xbox 360 controller through ViGEmBus. Windows and every game think you have an Xbox pad. This is what you want for Game Pass, the Epic launcher, and anything outside Steam that expects an Xbox controller. You lose pressure sensitivity in this mode, because XInput has nowhere to put it.

DS4 emulation mode presents the controller as a DualShock 4. Useful for games with native PlayStation support, and it enables a simulated gyro that lets a DualShock 3 work in titles built around DS4 motion.

HID mode exposes the raw device with pressure-sensitive buttons intact. This is the mode for PS2 and PS3 emulation, where those buttons actually get used.

You can change modes in the DsHidMini configuration application, and you can set different modes per device if you have more than one controller.

Whichever mode you land on, verify it before you play. Run the controller through a PS3 controller tester and press everything, and use a button test to confirm each face button and shoulder registers individually. Used DualShock 3s are old enough now that a dead shoulder button is a real possibility rather than a setup mistake.

Wireless specifics

The DualShock 3 does Bluetooth in a non-standard way. It needs the host adapter's address written into the controller over USB before it will connect wirelessly, which is why you always have to plug it in once first.

Requirements:

• Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR or newer, which covers essentially any adapter made this century
• BthPS3 installed
• One initial USB connection to register the host

If pairing fails, the usual cause is an adapter with its own third party Bluetooth stack rather than the Microsoft one. Check Device Manager under Bluetooth and see whether the driver is generic Microsoft or vendor-specific.

Battery life on a DualShock 3 in 2026 is the other consideration. These are lithium-ion cells that are approaching twenty years old on the earliest units. A controller that runs for twenty minutes and dies does not have a driver problem. Replacements are cheap and the job is straightforward, and our DualShock 3 repair guide covers the teardown.

Counterfeits, and how to spot one

This deserves its own section because it accounts for a large share of the "I followed the guide and it does not work" reports.

The DualShock 3 has been out of production for years and the used market is full of clones. The common ones are usually identified by the chipset maker names Gasia and Shanwan. Some work with DsHidMini, some work partially, and some do not work at all.

Signs you may have a clone:

• The PlayStation logo on the PS button is printed rather than moulded into the plastic
• The Sony branding is slightly off in font or spacing
• It weighs noticeably less than a genuine unit
• No model number moulded into the back, or a model number that does not read SIXAXIS or CECHZC2
• The price was too good

If you bought it new from a marketplace listing in 2026, it is a clone. Sony stopped making these. That does not necessarily mean it will not work, but it does mean that when something goes wrong, the driver is probably not the problem.

Why bother in 2026

Three reasons that hold up.

PS3 emulation. RPCS3 has its own native handling for the DualShock 3, and using the original controller for the original hardware avoids a whole category of mapping problems. Our guide on reducing controller input delay in emulators covers the latency side of emulator setup.

Pressure-sensitive buttons. No controller has shipped with these since the PS3. For PS2 emulation, where a number of games used analog button pressure for things like acceleration and stealth movement, this is not a nostalgia argument. It is the only way to play those games as designed.

Cost. A working used DualShock 3 costs less than almost any other option, and it is a perfectly good pad for 2D games and emulation generally.

What it is not good for: modern shooters, where the short sticks and small deadzone headroom show their age, and anything needing reliable gyro, since the DualShock 3's single-axis yaw-only gyroscope was never adequate for aiming.

Check the sticks before you commit

A DualShock 3 in 2026 has had a long time to wear out. The potentiometer sticks in these controllers were not built for two decades of use.

Run a stick drift test before you spend an evening on setup. A resting position that sits off centre, or a value that will not settle, tells you what you are dealing with. Moderate drift can be masked with a deadzone. A stick that jumps around or fails to reach full deflection is a worn module, and on a controller this cheap, replacing the whole unit is usually more sensible than repairing it.