Getting started

Installation

Install Adaptive Pad from your Fab library into Unreal Engine 5.6, 5.7 or 5.8, enable it in your project and check that the controller is detected.

1. Install the plugin into the engine

Adaptive Pad is distributed on Fab as an engine plugin: you install it once per engine version and every project can use it.

Add it to your library

Get Adaptive Pad on Fab. It is then in your Fab library, tied to your Epic Games account.

Open the Fab library in the launcher

In the Epic Games Launcher, go to Unreal Engine → Library and scroll to Fab Library. Search for Adaptive Pad.

Install to Engine

Click Install to Engine and pick your engine version (5.6, 5.7 or 5.8). The launcher copies the plugin, with its compiled binaries, into:

<Engine>/Engine/Plugins/Marketplace/AdaptivePad/
├── Binaries/
├── Resources/
├── Source/
└── AdaptivePad.uplugin

Using more than one engine version? Install the plugin once for each of them.

2. Enable it in your project

Open the plugin list

Open your project and go to Edit → Plugins. Search for Adaptive Pad (it is in the Input category).

Enable it

Tick Enabled if it is not already, then restart the editor when asked.

Adaptive Pad in the Plugins window, enabled

The entry also has links to this documentation and to support.

It works in Blueprint-only and C++ projects. In C++, add the module to your .Build.cs to call the API (see C++ API).

To keep a copy of the plugin inside one project instead, close the editor and copy the AdaptivePad folder from Engine/Plugins/Marketplace into the Plugins folder of that project.

3. Turn off RawInput for the controller

Adaptive Pad reads the controller itself. If the Raw Input plugin is enabled with an entry for the controller in DefaultInput.ini, every button arrives twice.

Disable the Raw Input plugin in Edit → Plugins, or
remove the +DeviceConfigurations=(VendorID="0x054C",...) lines from [/Script/RawInput.RawInputSettings] in Config/DefaultInput.ini.

New projects don't have this setup: skip this step.

4. Check that the controller is found

Connect the controller with a USB cable or pair it over Bluetooth in the Windows settings, then press Play in the editor. The Output Log shows a line like this for each controller:

LogDualSense: DualSense #0 connected (USB)

From here you can drive it with the DS nodes: continue with the quick start.

Packaging your game

Nothing to configure: the plugin is packaged with the game and your players do not install anything, not even a driver.

The plugin is built for Win64 only. If the same project also ships on other platforms, keep the controller calls in code that only runs on Windows.

Introduction

What Adaptive Pad does, which engines and controllers it supports, and how it fits into your project.

Quick start

Give R2 a resistance that breaks with a click and turn the lightbar orange, in one Blueprint.