Documentation

Getting started

1. Start TridentSense

1. Start TridentSense. There is nothing to choose first: every PC plays its own games, and can also lend controllers and join other PCs (see Ways to play).
2. TridentSense relies on two drivers: one provides the virtual controllers games see, and one hides the real controllers so games do not see each controller twice. If either is missing, TridentSense offers to set it up. Its own Windows service does the jobs that need an administrator, so TridentSense itself runs as you. Their state is always shown under System > OS.

2. Connect a controller

1. Bluetooth: pair it under System > Bluetooth (see Bluetooth), or with Windows' Bluetooth settings as usual. On a DualSense, hold Create + PS until the light bar flashes.
2. USB: plug it in.
3. A tab for the controller appears in TridentSense within a few seconds.

Finding your way around

• Top bar: Home (your controllers, the PCs you joined lately and the games you played lately), Controllers, Games (your game libraries and their settings), Stream (joining another PC), Host (letting others join this one) and System (settings for TridentSense itself). Broadcast, at the right, says whether this PC can be joined.
• Controllers: one tile for each connected controller. Choose one and its sections are shown; everything in them belongs to that controller only.
• Sections: each view is a grid of sections; choose one to open its page, and Back (or the trail beside it) takes you out again. A controller only shows the sections it can use: an Xbox controller has no Lighting section, for example.
• Tabs inside a section: larger sections are split, for example Audio into Speaker, Headphones, PC audio and Microphone.
• With a controller: the whole window is driven by the controller (see Using TridentSense with a controller), and PS + Circle brings it down over a game.
• The i buttons: hover or click for a fuller explanation of that setting.
• Status bar: at the bottom; open it to read the activity log.

Changes are saved as you make them and are applied to the controller at once. There is no Save button.

Using TridentSense with a controller

TridentSense's own window is built to be driven by the controller, the way a console's settings are. Pick up the controller and press anything: a highlight appears, the bar along the bottom says what each button does, and the trail across the banner says where you are, for example Games › Stores › GOG › Cache.

Rows

The highlight lands on a whole row, and a strip above the status bar says what that row does. What the select button does depends on the row:

The keyboard

Ways to play

Every PC does all of these at once; there is no mode to pick.

Identity and Appear as

The Identity section says what the controller is and how it is doing, and decides what games see it as.

Change what games see

1. Open Identity.
2. Under Appear as, choose a controller type: DualSense, DualSense Edge, DualShock 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Elite, Xbox Series (experimental) or Switch Pro.
3. The controller reconnects to games as the new type. This takes a few seconds.

Player lights

1. On Lighting, under Player lights, choose Off, 1 to 4, or All, and a brightness.
2. Turn on Player lights override to stop games changing it, and Restore player lights to have it put back after a reconnect.

Joy-Cons as one controller

1. Connect both Joy-Cons. Each gets a tile under Controllers.
2. Open the left Joy-Con and switch on Merge in the band at the top of its page.

Raw mode

For a DualSense or DualSense Edge on a USB cable that appears as itself. In Raw mode TridentSense stops changing what the game sends the controller, so it behaves as it does plugged straight into the PC, while the rest of TridentSense keeps working.

1. Connect the DualSense by USB and leave Appear as on DualSense (or DualSense Edge).
2. On Identity, switch on Raw mode. The switch is only shown when it can apply.

Tests

Use Tests to check a controller, or to find out what a button is called.

1. Open Tests. The picture is your controller; Live shows it is being read.
2. Press buttons, move the sticks, pull the triggers, touch the touchpad. Each lights up on the picture; the readouts under it show stick, gyro and accelerometer values.
3. Under Controller tests, try each feature: Test Rumble with the two sliders, Test Triggers with an effect, Test Light bar with a colour, and the speaker test.

Playground

A small game that uses the controller the way a real game does, so you can feel your settings without starting one.

1. Open Playground and press any button on this controller so the game can find it.
2. Choose Target range (left stick moves, right stick fine-aims, R2 fires) or Driving (left stick steers, R2 throttle, L2 brake).
3. Switch individual features on or off in the list to feel each one by itself.

Audio

TridentSense carries controller sound itself rather than leaving it to Windows. That is what makes the speaker, headphone jack and microphone work over Bluetooth, and what gives you the controls below.

Speaker

1. Open Audio > Speaker.
2. Switch the speaker on to hear game audio from the controller.
3. Set Volume. Gain is a boost on top of full volume: it unlocks when Volume is at 100.
4. Optional: Speaker volume shortcut lets Create + d-pad up or down change the volume from the controller. Lock volume stops games changing it.

Headphones

1. Plug a headset into the controller's jack and open Audio > Headphones.
2. Set the volume, mute, and choose a Headphone equaliser preset or shape your own.

PC audio

1. Open Audio > PC audio and switch on Play PC audio on this controller.

Microphone

1. Open Audio > Microphone.
2. Switch on Microphone pass-through to send the controller's microphone to the PC, and set its level.
3. Under Mute button, choose what the controller's mute button does.

Play a microphone on the other controllers

Lets players hear each other through their controllers. It needs at least two controllers connected.

1. Select the controller whose microphone should be heard and open Audio > Microphone.
2. Switch on Play this microphone on the other controllers.
3. Repeat on any other controller that should be heard too.

Haptics and rumble

A DualSense has one pair of motors and two ways to drive them. Games made for the DualSense send HD haptics; other games send rumble. The game chooses which; these settings decide what is allowed and how strong it is.

HD haptics

1. Open Haptics > HD haptics and leave HD haptics on.
2. Raise haptics gain if they feel weak (1.0 is normal, up to 2.0).

Rumble

1. Open Haptics > Rumble and leave Classic rumble on.
2. Set Classic rumble gain: 100% is what the game asked for.
3. Choose a Rumble mode: v2 is the newer, more accurate one; v1 is the older one and about twice as strong. The controller uses one at a time.

Joy-Cons and the Switch Pro Controller

These have HD Rumble, and the same Haptics section. Their motor plays two tones, not a waveform, so TridentSense turns a game's detailed vibration into tones about 66 times a second: rumbles, thumps and engine notes come through, fine texture less so.

1. For games' own haptics, set Appear as to DualSense and leave HD haptics on. HD Rumble strength makes it stronger.
2. Rumble and its gain work as for any controller. There is one rumble mode, so that choice is not shown.
3. Audio haptics makes HD Rumble from the PC's sound, on a cable or Bluetooth.

Audio haptics

Makes vibration from sound, so music and games without haptics can still be felt. It works over Bluetooth.

1. Open Haptics > Audio haptics and switch Audio Haptics on.
2. Choose the Audio source: the sound the PC is playing, or the sound sent to the controller.
3. Choose a Mix mode: Mix adds it to a game's own haptics, Replace plays it instead.
4. Set the gain, and shape it under Feel.

Triggers and Trigger Studio

Settings

1. Open Triggers > Settings.
2. Enable adaptive triggers is the master switch. Adaptive trigger intensity scales every effect.
3. Receive trigger commands from games that support them lets games drive the triggers themselves.

Trigger Studio

Gives L2 and R2 a feel of your choosing in games that have none.

1. Open Triggers > Trigger Studio.
2. Choose an effect for L2 and for R2. Choosing one sets its sliders to sensible starting points.
3. For an adjustable effect, tune Start (where it begins in the pull), Wall (where it ends) and Force. Pull the trigger: you feel each change as you make it.
4. Switch on Enable Trigger Studio in games which don't support adaptive triggers to use it in games.
5. Type a name and press Save current to keep it as a trigger profile.

Games that have their own trigger effects

1. Under Games with adaptive trigger support, press Scan for games and pick one, or type its name and program (for example eldenring.exe).
2. Optional: fill in Window title contains for a launcher that runs several games under one program name.
3. Press Add game.

Lighting

Light bar

1. Open Lighting. Light bar switches it on or off; Light bar brightness dims it.
2. Pick a Light bar color from the picker or the quick colours. The controller changes at once.
3. Switch on Light bar override to keep your colour in games that would set their own.
4. Automatic light bar restore puts your colour back after the controller reconnects.

Player lights

The five dots under the touchpad: Off, player 1 to 4, or all, and how bright. Player lights override stops games changing them, and Restore player lights puts them back after a reconnect.

With HWiNFO

• The light bar as a temperature gauge: blue when the PC is cool, through green and yellow, to red when hot. One setting for every controller with a light bar.
• Warn me when the computer runs hot: a notification, and a rumble if you like, when a temperature goes over its limit.

Both need HWiNFO switched on under Integrations. For the rest of the PC's lighting, see Lighting with OpenRGB.

Input

Sticks

1. Open Input > Sticks.
2. Under Stick deadzones, raise a stick's deadzone until a resting stick no longer drifts. It goes up to 90% for a badly worn stick; the travel left outside it is stretched to the full range. The dots show where each stick is now.
3. Under Stick response curves, choose Linear (the stick as it is), Precise (finer near the centre) or Fast (full tilt sooner).
4. Under the fine tuning, set a deadzone and anti-deadzone for each axis, or draw a curve of your own with four points.

Buttons

• PS opens Game Bar: the PS button opens the Xbox Game Bar.
• Block Edge profile switching: stops the DualSense Edge's Fn shortcuts changing its on-board profile mid-game.

Gyro

1. Open Input > Gyro.
2. Gyro aiming turns tilting the controller into aiming: as the mouse, or added to the right stick, which works in any game and on a controller lent to another PC.
3. Choose whether it is always on or only while a button you pick is held, how sensitive it is, and invert a direction if it is backwards.

Touchpad as mouse moves the Windows pointer with the touchpad; it can be switched from a chord.

Remapping

Remap a button

1. Open Remapping and press Start remapping. Your controller opens full screen.
2. Click the ring on a button, or press the button itself. All mappings opens the full list instead.
3. Choose what it sends: another controller button, a keyboard key, several keys held together (Ctrl + C, for example), a mouse click, or nothing.
4. Under each button: Turbo (repeats while held), Toggle (press once to hold), Long press (a second action when held), and the shift layer (what it does while your shift button is held).

Remap profiles, and layouts from Steam

• A remap is kept in the controller's profile (see Profiles), so a game can have its own through Auto Profiles.
• On a Steam game's page in the library, Controller layouts lists the community layouts Steam has for it. Bring one in and it becomes a remap profile of your own, for every controller or one only, given to that game.

Chords and macros

A chord is a few buttons held and one pressed, doing something none of them does alone. While a chord is held, games do not see its buttons. Open Chords on a controller's page. Everything a chord can do can also be said as a voice command.

The chords every controller starts with

Change or remove any of them. One you remove stays removed. To see a controller's chords at any time, hold PS on its own: the wheel comes up with the shortcut sheet beside it.

Build a chord

1. Hold: add the buttons to hold, up to four. Pick them from the list, or press Record from the controller, hold them together on the controller and let go.
2. Then press: choose the button that sets it off, or record it the same way.
3. To do this: under Pick from lists, add a step. The line under the builder reads back what you have built.
4. Press Add chord. Edit on a saved chord loads it back into the builder.

What a chord can do

A macro, step by step

To have Create + D-pad right type "gg" in game chat (in most PC games Enter opens chat and Enter again sends):

1. Under Hold add Create. Under Then press choose D-pad right.
2. Under To do this add four steps in order: Enter, G, G, Enter.
3. Press Add chord. The help panel under the builder has a Build this one for me button that does all of this.

Typing it instead

Switch step 3 to Type it yourself. Put > between steps that run one after another and + between keys held together:

Press Use this; it reads back what it understood, or names the part it does not know. The panel under the builder lists every name you can type.

On-screen keyboard

A full keyboard over whatever is on screen, driven by the controller. It never takes focus, so what you type goes to the window behind it.

1. Click into the box you want to type in, or leave the game's text box selected.
2. Hold PS and press Triangle. The keyboard appears at the bottom of the screen.
3. Move the highlight and type. Press the chord again, or Circle, to put it away.

Stick as a mouse

For a launcher window, an installer, an "OK" button: anywhere a controller cannot reach. It works on every controller.

1. Hold PS and press L3 (click the left stick). A box on screen says it is on.
2. Use the controller as below. Press the chord again to turn it off.

Close the game in front

For a game that has stopped answering, which Alt + F4 cannot close.

1. With the game in front, hold PS + L1 and press Circle. A box names the window and asks.
2. Press the chord again within five seconds to close it.

Launch and close programs

A chord or a slot of the wheel can start a program, or close one.

1. Open System > Apps.
2. Type the program's name (notepad, chrome.exe), its full path, or an address such as steam://rungameid/620; or choose it in File Explorer.
3. Choose Launch or Close and add it.
4. Give it a chord under Chords, or a slot under System > Wheel.

Notifications

A small box in the top corner of the screen you are playing on. It never takes focus and clicks pass through it. Open System > Notifications.

1. The switch at the top turns every notification on or off.
2. With it on, each kind below has a switch of its own.

The wheel and shortcut sheet

Hold the middle button and a wheel of shortcuts comes up in the middle of the screen, with every shortcut that controller has listed beside it in its own button names.

1. Hold PS (Xbox, or Home on a Switch controller) on its own for a moment.
2. Point the left stick (or the D-pad) at an option and press Cross to do it.
3. Press L1 or R1 to go to the next wheel, if you keep more than one.
4. Press Circle, or PS again, to put it away without doing anything.

Choose what is on it

1. Open System > Wheel and switch on Choose what is on the wheel. Left off, the wheel has TridentSense's own four options and then whatever that controller's chords do.
2. Fill up to eight slots, clockwise from the top. Anything a chord can do can be on a wheel.
3. Type a name and save it. + New wheel starts another.
4. Under Wheels that come up, in order, switch wheels on or off, move them up or down, change or delete them.

Games overlay

Your game libraries in an overlay that slides up from the bottom of the screen over whatever is running, driven by the controller. The Games tab of TridentSense's window shows the same thing.

Open and close it

It also closes by itself when you launch a game from it.

The tabs

• All is first, and is where the overlay opens, showing what is installed. It puts every store together and has a Store filter.
• Then a tab for each store that is switched on: Steam, Epic Games, GOG, the cloud services, your consoles, and the rest (see Stores), and one for each of your other PCs (see Chairs).
• Every tab has the same header: the count of games, search, filters, grid or list, and an A to Z bar down the side. The title at the top left changes as you filter.
• Only games are listed. Add-ons and DLC are left out.
• A game you have in several places is one card. A strip down the right of its cover shows each store it is in, and its page lists every way to play it: installed, or streamed with GeForce NOW, Amazon Luna, Xbox Cloud Gaming or another PC. Each store's own tab lists its games the same way.

Filters

Installed (with Streamable for games you can stream; Games > Stores > Global can count those as installed), store, genre, tags, controller support, VR, Metacritic score, Steam rating, number of reviews, release year, install size and how long a game takes to beat. Games from other stores are matched to their Steam page so the same details can be shown for them.

Controls

The bar along the bottom of the overlay shows what each button does where the highlight is. These are the main ones, by a DualSense's names:

Choosing the search box brings TridentSense's on-screen keyboard up under it. Folders, Quick Move and multi-select are Steam's own and stay on the Steam tab; switch off Collection management under Games > Stores > Steam and the Steam tab behaves like the others.

A game's details

Select a game to see its description, tags, review score, how long it takes to beat, trailers and screenshots, the ways to play it, and to Launch, Stream, Install or Uninstall it.

Stores

Open Games > Stores. Each store has a page, with its settings and its Cached data. Global and SteamGridDB come last.

1. Choose a store on the left and switch it on. Its launcher is found by itself; if it was not, the page offers Choose its folder.
2. For Steam, enter the key and ID on its Settings tab and save.

Installing and uninstalling

Steam games are installed and uninstalled from the overlay. For Epic, GOG and itch.io the request is handed to that store's launcher; TridentSense watches for the install to finish, marks the game installed and tells you.

Manual: games that belong to no store

1. On the Manual page, add the folders your games are in.
2. TridentSense lists one game for each folder inside them: its largest program. Switch off any that is not a game, or Deny a program so that the next largest is taken on the next scan.

Cloud gaming and consoles

On the Xbox and PlayStation tabs, the console itself is the first card.

Chairs: games on your other PCs

1. Join each of your other PCs as a Chair once, so this PC has its PIN (see Joining another PC).
2. Open Games > Stores > Chairs and switch it on. Each PC is listed with a switch of its own.

Cover art and details

What the library looks up is kept on this PC so that it opens quickly. Each store's Cache tab, and Games > Stores > Global for all of them, shows how far each kind has got and has a Refresh for it.

Interface, beside it, sets how large the library is drawn.

Fixing covers (SteamGridDB)

Games that Steam has no cover for are looked up at SteamGridDB. Open Games > Stores > SteamGridDB.

1. Enter a SteamGridDB API Key (free from SteamGridDB) and save.
2. The grid below shows every game that was looked up there. All, None (no cover found) and DLC filter it.
3. Press Fix on a game. Correct the name and search again, then choose a picture; or give a web address; or browse for a picture on this PC; or Remove the cover so the game is shown by its name.
4. Hide keeps a game out of the library altogether.

Mods

Games > Mods: TridentSense's own mods, which watch a game's screen and turn what they see into rumble, light bar colours and trigger feel. Nothing reads the game's memory.

1. Start the game, then make a mod for it: mark the health bar, the counter or the character on the screen.
2. Choose what happens: a colour as health falls, a rumble when a counter runs out, a trigger that stiffens with your ammunition. Rules are suggested for what you mark, and you can change them.

Overlays

Games > Overlays lists the overlay of every launcher on this PC: Steam, Xbox Game Bar, GeForce NOW, Amazon Luna, Ubisoft and the rest, with the key each opens with.

• Give any of them a chord, so the controller opens it in the game.
• Choose what the controller's middle button opens when pressed on its own.

Bring to Front

A game launched from a controller sometimes starts in full screen behind the window that launched it. With Bring to Front on (Games > Settings), TridentSense notices a full-screen game that is not in front, waits about a second and brings it forward, once.

Profiles and Auto Profiles

A global profile is a named copy of everything on a controller's tabs. Trigger Studio and Remapping also have their own smaller profiles.

Save and apply

1. Set the controller up the way you like.
2. Open Profiles > Global, type a name and press Save current.
3. To use one later, choose it and press Apply.

Switch automatically with a game: Auto Profiles

This lives under Games > Auto Profiles.

1. Open Profiles > Games.
2. Press Scan for games and pick the game, browse for it, or type its name and program.
3. Optional: fill in Window title contains to tell apart games that share one program.
4. Choose the global profile to use and press Add game.

Back up and share

1. On Profiles > Global, under Back up and share, press Export to write every profile to one file.
2. Press Import to add the profiles from a file. You are shown what it contains before anything is added.

Power

1. Open Power. Auto power-off counts down while the controller is untouched; any input restarts it.
2. Choose the Idle time. Power Off Now switches a wireless controller off straight away.
3. Wake PC on PS wakes the display with the PS button.
4. Controller power saving caps haptics, rumble, triggers and the light bar at 50%.
5. Sleep shortcut lets Create + PS switch the controller off.

System settings

Open System at the top of the window. Each section has a header that says what is in it.

Interface size

Automatic goes by the size of the desktop each part is on: smaller on a small screen such as a handheld so that everything fits, larger on a big one at Windows' 100% so that it is not tiny. A screen Windows already scales up is left as it is. Or choose a percentage. It applies to the window, the games overlay, the wheel, notifications and the on-screen keyboard.

Bluetooth

1. Open System > Bluetooth and put the controller in pairing mode. The steps for each kind are shown beside the button.
2. Press Search for devices. What is found is listed as it is found; choose it to pair.

Below, the devices already paired, each with a button to remove it.

Integrations

Open System > Integrations. Each is off until you switch it on.

Each one works with the program you have installed: TridentSense finds it, or offers a button to locate it.

RivaTuner

RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS) draws the on-screen display many PC players use to watch their frame rate and hardware, and limits the frame rate. It comes with MSI Afterburner or by itself. TridentSense can drive it from the controller. It is optional.

Set it up

1. Open System > Integrations > RivaTuner. If RTSS is installed it says Found on this PC; if not, press Locate RTSS.exe.
2. Switch on Control RivaTuner from the controller. The switch is there only once RivaTuner is found.
3. Press Install the TridentSense overlays, then Restart RivaTuner.

The overlays

Your own overlays

Under Your overlays, build overlays of your own: choose what each shows (the frame rate, graphs, the lows, the graphics card's and the processor's figures, every core, the time, words of your own), in what order, in one column, two or a strip, in your own colours, font and size. Each is written into RivaTuner beside the TridentSense ones, and a chord, the wheel or your voice can show it.

While a PC watches this one

Cap games at the stream's rate (Host > Settings) sets RivaTuner's frame limit to the rate being streamed, so games make no frames the stream would throw away, and puts your own limit back afterwards.

Commands for chords and the wheel

Each has a Try button on the page.

Joining another PC

Watch and play a game running on another PC on your home network. Both need TridentSense, and the other PC must have Broadcast on (see Hosting).

1. Open Stream and choose Chair (a stream to you alone, made to your settings) or Couch (one game shown to several people).
2. Under Broadcasting, the PCs that can be joined are listed: a Chair as Free or In use, a Couch with how many are watching. A sleeping PC you have joined before can be woken from here.
3. Choose one. The first time, type its PIN.

Settings

Stream > Chair > Settings (and Couch's own) decide what you ask for and how it is shown:

• Picture asked for: size, frame rate (up to 4K at 120), bitrate, codec (H.264, HEVC, AV1 where the other PC's graphics card has it, or PyroWave over a cable) and channels. A Couch never uses PyroWave.
• Chroma: 4:2:0, or 4:4:4 for sharp coloured text where both PCs can.
• Frame pacing: lowest latency, balanced or smoothest; VRR mode for a G-Sync or FreeSync display.
• Native window: full screen with every key passed to the other PC, or a floating pop-out window. While watching: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F switches between them, S shows the network figures, M locks the pointer to the picture.
• Video decoder: automatic, the graphics card only, or the processor only. Scale asked for sets text size on the virtual monitor made for you.
• Sound: stereo or surround, whether the other PC keeps playing too, and quiet while the viewer is in the background.
• Join video: off takes the seat without opening the picture, for lending your controllers to a game on another screen.

Remote settings changes the other PC's Chair settings from here.

Share

Stream > Chair > Share (and Couch's) holds voice chat with the PCs you are linked with, the shared clipboard, and the mouse: buttons swapped or scrolling reversed on the other PC.

Start a game there

With Chairs on, the games installed on your other PCs are in the library. Choose one and TridentSense joins that PC as a Chair: the game is started there, and this PC shows the game's own artwork until it is running full screen, then opens the picture. If a game is already being played there, you are asked whether to close it and start yours, or to join it as it is.

Hosting: letting others join

1. Open Host and choose how this PC is joined: Chair (one person, with their own settings) or Couch (several people on one game, each sent a stream their device can play).
2. Set a PIN under Host > Sessions. Nobody joins without it.
3. Switch on Broadcast, at the top right of the window. It shows LIVE while this PC can be joined.

Lending a controller

Let another PC on your network use a controller connected to this one, without streaming anything.

1. On this PC, set a PIN under Host > Sessions.
2. Open the controller and switch on Shareable at the top of its page.
3. On the other PC, join this one from Stream and type the PIN once. Shareable controllers go to it straight away.

The phone and TV apps

A phone or TV is let in with the PC's PIN like any other. Host > Share decides whether phones may lend controllers or control the PC.

Home Assistant

1. In Home Assistant, make a long-lived access token (your profile, Security).
2. Open System > Integrations > Home Assistant, type its address and the token, and press Connect.
3. Bring in the devices you want: lights, switches, fans, covers, scenes, scripts, thermostats and sensors.

Voice commands

1. Open System > Integrations > Voice and switch it on. Choose where it listens: the controller's microphone, or the PC's.
2. Hold PS + L2, say a command, and let go.

Commands are what TridentSense can already do, by name: "play" and a game you played lately, any shortcut or wheel option, a program to launch, and your Home Assistant devices and rooms ("living room lights off", "heating to 21").

Lighting with OpenRGB

1. Install OpenRGB and switch on its SDK server.
2. Open System > Integrations > OpenRGB, switch it on and connect.
3. A Lighting page appears under System: every device together, each one on its own, OpenRGB's profiles, and a temperature gauge.

Colours, effects, brightness and profiles can be put on chords and the wheel, and said as voice commands. Controllers are left out of "every device", so their light bars stay yours.

The status view and log files

Click the status bar at the bottom of the window to open the log. Every line is filed under an area.

• All areas list: show one area only.
• Detailed: adds the finer steps. Switch it on before reproducing a problem.
• Copy: copies what is shown, for pasting into a support request.

Troubleshooting

The status bar at the bottom of the window opens the activity log, which says what TridentSense is doing and why.