Using a Gaming controller or Gamepad on Mac OS X to play games isn’t easy. Mac OS X doesn’t support Xbox 360 (XInput) Controllers, while it does support Direct Input Gamepad & Joysticks PS4, PS2 , PS3 very few games actually support them. So, here’s an easy tutorial which will let you configure any gamepad or Joystick to play literally any game on your Mac OS X (MacBook Pro / iMac / Mac Mini) by emulating keypress (keyboard) and mouse-movements directly from your game controller.
Inorder to play games which do not support Joystick input we need to emulate & map keyboard key press & mouse movements to our Gamepad / Joystick. The best & free app to map joystick to keyboard on Mac is Enjoyable, which lets you perform every bit of button press / mouse – emulation for your controller on Mac OS X .
Since, Enjoyable comes as an external app, you will need to open the .app file by “ctrl+click” on the Enjoyable app file, You can see the following link for more details on How to install external source apps on Mac OS X
Now, once you have installed the app , launch or open the Enjoyable app.
Sep 11, 2017 You can simply use you mini USB cable that came with your PS4 controller to connect it to your Mac computer. Plug the PS4 controller cable into a USB port on your Mac. Then, turn on your controller by holding down the PS4 button located between the two controller sticks. Next, go to the Apple logo on the upper left-hand side of your Mac’s. Sep 06, 2019 Basically, you can assign DualShock 4 controller actions to your keyboard and mouse and launch PS4 Remote Play without controller. Remember that you also can use all the perks reWASD has, like Shift mode (Toggle Shift would be awesome to keep the default keyboard bindings), Rapid Fire, Activators, Key Combo, etc.
Step – 2 Connecting & Mapping the Joystick controller buttons & analog
Now, connect your Joystick or PS2/PS3 gamepad controller once you have launched the Enjoyable app. It will now automatically detect your Joystick or Gamepad controller as shown in the image below –
Now, once your gamepad is detected – You will see all the available buttons & analog controls available on your gamepad as shown in the image above. Now we need to map keystrokes & mouse movements to your gamepad.
To assign Keyboard keys & mouse movements to your controller –
First press any key or button on your gamepad , The corresponding button pressed will now be reflected inside Enjoyable app as shown in the below image –
Button Pressed highlighted in Enjoyable
Now, in the corresponding right hand side pane, By default “Do Nothing” option is selected , Change it to “Press a Key” for Keyboard key assignment , or to “Move the Mouse” for mouse movement. We will be using Press a Key option in our example for mapping joystick buttons.
Now, after changing the option from Do nothing, to Press a key – The box will be highlighted by blue color as shown in the above image. Here, simply press the keyboard key you want to assign to the joystick button on your keyboard. In our example, we assigned the “S” keyboard input from W, A, S , D to our joystick button which looks like below –
Similarly, press a new different button on your joystick or gamepad controller and assign the corresponding keyboard keys to emulate. Repeat the Steps for all joystick buttons except the analog controller.
To Mouse pointer movements to Controller – Analog
Now, to assign movements to analog controller, simply start by tilting your analog stick on your gamepad joystick to one side. The corresponding high or low value will now be shown on the Enjoyable app as shown in the below image –
Configuring mouse using Analog input Enjoyable on Mac OS X
Here again change the value from “Do Nothing” to “Move the mouse” as shown in the above image.
Now, give the direction you want the mouse pointer to move, when you tilt the corresponding analog stick, (Shown as step 3 in the previous image).
Adjust the speed with which you want to move pointer.
Now, repeat the steps 1,2,3 again but remember to tilt the the analog in different direction to map the inputs.
Once, you have finished assigning all the inputs , Simply press the ” > “ sign as shown in the below image (highlighted by red color) to start the mapping emulation –
button” class=”size-medium” /> Start the Joystick mapping by clicking > button
Once mapping is started it will show a bold joystick sign on the topbar as highlighted by “blue box” in the above image.
That’s it! You can now enjoy any game with your gamepad controller or joystick even if the game doesn’t support it . The app and method works for all Mac OS X versions such as Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Snow Leopard , Yosemite , El Capitan as well as Sierra too!
Feel free to comment if you face any issues or encounter any problems
Related
Sometimes, we need to run or play a game which doesn’t support our xbox 360,ps2,ps3 gamepads or our gaming joysticks on computer, or sometimes just to simplify things and game playing, as playing using the normal keyboard + mouse combo can become tedious and boring too. Just imagine using an analog control (stick) and moving it instead of using the normal combination of A,S,D,Z,W to move the object or character , and using another stick to change the view :) , sounds interesting ? isn’t it , well indeed it is! , so following are 3 best free gamepad controller softwares which will help you to easily map keyboard inputs to mouse and thus get an edge playing the game!
Software # 1 – Xpadder
Xpadder for windows
Xpadder is one of the most widely recommended tools for controlling your gamepad or game controller on PC / Windows, though the new Xpadder version isn’t free, we can use the old xpadder version on newer windows versions to overcome this limitation. Click here for tutorial to use an older xpadder version on Windows 7/8.1/10 with a detailed configuration steps to map keyboard/mouse inputs to Joystick / Gamepad.
Software # 2 – JoyToKey
Key Mapping For Controllers
Though Xpadder isn’t free we have a good free alternative game controller software another free alternative to xpadder – JoyToKey . JoyToKey helps to configure advanced controls and functionalities to gamepad buttons/analogs , with acceleration  and vibration support. Click here to view advanced JoyToKey configuration tutorial to control your gamepad on PC.
Software # 3 – Xbox360ce
Using Xbox 360 controller on PC becomes more easy if you’re using Xbox360ce, xbox360ce helps you use any controller on your pc / computer by assigning and mapping vaarious keyboard / mouse actions to gamepad buttons, and then generates the xinput.dll files, these xinput files then have to be copied to the game directory, before running the game executables. After copying the .dll files, execution of game let’s the inputs be given to the game directly from the gamepad controller! , Click here to for a detailed xbox360ce tutorial.
Midi Keyboard Controller App
So these are the best 3 free gamepad controller softwares to control game pad / joystick on PC / Computers for Windows 7 / 8.1 /10 , If you know of any good other such controllers, or face any problems while using them feel free  to comment