Gamepad/keyboard on Win7 (360 or PS3 controller?)Follow

Hi All,

I have my PC hooked up to my LCD tv and am currently using a wireless keyboard / mouse. I would also like to have a smaller compact keyboard/pointing device. The xbox360 / ps3 controller with keyboard attachments seem nice. Does anyone have any experience / advice to share related to getting these running on Windows 7 64 bit? I looked around a bit and it looked like in most instances I will probably have to run multiple 3rd party / homemade drivers / software solutions.

As far as getting it actually running, I used a program called Xpadder with a PS2 controller that worked fairly well. I can't imagine it would be any different with the PS3 controller since they're virtually identical. It lets you set different profiles for each game you play and essentially just emulates keyboard buttons and the mouse. It isn't quite as good as playing a game that actually supports a gamepad, but it's a good program if you want to play something that doesn't.

360 depends on what functionality you want. You can buy the wireless 360 controller for PC - or possibly find the receiver alone for a little less and use a 360 controller you already own. All you need to do with that, assuming you want to use it for officially supported functions, like games that specifically support the 360 controller, is plug in the receiver and sync the controller. 7 already has the driver support built-in.
Things that don't have that support will recognize the triggers as extra axis n' stuff (not buttons), which may not be what you want. At that point you need to run 3rd party drivers. I'm not sure how the little keyboard is handled as I don't have one.

PS3 controllers are possible to get working, but the drivers are kind of hacked together. -Wired- ones, however, seem to work perfectly fine, but I think those tend to be limited to specialty controllers like arcade sticks for fighters. I picked up one of the PS3 SF4 sticks for cheap on Black Friday, and it worked right off the bat, no extra software required - but that's wired USB.
IMO, if you want a wireless Dual-Shock style controller, it'd be much simpler to just buy a similar design that's made for the PC.


IMO, you may want to look at something other than gamepads if your goal is more for media PC use. Might look into a Media Center remote, as those can be found relatively cheap - or just look for a micro-keyboard with an integrated trackball or something, such as this one, depending on what your intended use is.