• Connect Ps3 Controller To Mac
• Ps3 Controller Driver Mac Blink Once Free
• Pair Ps3 Controller With Mac
• Use Ps3 Controller On Mac
• Ps3 Controller Pc Driver

Jan 10, 2014 - The device ID being misspelled is a dead giveaway as I once had one myself. Now my PS3 gamepad appears connected via bluetooth (I was able to check this. I deleted the plist file and restarted my mac, but still the same scenario. The lights on the controller blinks for 30 seconds and then turns off,. Trust YOUR_MAC_ADDRESS. Once your PS3 controller has been successfully added to the trusted list, you should see something like below appear on the command line. And you may have to end up utilizing a userspace controller driver called ds4drv to be able to interact with it. Hold these till the light on your controller starts flashing.

Pairing Dualshock 4 with Mac

Having spent a lot of time getting this working, I thought I'd share everything I learnt. Lots of this comes from different sources on the web, but I figured a couple of things out for myself.

I'm using two genuine Sony Dualshock 4 Controllers. I previously had a bad experience with a cheap knock off Dualshock 3 - as far as I can tell, knock offs won't work with a Mac.

The computer is a late 2012 iMac, running macos Mojave. I keep it up to date - as of this writing it is version 10.14.2. I didn't try any of this with Yosemite, but I have upgraded El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra and Mojave since starting out and had no problems, nor had to follow this process again.

There are four light modes I have seen on the DS4 when used with a Mac, that indicate what is going on with the controller:

• Yellow steady - you'll see this when your controller is connected via USB and charging - when the battery is full (or your Mac goes to sleep) the light goes out.

• White steady - controller is on and paired to the Mac

• White flashing - controller is on, but not paired

• White strobe - controller is on, and ready for pairing

Connect Ps3 Controller To Mac

To get to the pairing mode, either when the controller is new, or been paired with something else, hold down the PSandShare buttons until you get the strobe like flash - note that this can mean holding the buttons down for a while. While holding the buttons down, the light may go off altogether - keep holding and you'll get to the strobe flash soon!

There is a hole in the back of the controller near the L2 button. Poke a straightened paperclip in here to press the reset button. You might need to do this if the controller won't pair after being paired with a Playstation.

My kids took the controllers to their friends house and paired with a PS4. When they brought them back, they no longer paired to the Mac. Deleting /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist then rebooting allowed me to pair them again. I think there is a key generated during pairing that is no longer valid for each controller, and deleting the plist file removes the key. A new plist file is generated on reboot. Since updating to Mojave the kids used with a PS4 and I didn't need to delete the pslist file - just removed the controller that wasn't working from the Bluetooth preferences window, then went through the pairing steps again.

You can pair more than one controller to your Mac. They will both show up in Bluetooth Preference as Wireless Controller. Games such as Feral's Lego ports will work with two controller simultaneously.

Hold down the Playstation button until the light goes out

In the Bluetooth preferences a battery icon appears. Until Macos Sierra, this was always empty, whatever the charge status of the controller. With MacOS Sierra I now see the indicator full - this may indicate it works, or may just not be working in a different way :-)

You can't rename the devices from Wireless controller in the Bluetooth preferences window (despite there being a rename option - it doesn't work). However, it is possible to rename the controllers otherwise. I'm not sure this is really worthwhile - a way to rename the buttons that was reflected in games currently saying 'press button 3' would be more useful!

Update Since MacOS Mojave rename in the Bluetooth preferences window now works, so the following steps are unnecessary unless you have another reason to edit the plist file.

Since MacOS Sierra the plist files are converted to binary. In order to edit them, you need to convert them first to text, then convert them back.

• Make sure only one controller is connected by turning the other off

• Identify the MAC address for the connected controller (right click it in Bluetooth Preferences to view MAC address) - this doesn't seem to work with Macos Sierra! Now you need to hold down alt, click on the Bluetooth menu bar, which then allows you to view the MAC for connected devices.

• Open /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist in a text editor

• Search for the MAC address till you find it between <key> tags e.g. `<key>40-1b-5f-0d-f7-63</key>'

• Locate the end of the following dict block - i.e. find the next </dict> tag.

• Immediately before the next <dict> tag add a code block like this:

  <key>displayName</key>

  <string>Silver Dualshock 4 Controller</string>

• Repeat for the other controllers you want to rename

• Save the .plist file.

• Close and Open the Bluetooth preferences window - you should see your controllers renamed with the strings you chose. You can now right click them and get a Rename option.

Ps3 Controller Driver Mac Blink Once Free

The buttons aren't very well labelled in the Mac - there is a great image showing how each button is named at Joystick Mappers website. Print it and keep it handy when a game says 'press button 3' and you can't remember that this maps to the triangle button on the controller.

A great bit of software enabling you to assign keystrokes, mouse movements and button presses to different controls. This makes it possible to play Minecraft on the Mac with a Dualshock 4.

Here's the ones I have found work so far:

• Lego Star Wars Complete Saga (bought from Mac store)

• Lego Marvel Superheroes (bought via Steam) - I had to contact Feral for a file that allowed the controllers to work properly - read here for details of this.

• Halflife 2 - enable gamepad in Mouse options - although I found the controller to be a bit inaccurate for aiming and shooting and fell back to using touchpad and keyboard.

• Portal - enable gamepad in Mouse options - works great - doesn't seem to require the level of accuracy that Halflife does (at least so far in the game)

• Braid

• Borderlands 2 - thanks /u/thepotatochronicles

• Bioshock - required .plist file supplied by Feral support on request

• XCom - Enemy Unknown - from Steam - working without extra files/config

• Joystick Mapper website - Joystick Mapper and Joystick Show are really handy and worth buying IMHO

• Controller Mate website - hardcore mapping and combos for going that extra mile, and doing other stuff with any kind of controller.

Edited to update macos versions this works for and link to post on Feral support file

The Playstation 3's controller, the Dualshock 3, isn't the easiest pad to get working on the PC. So why bother when it's so much easier to use an Xbox controller on PC, or you have a much newer Dualshock 4 sitting around? The Dualshock 3 has something the best PC controllers don't have: pressure-sensitive analog face buttons. That makes the Dualshock 3 the best choice for emulating PS2 games with PCSX2—Metal Gear Solid 3, for example, just doesn't play right without those analog buttons. And if you simply prefer the feel of Sony's older controllers over the redesigned Dualshock 4, this is the perfect controller for playing those classic Final Fantasy games on Steam.

Here's the best way to get your PS3 controller working on PC using an open source tool called ScpToolkit.

Looking for advice on using a different controller? Here's how to use a PS4 controller on PC, and here's how to use a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller on PC.

What you need

Hardware

• Dualshock 3 and mini-USB cable
• Optional: Bluetooth dongle

Software

• Xbox 360 controller driver (only needs to be installed on Windows 7)

Installation guide

1. Download the software linked above, and start by installing the four Microsoft packages. If you're on a Windows 7 PC, you'll also need to install the Xbox 360 controller driver. On Windows 8 and 10, it's already built in!

2. Important step: plug your Dualshock 3 into your PC with a mini-USB cable. Now we can start making it work.

Bluetooth installation note: if you also want to be able to use the controller wirelessly, make sure you have a Bluetooth dongle plugged in or your motherboard's Bluetooth enabled. ScpToolkit notes you need a Bluetooth 2.0 or higher dongle that supports Enhanced Data Rate (EDR).

Pair Ps3 Controller With Mac

3. Download ScpToolkit and run the installer. After accepting the terms and choosing your install location, you'll get a menu of all the options to install, as in the screenshot above. I recommend leaving this to the default. Click Install to begin the installation.

Bluetooth installation note: Make sure the ScpToolkit Bluetooth Pair Utility option is ticked.

4. After about 30 seconds, ScpToolkit will be installed, and you'll see this screen, with a big green button that says Run Driver Installer. Since this is a fresh install, that's what we want to do. Click the button.

5. This screen may look intimidating, but it's still pretty simple! Check the boxes for the drivers you want to install. In this case, we want to make sure Install Dualshock 3 driver is checked (it should be by default). Now click the arrow next to 'Choose Dualshock 3 controllers to install' to see a dropdown list of USB devices attached to your computer. Find the PlayStation 3 controller in the list and check it.

Bluetooth installation note: Make sure the 'Install Bluetooth driver' box is checked. Like you did with the Dualshock 3, click the arrow next to 'Choose Bluetooth dongles to install' and find your Bluetooth device in the list. Check it.

Note: If you're on Windows Vista, check the box for 'Force Driver Installation.' Otherwise, leave it unchecked. Click Install.

6. Watch the SCP Toolkit run through its installation process. You'll see lots of pop-ups on the side of your screen as it detects your hardware. Scroll to the bottom of the log and you should hopefully see 'Dualshock 3 USB Driver installed' (and 'Bluetooth Driver installed' if you chose to), signifying a successful installation. If all went well, click Exit.

7. Now that it's installed, you'll see ScpToolkit as an icon in your system tray. Look in your Start Menu for ScpToolkit Settings Manager. Here you can change some settings like disabling rumble, adjusting analog stick deadzones, and more. Most of these settings you should be able to leave alone.

ScpToolkit starts up with Windows by default, and also plays some sound effects that you might find obnoxious. To disable them, click the Sound settings tab and uncheck 'Enable notification sounds.'

PCSX2 emulator note: The PCSX2 settings tab allows you to patch the emulator's LilyPad controller plugin to support the pressure sensitive buttons. If you plan to use your PS3 controller with the emulator, click Browse to navigate to your PCSX2 installation folder, then click Enable to install the patch. Voila!

Use Ps3 Controller On Mac

Using your Playstation 3 controller

Now that it's installed, the Dualshock 3 should behave like an Xbox 360 controller. Any game with native XInput support—pretty much any modern PC game that supports gamepads—should recognize it without a hitch. Unfortunately, this means that it won't register as a PlayStation controller to the few games that have native DualShock 4 support, so you won't get the correct Square/Cross/Triangle/Circle button icons by default. Some games let you manually choose your button icons, though. Look for that in game settings!

If you ran into issues installing ScpToolkit or using the controller, you can try posting in the official thread at the PCSX2 forums, but you may not get an answer.

How to connect your PS3 controller via Bluetooth

If you're not about that wired business, and followed all the Bluetooth installation steps above, you should be able to simply unplug the controller, and after a couple seconds it will sync via Bluetooth. You'll get a notification in the system tray when it does. Cool!

This works after a reboot, too. If you allow ScpToolkit to start with Windows, you should simply be able to plug in your PS3 controller again and it'll instantly be recognized. Once the LED is on, unplug the controller, and it'll once again be synced via Bluetooth.

If you have issues with Bluetooth, it could be that your dongle isn't supported. You may also find help in ScpToolkit's Github discussions. Bluetooth can be finicky, and any problem you run into could be due to hardware, or your particular version of Windows, or drivers… in other words, good luck.

Ps3 Controller Pc Driver

Not a controller person? Here's a round-up of the best gaming keyboards, and best gaming mouse.