For some game genres, keyboard and mouse on the PC are not actually the best way of con­trol­ling the game, es­pe­cial­ly if you want to jump from platform to platform in a long gaming session. A PS5 con­troller can be connected to the PC in just a few steps. We’ll show which con­nec­tion options are available.

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Connect your DualSense to the PC with a USB cable

Probably the easiest con­nec­tion between con­troller and PC or laptop is via a suitable UBS cable, which is connected to the con­troller and via USB input on the computer. This is how you connect the PS5 con­troller to the PC:

  • The cable that comes with the PlaySta­tion 5 can be used for this. Use it to connect the con­troller to the computer.
  • As soon as the con­nec­tion via cable is es­tab­lished, the computer au­to­mat­i­cal­ly rec­og­nizes the newly connected hardware and starts setting up the con­troller. This should be completed within a few seconds. Now you can use the con­troller for a wide variety of games.

Use DualSense with your PC via Bluetooth: How to connect the PlaySta­tion 5 con­troller wire­less­ly

To enable a wireless gaming ex­pe­ri­ence, the PS5 DualSense con­troller can also be connected to a PC via Bluetooth.

  • To do this, open the “Settings” of the PC via the menu item “Devices”.
  • On “Bluetooth and other devices” you can activate the Bluetooth function by clicking on the slider.
Image: Screenshot of the Bluetooth settings of a PC
First, activate the Bluetooth con­nec­tion on the computer.
  • Next, select the top item from the menu by clicking on the cross “Add Bluetooth or other device”.
  • A selection of three different pos­si­bil­i­ties will then appear. You just need to choose the first — Bluetooth. Don’t be put off by the fact that the third item talks about Xbox con­trollers. As indicated, this action is specific to con­nect­ing to Microsoft con­trollers.
Image: Screenshot of Bluetooth connection options
The first selection starts the Bluetooth pairing mode of the computer.
  • As with the older PS4 DualShock con­troller, the [PlaySta­tion] button and the [Share] button have to be pressed to pair the DualSense with a PC. The built-in LED light will flash in the con­troller, con­firm­ing the start of the Bluetooth search.
  • The PS5 con­troller should now be rec­og­nized as a wireless con­troller by Windows. Clicking on the menu item confirms the con­nec­tion to the PlaySta­tion con­troller, and the setup is complete.
Image: Screenshot of the established connection between PS5 controller and PC
By con­firm­ing with Done, you complete the pairing of the con­troller.

Just like with linking a PS4 con­troller to PC, con­fig­u­ra­tion of the con­troller via a suitable program can also be useful for a PS5 con­troller — or even necessary, es­pe­cial­ly for older games.

Set up a PlaySta­tion 5 con­troller for PC with DS4 for Windows in­di­vid­u­al­ly

Sony uses a special interface for con­nect­ing its con­trollers, while Microsoft uses a different interface, the so-called Xinput, for con­nect­ing Xbox and Windows. Due to these different in­ter­faces, the as­sign­ment of the PS5 buttons of connected PlaySta­tion con­trollers is not optimized in some cases.

To fix this and precisely adjust the settings from game to game, there are a few free programs available. First and foremost, the DS4 Con­troller software offers the option of mirroring the PS5 con­troller’s button as­sign­ment to a virtual Xbox con­troller.

In DS4 Con­troller, you can see in the first menu item “ID”. As soon as the con­troller is displayed there, click on “Profile” and you’ll be brought to the change mode. In this, you can change the button as­sign­ment of the PS5 con­troller on the PC according to your pref­er­ences.

Image: Screenshot settings options in DS4 controller
With the DS4 con­troller software, the button as­sign­ment can be con­fig­ured according to your own pref­er­ences.

You’ll see the Xbox con­troller as a visual guide for your con­fig­u­ra­tion. As soon as you have made the setting, the program takes over the in­di­vid­ual ad­just­ment at every start. Note that you have to run the DS4 con­troller again every time you restart the computer.

Tip

Wondering how to use an Xbox con­troller on PC? We’ll explain this in a dedicated article!

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