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Contents
About GIMX
GIMX stands for Game Input MultipleXer or Game Input MatriX. The purpose of this software is to control a video game console with a PC. It works with the PS3 and there is experimental support for the Xbox 360.
It operates:
- over bluetooth: works with Linux (PS3) only. A compatible bluetooth dongle is required.
- over usb: works with Linux (PS3, 360) and Windows (PS3). A USB adapter is required.
The application gets data from the PC peripherals (mice, keyboards and joysticks) and sends controls to the PS3 over bluetooth or usb.
Other controls such as gesture or voice are possible through the use of external software that emulate PC peripherals.
GIMX features are further described on the Features page.
The source code of GIMX is available under the GPLv3 there.
There's also a blog with a few posts about the GIMX development, and a support forum.
To contribute to GIMX, see the Contribute page.
Hardware requirements
PC
GIMX is designed to run on a PC with Ubuntu or Windows. This is a strong requirement.
GIMX can probably run with minor adaptations on smaller targets such as the Raspberry pi or Thin clients running a small Linux distro.
About Ubuntu:
- The currently supported version is 11.10 (do not use version 12.04 for bluetooth, it makes GIMX lag).
- Running GIMX in a virtual machine (vmware, virtualbox...) is NOT OFFICIALY supported (no help will be given for that).
- It's possible to run Ubuntu from a live usb disk (nothing is saved on the hard drive).
- Feel free to install Ubuntu on your PC! If you have a Windows OS installed, you can read this page if you want to install Ubuntu on your hard drive without erasing the Windows OS.
- Another way to use GIMX is to run it from a Ubuntu Live USB Persistent Flash Drive.
Bluetooth dongle or USB adapter
Bluetooth dongle:
GIMX can emulate a sixaxis using a bluetooth dongle or an internal bluetooth module.
This obviously only works with the PS3.
This doesn't work with Windows because there is no appropriate access to the bluetooth stack.
While all bluetooth dongles/modules can't work with GIMX, working dongles are quite common.
Check the compatibility list.
USB adapter:
GIMX can also emulate a joystick (for PS3) or a wired 360 pad (Ubuntu/Linux only), using a specific Do-It-Yourself USB adapter.
It also can work with a Cronus (formerly known as GamepadProxy), which can emulate a wired sixaxis and a wired 360 pad.
Forget about using any other USB to USB cable (like file transfer cables, or direct cables), they are not suited to this use.
For 360 only: a genuine wired 360 controller is required because the USB adapter has to authenticate to the 360.
Gaming mouse
If you want to play console FPS games with a mouse, forget about using a mouse with anything less than 2000DPI and 250Hz.
A gaming mouse with 5000+ DPI and running at 500Hz is highly recommended.
Whereas a gaming mouse with more than 1600 DPI doesn't really make a difference on a PC, it's not the case with GIMX.
GIMX can decelerate mouse movements so as to counteract the in-game acceleration.
A high DPI mouse gives a better linearity (i.e. smoother movements) in this specific case.
Tutorials
Troubleshooting
First make sure you have the latest GIMX version.
Then look at the FAQ and the bug list, see if your problem is already known, and if it's not, report it.
If you think you may have misconfigured something, ask for help on the forum.
Old tutorials
Translations
The GIMX version in these tutorials is 0.24: they are outdated.
Configuration & Calibration
This tutorial gives more details about how to adjust your configuration with gimx-config.
GIMX "the hard way"
Running GIMX from the command line
Development
