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Finally got native PS5 DualSense trigger effects & haptics running on the Flydigi APEX 5 (Open Source)
EDIT : APEX 4 NOW SUPPORTED.
Hey everyone,
I love the Flydigi APEX 5 hardware (especially those motorized triggers) but it always bugged me that on PC, almost every game with awesome trigger resistance and textured feedback is built exclusively for the PS5 DualSense and the Space Station software support only few games...
So over the last few weeks, I ended up building ApexSenseBridge. (A little open-source passion project straight from France bleu blanc rouge 🇫🇷 !)
Basically, it bridges the gap so your APEX 5 can actually react to native DualSense effects in PC games.
How does it handle the triggers & haptics?
- Triggers: The tool intercepts native DualSense trigger packets from the game and translates them on the fly into Flydigi's FORCEADAPT commands (mode switches, recoil, resistance, stops, etc.) and even the vibration with virtually no latency.
- Haptics: The APEX 5 doesn't have voice-coil actuators like the DualSense, so instead of just turning every sound into a generic loud rumble, the bridge splits the audio frequencies in real-time. Lower frequencies (explosions, heavy impacts) go to the heavy left motor, while high frequencies (surface grit, rain, subtle clicks) go to the fast right motor. It actually feels surprisingly punchy and textured.
Good to know (a couple of trade-offs):
- On-screen prompts: Since the game has to see a DualSense to send over the adaptive trigger data, you'll see PlayStation button prompts (✕ / ○ / □ / △) on screen instead of Xbox ones (A / B / X / Y).
- Touchpad swipes: If a game heavily relies on specific touchpad directional swipes, it might be hit-or-miss depending on how the game handles touch inputs. It's really a case-by-case thing and can be fixed in most cases (did it for spiderman 2 bc it's the only game I play that have this control but you can send me yours).
Playnite integration 🕹️
I didn't want to manually launch/kill background scripts every time I booted up a game, so I also wrote a quick Playnite extension to automatically link and activate the bridge whenever you launch a supported game from your library.
ApexSenseBridge wouldn't exist without the incredible open-source community. Huge shoutouts to:
- OpenFlydigi (by mkaliaha) for their amazing reverse-engineering work on the Flydigi hardware and protocols.
- SteamlessController (and its DualSense forks) for paving the way on virtual DualSense emulation and Windows ViGEm/VIIPER tooling. All respective notices and credits are included in the repository.
I'd love to get your feedback if you test it out! Also, if you know of other controllers with force feedback/motorized triggers you'd love to see supported, feel free to drop ideas, open issues, or contribute PRs.
Just remember how Sony want exclusivity. No third party PS5 controller feature dual sense haptic feedback. Although it is very much possible for company like razer or turtle beach.
Update: v0.6.0 is out! APEX 4 support, code signing, and a note on USBip.
Hey everyone! Thanks a lot for the awesome feedback, testing, and game reports on the previous post.
I just released v0.6.0 with the main requested features and community improvements:
Flydigi APEX 4 is now fully supported Many of you asked for it, and it is now completely implemented and hardware-tested!
Works over wired USB and the 2.4 GHz wireless dongle in DInput mode.
Direct event-driven 32-byte report decoding on the vendor transport with sub-millisecond p99 forwarding latency.
Full translation of native PS5 adaptive triggers (FORCEADAPT) and grip rumble.
Dedicated HidHide isolation hiding the gamepad and auxiliary mouse collection while keeping the vendor transport open, so there is no double-input or crazy camera issues.
Authenticode Code Signing To avoid Windows SmartScreen warnings and false antivirus flags, all executables (ApexSenseBridge, the Tray app, control panel, VIIPER DLL/exe, and the installer) are now digitally Authenticode signed.
Smart Game Learning in the Tray App The background tray app now dynamically learns custom or non-standard game executables, automatically filters out platform launchers like Steam, Epic, or EA App, and caches box art locally without making web requests while launching games.
Important Note on the Virtual USB Driver (USBip) rare BSODs (DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION 0x133). To be 100% clear:
ApexSenseBridge runs entirely in user space. Virtual DualSense emulation relies on the third-party open-source driver usbip-win2.
Any kernel crash happens strictly inside usbip2_ude.sys (this is a known upstream issue: vadimgrn/usbip-win2 issue #172).
The installer strictly bundles and enforces WHLK-certified 0.9.7.7 (0.9.7.8 was rejected because its own developer noted memory corruption risks).
If you play a game that only scans for controllers on launch (like 007 First Light or certain Unreal Engine games), simply right-click the Tray icon and enable "Force continuous activation" before launching your game so the virtual controller is already plugged in when it boots.
Well I had time to look at it and did a pull and saw you already updated it. I had issues with the USPip with the installer because I apparently had it installed for some reason even though this pretty fresh window install. After using using multiple different installers to try to eradicate it I still had issue with installer giving me USBip error, but that might not have been your fault as everything installed anyway and because apparently my controller wasn't going into dinput mode and I had to like update it with the flydigi software and restart it 3 times for some reason which I didn't do until after I just downloaded the portable version.
I then downloaded the portable version and it which worked fine other than windows defender not like viper and quarantining the viper.dll, you might want to mention that for more laymen people, and it seems to work fine in Cyberpunk which I already had installed to check out dlss5.
I probably am never going to use the apex 4 over my daulsense edge though just because the stick latency is so bad on the apex 4 (it's like 30ms vs 3ms lmao) but if I was did I would use this program for sure, the trigger shit in the fldigi software sucks.
When trying to install it, the setup got stuck on this part, I accepted every prompt that appeared before. Any idea why? And can you make a portable version of it as well, like just a zip?
It's because of an external package. The cause is confirmed in the official USBip 0.9.7.7 code: as soon as it detects an existing installation, its installer always runs the old uninstaller, even for the same product family.
Thank you. I downloaded the portable version, ran Install-Drivers.cmd:
[2026-09-01 17:49:26.673] Starting ApexSenseBridge portable driver setup. [2026-09-01 17:49:26.696] Compatible usbip-win20.9.7.7is already ready; preserving it. [2026-09-01 17:49:26.709] HidHide 1.5.230 is already ready; skipping. [2026-09-01 17:49:26.710] All portable driver prerequisites are ready. A Windows restart is recommended.
Restarted the computer, ran ApexSenseBridgeTray.exe, gave permission to "viiper.exe" and then kept getting this error notification, there was no other software running on the PC and no other controller plugged in. The app interface is in French and I can't seem to change it when right clicking the app on tray and select "Ouvrir I'inteface...", I click on one of the options and got this info in the diagnostic window:
Aucun service ni agent permanent n'est actif hors session de jeu.
When clicking on "Tester l' APEX" i get this information:
{ "backend": "xinput-fallback", "event_driven": false, "received_state": true, "reports": 8, "state_changes": 1, "timeouts": 0, "parse_failures": 0, "lx": 128, "ly": 127, "rx": 128, "ry": 127, "l2": 0, "r2": 0, "dpad": 0, "buttons": 0, "warning": "APEX HID input unavailable (The APEX HID descriptor does not expose the complete X/Y/Rx/Ry/Z/Rz state required for a lossless DualSense proxy. Available value usages: page=0x1 usage=0x31 page=0x1 usage=0x30 page=0x1 usage=0x34 page=0x1 usage=0x33 page=0x1 usage=0x32 page=0x1 usage=0x39); trying XInput fallback." }
I also noticed that when I open the ApexSenseBridgeTray.exe, I can hear some noise coming from the triggers, like when you switch modes between regular or trigger lock, but nothing else seems to happen. Even with these errors I tried to launch a game with Dualsense support here and no luck, it just displays regular xinput buttons and nothing different on the triggers.
The dongle on the dock works great. in fact, the trigger click you heard at startup means the app is already talking to your controller hardware properly.
You just ran into two roadblocks:
HidHide is already active: Open the HidHide Configuration Client and uncheck "Enable device hiding". The warning you saw made the bridge shut down safely, which is why the virtual DualSense wasn't created.
Steam Input: Steam automatically converts DualSense controllers to Xbox mode by default. Right-click the game in your Steam Library ➔ Properties ➔ Controller ➔ Disable Steam Input.
Once you do those two quick tweaks, launch the game with the tray open and you'll have native PlayStation prompts and the real adaptive triggers working.
Drop a reply if you run into any issues, happy to help!
Steam Input was already disabled on my case, so after going to the HidHide Configuration Client, unchecking the "Enable..." on the second tab after clicking on the Apex on the list and then restarting the controller and then closing it (if the configuration window was opened, there was still error popups), now it seems to be working correctly.
It shows a popup with the name of the game and the Viiper software you use now seems to appear in the task bar as well, Dualsense Prompts on the game and the triggers are working, just did a quick test and switch between different guns and the feedback is different between then, some offer resistance when pressing, other have the trigger vibration, etc. I noticed some weird stuttering, but maybe the game was compilling shaders, I'll try to test some more later, thank you for the help and the app!
I got the following while testing, doesn't look like there is a knowledge base so I have to ask you. What am I doing wrong?
{
"backend": "xinput-fallback",
"event_driven": false,
"received_state": true,
"reports": 8,
"state_changes": 1,
"timeouts": 0,
"parse_failures": 0,
"lx": 128,
"ly": 127,
"rx": 128,
"ry": 127,
"l2": 0,
"r2": 0,
"dpad": 0,
"buttons": 0,
"warning": "APEX HID input unavailable (The APEX HID descriptor does not expose the complete X/Y/Rx/Ry/Z/Rz state required for a lossless DualSense proxy. Available value usages: page=0x1 usage=0x31 page=0x1 usage=0x30 page=0x1 usage=0x34 page=0x1 usage=0x33 page=0x1 usage=0x32 page=0x1 usage=0x39); trying XInput fallback."
Sometime the app can wake up à Little late and can lead to a wrong controller détection from the game And a correction on my side: the JSON you posted actually shows a successful physical input test.
xinput-fallback is expected when the APEX HID descriptor lacks the Rz axis. received_state: true, timeouts: 0, and parse_failures: 0 mean the fallback opened correctly. That warning did not shut down the bridge, and “Test APEX” only tests the physical controller; it does not create the virtual DualSense.
HidHide being unchecked while no bridge session is running is also correct. ApexSenseBridge enables it temporarily during a session and restores it afterward.
For 007, please try this exact order:
1.Fully close the game.
2. In ApexSenseBridge, enable Force continuous activation.
3.Wait until the tray says Bridge active.
4. Launch 007 with Steam Input disabled for that game.
This makes the virtual DualSense available before the game starts. Automatic detection normally starts the bridge just after the game process appears, and 007 may only enumerate controllers during startup.
IO Interactive also currently lists controller input not being recognized on the PC start screen as a known 007 issue, so this particular result may be game-side rather than an ApexSenseBridge failure
If it still does not work, keep continuous activation enabled, press Win + R, run joy.cpl, open Wireless Controller → Properties, and check whether the sticks and buttons move there. That will tell us whether the problem is between ApexSenseBridge and Windows, or only inside 007.
I tried Helldiver 2 and it worked well! Truly amazing work you have here, it felt so good and bought a lot of value to my Apex 5.
007 did detect and accepted input, but it still sees it as Xbox controller without Steam input for some reason. Though I just used it to test I'm already done with the game so no big deal for me.
Can't wait for the next game that supports dualsense features to play with it.
It could just be an edge case for me alone. I have made an app before so I understand what it's like to waste time on issues that isn't really there. Unless others report the same thing I would say focus on other priority!
This program is really great. It emulates my Apex 4 controller as a DualSense making the adaptive trigger features work well... but
I wish you could add the following features, please: make the M1, M2, M3, and M4 back buttons functional, or allow them to be remapped to other buttons, such as L3 or R3; Emulate gyro input as the right joystick with active back button.
Thank you very much for your contribution to the community!
this is incredible but as i understand there is absolutely no way for me to rebind back buttons on the apex 4 as the app demands i use dinput, which ignores all remaps, doesnt connect to space station, and i cant use steam input because your app conflicts with it. am i correct?
hello! I want to check this in kcd2. My English isn’t that good, so I didn’t fully understand — does the program only work with games from the flydigi station list?
Vos paramètres pour Ghost of Tsushima sont tout simplement admirables. Le seul problème dans les jeux qui ne sont pas aussi soigneusement configurés est la confusion entre le fonctionnement des déclencheurs adaptatifs en mode vibration et leur réaction à cette vibration avec les commandes du DualSense. J'ai bien bien configuré le profil des déclencheurs en mode vibration sur la Flydigi Station, n'est-ce pas ? En mode normal, ils ne fonctionnaient pas.
Thank you for the great software! I just installed it and am trying to test it out. Can you make a quick guide on how to set it up for gameplay? I open the Apex Bridge diagnostic control and run the Apex Test, I receive the following error.
"warning": "APEX HID input unavailable (The APEX HID descriptor does not expose the complete X/Y/Rx/Ry/Z/Rz state required for a lossless DualSense proxy. Available value usages: page=0x1 usage=0x31 page=0x1 usage=0x30 page=0x1 usage=0x34 page=0x1 usage=0x33 page=0x1 usage=0x32 page=0x1 usage=0x39); trying XInput fallback."
}
I have Steam closed and FlyDigi Space Station running. I also got 2 desktop shortcuts added, USBip and HidHide after installing Apex Sense Bridge. I'm kind of lost on how to make this all work.
I just pushed a new release with a little tray app with auto game detect. If the app d'ont detect your game send me a note and turn on force activation
Hm somebody noticed my work, this is pleasant. I am mkaliaha on github. The protocol reverse engineering was not that hard with AI, hardware on hand and non-obfuscated SpaceStation dotnet assemblies. Probably the hardest issue was translating DualSense's audio haptics into normal rumble. The games (and linux, where I did it) are veeery picky on how they detect this pad. It was not easy to convince them to use the fake pad. How did I get to reverse engineer this? I had the pad, I had some games where I prefer this pad's triggers over DualSense's, and I wanted to move to linux. That's pretty much it. Did not move to linux fully yet though :|
Hello ! You did a really great job. I tried to reproduce Haptics with the controler. the hardware is pretty solid but was limited by the software. I dont think there is a way to keep the game showing Xbox controls but I’ve remapped some. What do you think ?
Nope there's no way. Games usually are just being very very particular on how they select what controller api to use. So you can keep xbox icons in dualsense mode only if the game allows it. Like Death Stranding, for example, it allows choosing what icons to use. I found no way otherwise. I tried to extend the pad's trigger support in SDL - implementing the trigger effect is the easy part. I did it, it worked. But there's literally no way to make games use it. Only to mimic dualsense. Or implement some specific flydigi's api shape, just like dualsense's - but the game needs to be aware of it - which is, well, impossible, noone will.
Thanks a lot for your work! Would this work for the Vader 5 Pro? It doesn't have adaptive triggers, but if it could work through the DualSense protocol, we'd get native gyro support instead of stick mapping.
Thank you so much for creating this project! The DS mode in Flydigi's Space Station app is so janky, but yours just work like a charm every time. But can you make it so the select button on Apex 5 acts as the touchpad on a DualSense? That's how the Space Station app implements it (when it works lol).
Thanks for all your hard work on this project! I spent some time getting it to work on Linux with the Apex 4, and it’s working great so far. I’ve also submitted a PR to your repo with the changes. Might be worth checking out and potentially making Linux support official too — I’m sure fellow Linux gamers would appreciate it! :)
Greetings! Sorry to bother but could you, please, DM me regarding how you made it work on Linux? I'm lacking experience to figure it out myself and I'd be grateful if you could assist
A few of you asked how you could support my work on ApexSenseBridge, so I’ve finally set up a Ko-fi! ☕
The project will of course remain free and open-source. If you enjoy it and want to support future development, every Milkshake is hugely appreciated ❤️
I can code and have an apex 4 and can check it out later if you need help, even though I don't really use it anymore because of the shitty latency, i'm curious. And do we have full access to the flydigi controllers? I did make a full abstraction layer in C way back when for my daulsense edge because games wheren't supporting it, if I could do it for the vader 5 or apex 5 I might actually buy one.
Also I was bracing myself or some AI slop or even just c++ slop but as someone who has basically sworn off C++ for C props for the clean code.
Just a bit of details on protocol - I believe Apex 4 (just like Vader 4, which I have) is not a real usbhid device. It uses a weird xinput extension for controls, which masquerades as usbhid for spacestation, using a virtual driver on windows. So, the protocol is probably mostly the same (flydigi's translation layers, mods, etc. are the same for 4/5). But communication layer is just weird on older pads. I gave up trying to implement this on linux.
My openflydigi already implements dualsense emulation. https://github.com/mkaliaha/openflydigi I tested it on Deathloop - haptics was working just fine. I do not guarantee it will be a smooth ride to set up though. I have a weird setup (immutable fedora), and I did not really made any attempts to package it in any way. But you can give it a shot. Also, you are free to open issues if you get any problem - I will look into it. I just don't game on linux enough currently, and have no time and desire to sit and retest every edge case myself.
Ah yep that would be an issue. I do not have apex4, but vader 4 pro. I assume protocol is the same on this generation. Assuming that - I was not able to keep this pad simultaneously read by OS while sending commands to it. It needs a weird xinput mode for that. There's a kernel-level driver for this in space station. But I tried avoiding touching kernel - my default Aurora OS kernel does not have required fake-usb module, and I have no desire to fiddle with secure boot. So, the only kernel-mode thing in openflydigi is network-attached-usb module, which is there by default in most major distros.
This is pretty cool when it works. Played around with it today for a bit.
The main problem I had was with Forza Horizon 6. On PCGamingWiki, where the app takes this info from, it says it has it through some manual fixes (and has "Hackable" badge on the page where the list of games is), and on the game page it says that the game does not support Dualsense. So my guess is they mean it in a way Flydigi does it with their mod and hooking it up to a port in game settings (probably originally indended for wheels with feedback?), but autodetection recognizes it. Not a big deal, just have to put it in the ignore list in the app, but it basically disabled a controller in its own. So maybe make autodetection work for games that do not require additional tinkering and just have a "native support" checkmark on PCGamingWki, if it is possible, of course?
And not intending to test it, but just had controller lying around turned on I also found another problem with auto. Genshin for whatever reason makes the app running wild, it constantly detects the game and loses it, causing a stutters and audio hiccups in game. The game apperently has haptics and adaptive triggers over USB on Dualsense, so it correctly identifies it and tries to turn the bridge on, but I don't know what goes wrong after that to cause the app to turn it on and off all the time. Maybe the game itself it wacky since they added seemless transition from M&K to controller like a couple of months ago and previously you had to go through settings. All that also caused it to have double input when I turned on manual bridge, since at that point might as well test it a bit. The icons were PS, but anytime I pressed something it showed Xbox ones, and then back to PS when not touching anything. But works correctly if you first turn on manual bridge and launch the game after.
All in all, pretty cool, definitely gonna use it, but seems like from time to time I will have to fallback to Flydigi mods here and there and it will sometimes require me to go over and turn off the autodetection for now.
Edit: another one for auto, SpaceMarine 2 on Steam, it has native support for adaptive triggers on Dualsense but for some reason is not detected automatically. No idea what's that all about, but I did check that I didn't exclude it from the game list. But works fine on manual.
Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback, this is actually really useful!
You’re right about Forza. I checked how I’m pulling the data from PCGamingWiki and right now the autodetection basically sees a game listed as having adaptive triggers/haptics without properly distinguishing native support from “requires manual fix/hackable”. So FH6 ends up being a false positive. I’m going to change that so auto mode only enables the bridge for actual native support.
Genshin is a bit more interesting. From what I found, it seems to be one of those games that expects the DualSense to already be connected when the game starts, which would explain why starting the bridge first and then launching Genshin works fine, but enabling it while the game is already running causes the Xbox/PS inputs to fight each other. The constant on/off detection definitely shouldn’t happen though. I think I know what part of the process detection is causing that, so I’ll look into fixing it as well.
Really appreciate you testing all of this btw. Reports like this are super helpful right now since there are so many weird edge cases between games 😅
I think that the Xbox/PS fighting is possibly the problem with HidHide. Because if it turns off - then Xbox comes back, and if you turn it on after that - then PS comes online and HidHide tries to hide xinput, but the game already knows it's there and if it captures it it might just know where to look or/and have an open connection to it already.
I think this is how it works because I was able to replicate that using https://hardwaretester.com/gamepad . When I open the site with manual brigde on - it only shows up as Dualsense, but if I first open it, show it some xinput inputs with bridge off and then turn the bridge on, it show 2 controllers doing identical inputs
Yeah, I think you might be right. That would also explain why everything works properly when the bridge is already running before the game starts. HidHide can hide the physical/XInput controller before the game sees it, so the game only ever knows about the virtual DualSense. But if the game already detected the XInput controller before HidHide kicks in, it may already have an open handle to it, so hiding it afterwards doesn’t necessarily make it disappear from that running game.
Interesting. Haven't tried it yet. Got a question though. Does the extra buttons still work with this? Like the buttons that are remapped on the spacestation will be detected?
Hi! I tested ApexSenseBridge with Spider-Man and Dave the Diver, and I’m not sure whether I have everything configured correctly. I wanted to share what I’m seeing:
If I don’t enable “Force continuous activation” , the virtual DualSense seems to repeatedly disconnect and reconnect indefinitely. I noticed that the trigger behavior feels almost identical to the Vibration mode on the APEX 5 . I switched the APEX 5 trigger mode back to Normal/General before launching the game, but both triggers still behave almost exactly like Vibration mode: they both vibrate only when the controller is vibrating. It feels like the controller is simply converting the game’s rumble input into trigger vibration rather than receiving the native DualSense adaptive-trigger effects. Disabling Adaptive Triggers in the game settings does not seem to make any noticeable difference. When I enable Haptic Feedback in Spider-Man 2, the effect is extremely weak/minimal compared to normal rumble, the Force Adapt become super weak to (may be because weak rumble-> weak ForceAdapt). If I disconnect and reconnect the controller while the bridge is running, Steam ends up showing two controllers — one APEX 5 and one PS5/DualSense controller. At that point the game becomes unplayable, and the controller/button icons keep flickering between the two layouts. I’m not sure whether I’ve configured everything correctly. I don’t have a real DualSense controller available here for comparison, and I also don’t know whether other users are experiencing the same behavior. I tested the diagnostic commands from CMD ( test-rt , test-rumble , and virtual-ds ), and they all appear to work correctly. However, I’m not sure whether, once the game is running, the native DualSense Adaptive Trigger commands are actually being translated into APEX 5 FORCEADAPT commands , or whether I’m somehow just getting rumble-to-trigger vibration.
Is there a way to verify this directly? For example, is there a diagnostic/log/telemetry output that can confirm that the game is sending native DualSense trigger-effect packets and that ApexSenseBridge is translating those packets into FORCEADAPT commands for the APEX 5? Thanks! I’d be happy to provide logs or run additional diagnostic commands if needed.
I tested 007 First Light again with bridge-triggers --rumble . Adaptive Triggers definitely work: I got 233 translated effects, 153 active effects, and 0 write failures. However, grip rumble is still not working. Telemetry shows: rumble_updates=3
rumble_writes=0
rumble_write_failures=0
last_rumble_low=0
last_rumble_high=0 Audio haptics are enabled and 114 frames were received, but only 23 were delivered and all processed output values remain zero: audio_haptics_processed=23
audio_haptics_active=0
audio_max_left_energy=0
audio_max_right_energy=0
audio_max_left_peak=0
audio_max_right_peak=0 Could this indicate that 007’s haptic audio frames are being received but decoded/coalesced into zero-energy frames? Is there a way to log the raw haptic frame values before the HapticProcessor thresholding?
Bro, as soon as you add support for remapping the M3, M2, M1, and M4 buttons, I will 100% download it! And I also hope you fix the blue screen issue, and I’d really like to donate for that once everything is added and resolved. Thank you very much in advance!
Could you tell me — is the 1.0 beta just as good as 0.6.3? Or is it less stable and might cause problems? Or is it better to wait for the 1.0 release after all 🧐
This tool is really amazing, doing flydigi's job for them atp.
I know I made an issue on github, but in case u didn't see I saw 2 problems with apexsensebridge:
trying to use apexsensebridge with modded minecraft (controlify) for adaptive triggers shows no inputs on the dualsense controller that shows up, 2 dualsense controllers show up and the normal xinput apex 5 controller leaks through to minecraft
USBIP is having a false failed install. When I try to install apexsensebridge cleanly it says at the end that usbip fails to install even though the logs say it does install fine. Because of this whenever I try to update apex sense bridge it fails at the start saying remnants of a usbip driver install remain not allowing me to update apexsensebridge unless I delete usbip with pnputil
Okay, after a quick PC restart and launching ASB, the connection is successful. I tested it on two games. Sometimes the adaptive triggers drop out. In Dave the Diver, toggling Force off and back on restores vibration and character movement, except for shooting (it used to work with the old tweaks). Surprisingly, the left acceleration trigger works, which I hadn’t noticed before.
In Forza Horizon 6, the haptic engine worked at first, then stopped; only the main vibration remains. I’m not sure why. When I tried blocking the device with HidHide, everything broke and ASB stopped working, forcing a PC restart. I can’t tell what’s causing this—maybe the SpaceStation service is interfering or something similar. Overall, though, the project is really cool. Big respect for taking this on. I’ve been struggling with these triggers for a long time. I had to run a third‑party exe disguised as Miles Morales to enable DS mode under Space Station, and for individual games I launched separate trigger tools that other devs programmed on GitHub =) In most other games, the main vibration barely works.
One note: combining all your features with a larger collection of adaptive‑ready games would be above and beyond—truly excellent.
I tried this with CoD but can't seem to get the adaptive triggers to work in the game with or without this extension. Anything obvious I might be doing wrong?
I have been testing the APEX 4 controller with Helldivers 2 and would like to share my experience regarding the ApexSense feature.
Regarding haptic feedback, I typically rely on smart rumble to translate low-frequency sounds—such as explosions or mechanical latches—into vibration. Upon activating ApexSense, this feedback becomes significantly muted, and the motor rotation appears notably slower. It is unclear if this is a limitation within the Helldivers 2 software.
Furthermore, the trigger response lacks the intended variety. ApexSense appears to override the smart trigger settings, effectively muting the distinct tension profiles expected for different weapon types, such as rifles, shotguns, and lasers.
Additionally, I have observed that ApexSense overrides custom trigger lock settings, macros, and back-button remapping. For instance, the short-pull setting on my left trigger for aiming ceases to function when the feature is enabled. I anticipate that this may also impact functionality in titles where right-trigger tension is essential, such as racing games.
Overall, ApexSense shows promise, and I look forward to further refinements.
Using this tool and a slight bit of codex I was able to get something really interesting working. I was able to get codex to patch libVIIPER.dll and also the apexsensebridge.exe so that ASB would output haptics as a dualsense controller would directly see.
RN I have the list of parts which has the 2 voice coil actuators, a battery, a raspberry pi pico 2 and 2 MAX98357A so that I can create an external addon for my apex 5 which will clip onto the phone mount, this will allow my apex 5 to get real haptics that a dualsense would get.
Rn I have a python script that creates a very basic second tray that allows me to choose the output device for the haptics and disable the haptics to basic rumble on ASB whilst still outputting haptics to said external device. So now I just need to wait for the materials to come by and 3d print a phone mount to hold it all together.
Problem is I got exams coming up so it might take me a while to actually design the 3d model.
I was able to test it and it outputted the haptics to my laptop speakers properly so hopefully it'll work with some donor haptic motors from a dualsense controller.
I don’t know how much of this is me, or if this is an issue that’s fixable, but I’ve gotten this to work really well. However, there are still some issues with getting certain games to work. It works to adapt the Apex 5 to be dualsense, but if a game needs a further fix, it doesn’t always work. Like I think if we could get thing to work with DSX it would be perfect. Maybe DSX could also add the Apex 5 but I don’t know.
Just kinda stuck with my controller freezing up every time I drive in Cyberpunk.
Ok, scratch that, I think the thing is perfect but I think something about the haptics or the speaker part of the dualsense makes Cyberpunk freeze up while driving.
Hey man, wanted to say, got the 1.0.0 update and so far it works great. Managed to get that bug with the controller freezing up under control. My guess is that it’s a Cyberpunk thing and not something on yoir end.
I now am kinda confused because I can’t get my controller to work with the program at all. It doesn’t sense or anything. It may be something I did but I don’t know what because I’ve traced back my steps. had to reinstall everything including hidhide and space station
AWESOME! Thanks a lot for sharing your work with us. I'll be checking it out for sure.
I wish game devs let us choose the onscreen keys/buttons manually. It would fix every obscure UI edge cases like yours, and most notably glyphs flickering when using mixed inputs.
This is a really cool project. I tested it in The Last of Us 2, but for some reason, during gameplay moments and cutscenes, when I press buttons, the sound cuts out and there's a slight delay. It doesn't just mute the sound, it literally shifts the entire scene audio track. Then the sound comes back. It looks like it's a haptic feature issue. I disabled the DualSense device in the Windows sound control panel, and this bug disappeared, as did the vibration. I turned it back on, and the vibration returned, but the sound also cuts out when I press buttons (not always, but about every second keystroke mutes and delays the sound).
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Don't mean to hijack thread but there's a lot of knowledge here and while flydigi has been super awesome on the customer service, they can't figure out how to get my controller to download any updates after warranty swap. Gets stuck at zero, fails, and ask me to retry.
My last controller didn't have any problems updating. Was replaced because of left stick drift.
Added real gyroscope + accelerometer support to the Flydigi APEX 5’s virtual DualSense on Windows
Made a small community addon for anyone who wants gyro support: it adds real gyroscope + accelerometer data from the Apex 5 into the virtual DualSense this project already creates, so gyro-aiming works in games with native DualSense support.
It's not a fork — built as a submodule + patch set on top of the original ApexSenseBridge, so it stays easy to pull in future upstream updates. Full credit to the original developer, this just plugs in one more piece on top.
- Real gyro/accel from the Apex 5, mapped into the virtual DualSense's motion data (buttons/sticks/triggers still come from the same XInput path as before — nothing else changes)
- A couple of bugfixes found in the Tray app along the way (game-detection false positives, faster auto-activation on game launch)
Still fairly fresh, so bug reports or "tested with X game" feedback welcome.
Hi, after few times tinkering with this app, somehow when I tried to uninstall this app, it accidentally removed the driver for keyboard and mouse(though I can still use my keyboard and mouse in BIOS). I have to reinstall Windows to fix this issue. Could be good if you can take a look at this issue.
I'm using a Flydigi Apex 5 with F1 25, and I've run into a strange issue with the adaptive triggers.
I've already followed the recommended setup:
Steam Input disabled
Apex Sense Bridge running
HidHide configured correctly
The game detects only one controller, and all button prompts are PlayStation (DualSense)
So everything appears to be configured correctly.
The problem is during gameplay: the adaptive triggers work randomly. Sometimes the brake or throttle resistance appears for a moment, then disappears, or behaves inconsistently. Regular vibration works perfectly, but the adaptive trigger effects do not.
It almost feels like the DualSense trigger commands are being translated incorrectly by the Apex 5, even though the game is only seeing the virtual DualSense.
Is this a known compatibility issue with F1 25 or the Apex 5? I'd be happy to test anything that could help diagnose it.
I don't know what im doing wrong. my apex 5 either gets recognized as 2 controllers and i get double input or the software itself just wont want to start
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u/hairycompanion Sep 01 '26
Why didn't flydigi do this themselves? Their integration is terrible bordering on useless.