PS4 Controller Not working via Bluetooth

[Thamorian]

I use PS4 controller on PC myself. My favourite way to connect is to use the Sony DS4 Bluetooth Adapter (as pictured in an above post) as it lets me use the headphone jack on the controller itself if I want to. I pair it with InputMapper v1.6 to get rumble functionality and/or make use of the touchpad if I need these but not required to use the controller. I don't use 1.7, it has a memory leak and will cause some pretty bad lag in FF14 after a few hours of being on until you close InputMapper. That and I hate how 1.7 causes PS4 controllers to be unusable until you open InputMapper because of the HID Guardian program that is part of the program. The Sony DS4 Bluetooth adapter is quite expensive at $60-$90 new as Sony has stopped manufacturing these (a shame really).

I've also tried using 8bitdo bluetooth adapter and that makes the computer see the PS4 controller as an Xbox 360 controller. You lose headphone and touchpad with this but rumble works so you just use it as a Xbox 360 controller. This works pretty well and is easy to pair and only costs about $25 on amazon. Works with a lot of other Wireless controllers too.

I've also used a couple different highly rated regular bluetooth adapters from amazon where reviews says it worked for their PS4 controller and have also used a couple integrated bluetooth adapters with couple laptops. This one is the most troublesome. Problem is Sony uses their own custom bluetooth driver in the controller itself which causes it to not want to always connect with regular bluetooth. I looked it up previously but I've since forgotten specifics but generally the DS4 controller discovery and pairing mode has to short of a timer/timeout and doesn't give Windows enough time to establish a connections a lot of the time. DS4Windows is a program that is supposed to replace the Windows bluetooth driver to remedy this but I had no luck using this method, that was 3 or 4 year ago though.

[reiichi]

I can't figure out why my DS4 isnt working via bluetooth on my PC. Im using a bluetooth dongle and everything connects fine. My fiance uses an Xbox controller and the game responds to that, and i even got a nintendo switch pro controller to work. But for some reason the DS4 wont work unless it's plugged in via cable. Outside of the game I can see my comp responding to the inputs, but inside the game, nada. I set the device as Wireless Controller which is what my DS4 is under and everything I did with the Xbox controller.

Ive been trying to find an answer for this online, but everything is from years ago or the person fixed it and had no clue how or doesn't clarify. There was one post here this year by a user named 16bit, but the thread closed before any answers were given.

Can you let us know which bluetooth adapter you're using? While just about anything you get on the market should work, the bluetooth stack it uses could provide more information. (Typically, it's going to have an intel or broadcom chip in it, but there are multiple stacks which are part of the driver and supported protocols, which does matter).

Sony's drivers with the DS4 have always been a little weird. Like in order to use PS4 Remote Play, you must use USB or use one of their pricey discontinued adapters. Neither of these use xinput, however, as the DS4 only shows up as a dinput device. (Generic vs xbox support). If you want features like vibration or the ability to change the lightbar's color, or even just to check battery life, you will absolutely need to use an xinput wrapper program, whether that's InputMapper, one of the many forks of DS4Windows, or Steam. Personally, I prefer the ryochan7 fork of DS4Windows as InputMapper has had multiple issues with my windows 10 machines and the newer versions aren't ready for production yet. Steam's controller support also leaves me wanting because it tries to overcompensate for "desktop mode" and other things which just gets in the way of letting the controller just be a controller.

TLDR: Use DS4Windows because the stock DS4 wireless drivers are basically nonexistent. Yes, xbox controllers get special treatment because they're first-party supported devices.

[ZellStygian]

So I've ended up using DS4Windows because it just happens to work. I dont use Steam but I'll leave that as an option just in case. I don't run FF14 through steam so i dunno if thatll be an issue. I am just a bit bummed that I have to use other means to use the PS4 controller at all in-game compared to the simple bluetooth connection the Xbox and Switch Pro controllers do

[ZellStygian]

I use PS4 controller on PC myself. My favourite way to connect is to use the Sony DS4 Bluetooth Adapter (as pictured in an above post) as it lets me use the headphone jack on the controller itself if I want to. I pair it with InputMapper v1.6 to get rumble functionality and/or make use of the touchpad if I need these but not required to use the controller. I don't use 1.7, it has a memory leak and will cause some pretty bad lag in FF14 after a few hours of being on until you close InputMapper. That and I hate how 1.7 causes PS4 controllers to be unusable until you open InputMapper because of the HID Guardian program that is part of the program. The Sony DS4 Bluetooth adapter is quite expensive at $60-$90 new as Sony has stopped manufacturing these (a shame really).

I've also tried using 8bitdo bluetooth adapter and that makes the computer see the PS4 controller as an Xbox 360 controller. You lose headphone and touchpad with this but rumble works so you just use it as a Xbox 360 controller. This works pretty well and is easy to pair and only costs about $25 on amazon. Works with a lot of other Wireless controllers too.

I've also used a couple different highly rated regular bluetooth adapters from amazon where reviews says it worked for their PS4 controller and have also used a couple integrated bluetooth adapters with couple laptops. This one is the most troublesome. Problem is Sony uses their own custom bluetooth driver in the controller itself which causes it to not want to always connect with regular bluetooth. I looked it up previously but I've since forgotten specifics but generally the DS4 controller discovery and pairing mode has to short of a timer/timeout and doesn't give Windows enough time to establish a connections a lot of the time. DS4Windows is a program that is supposed to replace the Windows bluetooth driver to remedy this but I had no luck using this method, that was 3 or 4 year ago though.

I actually got an ASUS bluetooth adapter from MicroCenter a couple days ago for like 20 bucks cuz my fiance's xbox controller and my PS4 controller's usb jack started to break (only works when pushed to certain angles) so instead of getting new controllers we saved some cash by just buying the adapters. I still don't know why mine wont work as simply as hers but the problem is more or less settled with a 3rd party program which i kinda wanted to avoid but what can ya do xP

[ADarklore]

I'm glad I just run my PS4 controller wired... I never need to worry about charging, just have to worry about tripping over the cord.

[reiichi]

Problem is Sony uses their own custom bluetooth driver in the controller itself which causes it to not want to always connect with regular bluetooth. I looked it up previously but I've since forgotten specifics but generally the DS4 controller discovery and pairing mode has to short of a timer/timeout and doesn't give Windows enough time to establish a connections a lot of the time. DS4Windows is a program that is supposed to replace the Windows bluetooth driver to remedy this but I had no luck using this method, that was 3 or 4 year ago though.

That was the case for the Dualshock 3. Dualshock 4 controllers can be paired with a normal bluetooth stack.

The problem with most games is that they aren't coded for dinput (generic controller), only xinput (360/xbone controllers).

In FFXIV's case, it does support those, but it varies and is generally lackluster. That's why people use xinput wrappers like DS4Windows. Internally, DS4Windows previously used SCP Toolkit, but this has since been moved to ViGem. If you run into "exclusive device" issues, then you need to make sure you have a specifically supported bluetooth adapter, but this doesn't matter much for FFXIV when you can select which device from a drop down.

[Omnom]

I know this is an old thread, but I had a similar issue. Go into Device Manager, and uninstall the bluetooth dongle. Afterwards, plug the dongle back in and retry. Should work.