Monday, May 1, 2017

Making iPega bluetooth gamepad work on Windows 7 - Tested with Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

This is a guide to make generic iPega/Moga type bluetooth gamepads work in a Windows 7 PC. The bluetooth gamepad I have is an  OEM replica of iPega PG-9021 bought from Aliexpress. Note: I have only tested it with is Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.



I got this info/ideas from multiple sites, so due credit to them.
Link 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuNr_eMB2jM
Link 2: http://www.logisticsct.com/blog/ipega-controller-windows-drivers/

Part I 
(Pictorial guide in Link 1)
1. Get a USB Bluetooth dongle. I have a cheap one called "enter"
2. Make sure that the Bluetooth icon is showing in the system tray
3. Hold Home + X key. Three lights should flash
4. Click your bluetooth icon in Windows 7 and click Add Device
5. Should show up as Bluetooth Gamepad. Right click on it and hit 'properties'
6. Check the tick box for Drivers for keyboard, mice, etc (HID) and hit apply. This should successfully add the device.
7. To confirm pairing, only the first LED on the gamepad should hold steady while all other lights stop flashing.

Part 2

1. Download "Xbox 360 Controller Emulator". I got the 32 bit one. link https://github.com/x360ce/x360ce 
2. Unzip and open the x360ce app. It should give a message, hit create dll. 
3. App should recognize the gamepad.
4. Allow app to automatically download settings from internet
5. Now the gamepad should be auto configured, make no changes save and exit. (You can test the gamepad in x360ce now, something which I couldn't do from the settings in Windows control panel. )
6. Copy the two files from the x360ce folder - x360ce.ini and xinput1_3.dll
7. Paste both into (program files or wherever you installed)\Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons\Binaries\Win32


Once I started the game, the gamepad was recognized and worked flawlessly. I'm guessing a similar dump of the two files should make it work for other games as well. I'm not sure of the exact intricacies of x360ce, so if something can be done more efficiently, do leave a comment. I did all of this just to play that one game, so I wont be testing it with anything else.

Was a pain to get it to work, so hoping this saves others some time and effort..