Gamepad / 02

Analog sticks.

Release the sticks completely. The dot in each crosshair should sit dead centre at (0.00, 0.00). Anything beyond ±0.05 from centre at rest is drift. Trace mode records where the sticks have been — useful for verifying full rotational range.

Notes

Standard-mapping gamepads expose left stick on axes 0/1, right stick on axes 2/3. Most controllers ship with a hardware deadzone of ~0.08–0.12 — the values you see are post-deadzone. Real drift manifests as a non-zero idle reading that walks slowly over seconds.

No controller connected — press any button to wake your gamepad.
Frequently asked

How does this stick drift and deadzone test work?

We read the Gamepad API axes array on every animation frame. Axes 0 and 1 represent the left stick X and Y; axes 2 and 3 are the right stick. Values run from -1.00 to 1.00 on each axis. We plot the live position in a crosshair, record traces over time, and compute the maximum offset from centre while you keep your hands off the sticks. Everything is computed in your browser — no data leaves the page.

My controller is not showing up. How do I fix it?

Press any button or nudge a stick — browsers only emit gamepadconnected after the first user input. Confirm the pad is paired in your OS settings and not currently captured by Steam Input, which intercepts controllers before the browser. Use a wired connection to rule out Bluetooth latency or dropouts. Chrome, Edge and modern Safari all support the Gamepad API; Firefox needs about:config dom.gamepad.enabled set to true on some builds.

What counts as real stick drift?

A small non-zero idle reading is normal — every analog stick has mechanical tolerance and most controllers apply a hardware deadzone of about 0.08 to 0.12, so values inside that band are filtered to zero before reaching the browser. True drift shows as an idle value beyond ±0.05 that does not settle, or that walks slowly across the crosshair over several seconds. Drift on Joy-Cons, DualSense and Xbox Elite pads typically worsens with use as the potentiometer wears.

What is a good result on this test?

At rest both sticks should sit within ±0.03 of (0.00, 0.00) and stay there. Pushing the stick to each corner should comfortably reach values of ±0.95 or higher on both axes; anything less means the gate is worn or the stick cannot fully throw. The trace mode should produce a near-perfect circle when you rotate the stick around its rim — flat spots indicate a damaged potentiometer or a debris-clogged gate.

How does this compare to the button test?

This page only covers analog sticks — drift, deadzone, rotational range. For face buttons, D-pad, bumpers, triggers, stick clicks and rumble, use devicecheckonline.com/gamepad/buttons. A controller can pass one test and fail the other, so run both before declaring a pad healthy or returning it under warranty. Both tools work with Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro and generic standard-mapping controllers.

Related tools in Gamepad
Buttons
Full layout tester.
Triggers
LT / RT range and deadzone.
Gamepad info
Connected controllers and mapping.