Controller Circularity & Range Test
Rotate the stick slowly around its outer edge and the page draws the exact path your browser receives, revealing flat spots and missing directions.
Controller status
No Controller Detected
Connect your controller using USB or Bluetooth and press any button.
- Browsers only reveal a pad after it sends its first input — press a face button or move a stick.
- Both USB and Bluetooth work. If nothing appears at all, reconnect the controller and press a button with this page focused.
- Some remapping tools claim the pad before the browser sees it. If nothing shows up, try closing them and reloading.
- Chrome or Edge expose the most controller features, including vibration.
Circularity & range test
Rotate the stick slowly around its outer edge several times
Connect a controller to map its stick range.
Troubleshooting
Controller not detected? Work through this checklist
Nine checks covering focus, cables, Bluetooth pairing, background software, DS4Windows virtual controllers and browser support — open it only if your controller is not showing up.
What the shape tells you
The useful signal is consistency, not perfection. A path that suddenly flattens, pinches inward or skips a direction points to a worn sensor or an obstruction in the stick gate.
Sixteen directional sectors are tracked. Reaching all of them at a good radius means the stick can deliver full input everywhere it should.
Not every pad draws a circle
Plenty of controllers deliberately report a squared or clipped response shape, and some clamp diagonals. A shape that is not a perfect circle is not automatically a defect.
Compare the left stick against the right one on the same pad — asymmetry between two sticks that should behave identically is the more meaningful finding.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is my stick path square at the corners?
- Several controllers report a squared range on purpose. It is a design choice in how values are scaled, not wear.
- One direction never reaches the edge. What does that mean?
- Either the stick is physically obstructed in that direction, or the sensor for that axis is losing range. Clean around the stick base and retest.
- How slowly should I rotate?
- Two or three seconds per full rotation, repeated several times. Fast rotation leaves gaps in the drawn path simply because of sampling.
- Does this test deadzone too?
- No — this maps the outer range. The deadzone tool handles the centre.
Continue testing
- Controller Deadzone TestInteractive deadzone visualizer for analog sticks. Adjust the radius, see which movement gets ignored, and get a recommended minimum deadzone from your own measured resting noise.
- Controller Stick Drift TestRun a timed resting measurement on both analog sticks. See average, median, peak and 95th percentile offset, plus a clear verdict on whether your controller is drifting.
- Controller Health CheckRun a guided full diagnostic and get a transparent controller health score with per-category results, a confidence level and a downloadable report card.
- Online Gamepad TesterFull gamepad tester showing live button states, analog stick values to three decimals, trigger travel and raw axis data for any USB or Bluetooth controller.
GamePadTestLab reports what your browser can see. It cannot repair stick drift, certify hardware, or read a controller's firmware. Read the testing methodology for exactly how each figure is calculated and where it stops being reliable.