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8BitDo Ultimate 2C (Or any 3rd party) controller support in emulators

Help

Hi Everyone,
Yesterday I was able to make emulators I use to detect my 8bitdo controller. Of course rumble doesn't work but other controls are. Here are the steps:

  1. Create the file "setenv.8bitdo.sdl.plist".
  2. Paste the following content in that file:
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>Label</key>

<string>setenv.8bitdo.sdl</string>

<key>AssociatedBundleIdentifiers</key>

<string>com.8bitdo.gamepad</string>

<key>ProgramArguments</key>

<array>

<string>/bin/sh</string>

<string>-c</string>

<string>launchctl setenv SDL_GAMEPAD_BIND "03000000c82d00001b30000001000000,8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wireless,a:b0,b:b1,back:b10,dpdown:h0.4,dpleft:h0.8,dpright:h0.2,dpup:h0.1,guide:b12,leftshoulder:b6,leftstick:b13,lefttrigger:a5,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,paddle1:b2,paddle2:b5,rightshoulder:b7,rightstick:b14,righttrigger:a4,rightx:a2,righty:a3,start:b11,x:b3,y:b4,platform:macOS," && launchctl setenv SDL_GAMECONTROLLERCONFIG "03000000c82d00001b30000001000000,8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wireless,a:b0,b:b1,back:b10,dpdown:h0.4,dpleft:h0.8,dpright:h0.2,dpup:h0.1,guide:b12,leftshoulder:b6,leftstick:b13,lefttrigger:a5,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,paddle1:b2,paddle2:b5,rightshoulder:b7,rightstick:b14,righttrigger:a4,rightx:a2,righty:a3,start:b11,x:b3,y:b4,platform:macOS,"</string>

</array>

<key>RunAtLoad</key>

<true/>

</dict>

</plist>

  1. Move the file to "~/Library/LaunchAgents".
  2. Use this cmd :
    launchctl bootstrap gui/$(id -u) ~/Library/LaunchAgents/setenv.8bitdo.sdl.plist

This isn't limited to 8bitdo ultimate 2c, if you have a different controller and system detects it, all you have to do is replace 8BitDo Ultimate 2C's SDL config string with your controller's. Here is the link of SDL config string database; I personally used steam to get my SDL config.

What works? Cemu, Ryujinx v1.3.3; For now Astris still doesn't work but it seems more like Astris issue.
If someone managed to make rumble work please do let me know, as of now rumble doesn't seems to work.

Thanks

Posted Jul 5, 2026, 8:54 PM UTC

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