A community sourced database of game controller mappings to be used with SDL2 Game Controller functionality.
Download gamecontrollerdb.txt, place it in your app's directory and load it.
For example :
SDL_GameControllerAddMappingsFromFile("gamecontrollerdb.txt");
The database is compatible with SDL v2.0.10 and newer. Older SDL versions are no longer supported.
A mapping looks like this :
030000004c050000c405000000010000,PS4 Controller,a:b1,b:b2,back:b8,dpdown:h0.4,dpleft:h0.8,dpright:h0.2,dpup:h0.1,guide:b12,leftshoulder:b4,leftstick:b10,lefttrigger:a3,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,rightshoulder:b5,rightstick:b11,righttrigger:a4,rightx:a2,righty:a5,start:b9,x:b0,y:b3,platform:Mac OS X,
It includes controller GUID (030000004c050000c405000000010000), a name (PS4 Controller), button / axis mappings (leftshoulder:b4) and a platform (platform:Mac OS X).
Please make sure to check that the name is a good description of the controller. If relevant, include the controller's name and model number.
There are a few different tools that let you create mappings.
Third party cross-platform tool with GUI (Windows, macOS and Linux). Likely the easiest tool to use.
Note: While convenient, this tool has fallen out of date as SDL has amended and added additional features for gamepad support: #478. As such, maps authored with this tool require greater scrutiny to ensure they will not break support for explicit mappings the SDL project provides. Maintainers of this repo are seeking an alternative (for example the tool immediately below) with up to date binaries provided to ease contribiution to and maitenance of this repo. If you use this database in production, please consider helping out!
Open source replacement for older SDL2 Gamepad Tool.
The controllermap utility provided with SDL2 is the official tool to create these mappings, it runs on all the platforms SDL runs (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, etc).
In Steam's Big Picture mode, configure your joystick. Then look in [steam_installation_directory]/config/config.vdf in your Steam installation directory for the SDL_GamepadBind entry. It is one of the last entries, it will look something like this:
"SDL_GamepadBind" "030000004c050000c405000000010000,PS4 Controller,platform:Windows,a:b1,b:b2,back:b8,dpdown:h0.4,dpleft:h0.8,dpright:h0.2,dpup:h0.1,guide:b12,leftshoulder:b4,leftstick:b10,lefttrigger:a3,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,rightshoulder:b5,rightstick:b11,righttrigger:a4,rightx:a2,righty:a5,start:b9,x:b0,y:b3,"
GNOME Games allows users to configure their own gamepads in GNU/Linux. The gamepad file the user generates is located at ~/.var/app/org.gnome.Games/config/libmanette/gamecontrollerdb when installed from the flatpak. AntiMicroX offers a GUI tool for configuring controller profiles in GNU/Linux and generating SDL2 controller profiles.