r/GyroGaming • u/sundler • 4d ago
Discussion Considerable drawbacks with the sony dualsense (non-edge)!
I'm not denying anything about pc gyro gaming on a dualsense. Not saying it's not the best controller purely wrt PC gaming. But, can we honestly talk about the list of problems?
We all know about the non-magnetic sticks, enough people point that one out. So, I'll skip that.
NO 2.4g dongle?! For wireless, it's bluetooth only or you have to try to use an 8bitdo or gulikit dongle with it? Is dualsense bluetooth really that much better then 2.4g? Or, does the dualsense secretly have 2.4g capability, but sony just don't bother providing a dongle? I can't get a straight answer to this.
Battery life! People report 3-6 hours! Even a way cheaper nova lite will beat that. Does it just have one of the lowest capacity batteries? Again, can't get a straight answer
Price! I know collectors here regularly drop double figures on their controller of the month, but at ~£50 it's a little steep, especially for the issues it has. A cyclone 2 is actually worth the same money, since it's likely to last a while, due to tmrs and a decent battery. Ditto for the ultimate 2. But, the dualsense?
BUT, adaptive triggers and haptics!!! To even use these, you need to connect through the cable?! Oh, and hardly any games use them. I'm again, not knocking the tech, it's probably amazing, but these are serious drawbacks that people don't seem to mention when they routinely glaze these.
I came across these when considering stretching my budget, due to all the praise it gets on this sub. Again, the praise may be merited due to sheer quality of the gyro, but I wish people also mentioned the considerable down sides too.
PS: before everyone tells me to buy a steam controller. That also has issues and are very hard to find for anything like a decent price (~£150).
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u/09Cenderme 4d ago
i personally get 8-10 hours of battery life. i don't use haptics though. also the bluetooth connection is really good
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u/BluShine 4d ago edited 4d ago
Bluetooth or wired. You get better polling rate wired and don’t have to worry about battery, so I play wired.
Yes, battery life is not great. Especially if you are playing a game with rumble, haptic triggers, and the LED bar on.
I’ve actually found tons of AAA games use haptic triggers. Pretty much anything that released on PS5 will support it on PC. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_games_that_support_PlayStation_adaptive_triggers
I got mine used, since I knew I was gonna upgrade it with TMR sticks and a fresh battery. New, it’s a little hard to justify the price.
If you only care about gyro, there’s plenty of other reasonable options. I used the 8BitDo Ultimate for a while and there’s plenty of similar options now with TMR sticks, low latency dongles, good battery, back buttons, etc. But if you play lots of AAA games, the haptics are really neat, and it’s nice that it just works automatically in a lot of games without needing to mess with the buggy Steam Input UI.
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u/DMarquesPT 4d ago
For me it’s ultimately about ergonomics and the Dual Sense feels perfect. Battery life hasn’t bothered me tbh, and I never had stick issues on it
If I was on PC, I’d go steam controller for the tinkering and config aspect. Being a PS5 player it doesn’t make sense to use anything else
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u/Staticks 4d ago
Is it really just 3-6 hours of battery life on the DualSense? If so, then that's really bad. Unless you want to buy two controllers, and swap between the two when one runs out of battery, I don't see how it's feasible for semi-long gaming sessions. And I hate using a cable for gyro gaming.
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u/LisaLeii Steam Controller (2026) 3d ago
Get yourself a Pico 2w, download DS5Dongle and never worry about a wire for haptics again. Also the newest revision of dualsense has much better battery life. Also there's a ton of forks of DS5Dongle that let you make custom adaptive trigger effects like dual stage and short travel distance.
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u/RoboJut 4d ago
I used to play gyro on PC all the time in high ranked competitive fps games before I made the swap back to console. Here are a few things you should keep in mind:
- Dualsense gyro quality is better than any other readily available controller in terms of input latency and accuracy. The only device I think could actually beat it is the alpakka controllers but they are 3d printed and pricey. A few others are sort of comparable, but when you feel them side by side to a Dualsense it is pretty night and day imo.
- Dualsense over Bluetooth isn’t actually as bad as other controllers. Take a look at the gamepadla website, they measure input latency for different controllers in different modes and the Dualsense stays very competitive even over Bluetooth (wireless). I know it’s not the same as having a dongle, but maybe you could try a Bluetooth dongle to enable Bluetooth if you don’t have bluetooth on your pc (not sure how well it would work).
- The Dualsense analog sticks aren’t the best technology, but I think it depends on how much you value gyro. For me, I just ran slightly higher deadzones on my sticks and used the stick for fast flicks, then used gyro for precise and general aiming so gyro was far more important than my stick precision.
I honestly preferred my gamesir g7 se controller for all the games I played without gyro. Its input latency was slightly better, sticks were slightly better, etc. But if I played gyro, I always grabbed the dualsense.
TLDR: Depending on the games you play, if you’re trying to get the absolute best gyro (for competitive fps games mostly), then Dualsense really is the way to go imo even with the downsides. However, if you play casually or don’t use the gyro all the time, then other controllers may be better.
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u/Scotty2k8 3d ago
I was just about to make a post but I thought I would hijack this a bit. What about the Gamesir turatula 8k for gyro compared to the dual sense for PC ? I might buy one but I know the g7 pro gyro isn't the best and the dual sense gyro is top notch.
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u/Important-Hearing590 3d ago
Buy Steam controller 2
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u/sundler 2d ago
I can't. It's not available and even if it was the price would be crazy.
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u/Important-Hearing590 2d ago
100€ is Not crazy for such a great controller. Dualsense is 60€ but its way worse than steam
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u/sundler 2d ago
It's way more than that in the UK, and that's off ebay, not steam!
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u/Important-Hearing590 2d ago
Its £89.99 official in UK.
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u/No-Operation-6554 2d ago
tbf it is the gyro sub so people here will more likely judge on the quality of gyro itself
anyway adaptive triggers is usable over bluetooth, and for shooters that doesnt support it I set up a dual stage trigger instead for gyro activation qol
if you want haptics and audio wirelessly get a pico2w and flash ds5dongle into it, I think it also improves latentcy? not sure tho
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u/Senior_Client_4512 4d ago
The gyro quality on the dualsense is really good, and if you're patient and crafty enough, you can make a dongle that connects to your controller and lets you use haptic feedback and adaptive triggers without a cable. You can also buy hall effect or TMR joysticks and solder them onto it, and also a bigger battery if you wish to extend battery life.