ViPadLinker

Two gamepads, one player. Or push a controller to the slot you want.

A tiny, portable Windows tray tool for XInput controllers. No install, no config to start — drop it on a USB stick and run it.

Why it exists

Born from two frustrations: getting a second controller to work reliably at a friend's place, and helping my kid learn a game without grabbing the pad out of their hands. Windows and ViGEmBus already had the pieces — ViPadLinker is the lightweight front-end that finally put them together.

The full story → docs/WHY.md

What it does

• Pad Link — combine one or two physical controllers into a single virtual pad, so two people can co-op a single-player game. Either pad's buttons add up (LINKED), or each pad drives one side of the controller (SPLIT).
• Button remapping — a visual editor with a clickable gamepad: rewire any button, block it, swap the triggers or sticks. Dropdown-only, so it can't save a broken config.
• Slot Holder — occupy XInput slots to force a physical pad onto the slot you want (classic split-screen fix: keep slot 1 for keyboard + mouse).
• Lives in the tray — live slot map on the icon, connect/disconnect chimes, and a balloon the moment a pad drops out.

Holder mode	Link mode (two pads merged)

Get started

1. Install the driver — download ViGEmBus_setup.exe from the official ViGEmBus releases and run it once per machine (admin required). This is a separate download — it is not bundled with ViPadLinker — and it's what lets Windows see the virtual pad.
2. Run ViPadLinker.exe — the icon appears in the system tray.
3. Click the icon → Start Link, then plug in your pads. Done.

Needs Windows 10/11 and .NET Framework 4.8 (already on every current Windows). Grab the download under Releases — it's the whole app in three files.

How it works

  pad 1 ─┐
         ├─►  ViPadLinker  ─►  one virtual Xbox 360 pad on slot 1  ─►  game
  pad 2 ─┘        (remap + merge)

ViPadLinker sits on top of ViGEmBus, a Windows driver that creates virtual Xbox 360 controllers. The app reads your physical pads, applies the mapping, and writes one merged virtual pad.

Documentation

• Full manual → docs/README.md — tray reference, the mapping editor, use cases, and troubleshooting.
• Developer notes → docs/DEVNOTES.md — architecture and design decisions.

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/jim-022/ViPadLinker.git
cd ViPadLinker
.\BUILD.bat

Needs the .NET SDK. Output lands in bin\release\.

Not a goal

• No HidHide / device hiding. Link and Split target single-player couch co-op — those games read only slot 1 and ignore the physical pads anyway.
• Not a keymapper for desktop apps. It maps gamepad-to-gamepad, XInput only.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Big thanks to ViGEmBus / ViGEm.Client (Benjamin Hogeboom, MIT) — this tool is a front-end for their driver.