Follow this Guide to get started with PSPad
Thank you for downloading and using PSPad, this guide summarizes the most important information of PSPad.
Disclaimer: PS5, PS4, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Dualsense, Dualshock and PSN are trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. PSPad is in no way endorsed by or affiliated with Sony Computer Entertainment Inc, or any associated subsidiaries, logos or trademarks.
You need to meet following requirements to fully enjoy PSPad.
PSPad even works on low end smartphones.
If you use PSPad for the first time you have to register your PS5/ PS4 with PSPad. The following sections will enlight you about the most important information
Step 1 - Be sure your smartphone and your PlayStation are connected to the same network. Ideally your PS5/ PS4 is using a wired internet connection via a LAN cable to provide best performance.
Step 2 - In order to activate Remote Play on your PS5/ PS4 you must be logged in with your PSN account on your PS5/ PS4.
On your PS5 navigate to Settings - System - Remote Play and activate "Enable Remote Play". Then go to Link Device where you should see the 8 digit
registration number.
On your PS4 navigate to Settings - Remote Play Connection Settings and activate the "Enable Remote Play" checkbox. Then go to Add device where you should see the
8 digit registration number.
Step 3 - Open PSPad and click the "Register PS" button. On the next screen you can choose if you want to register a PS5 or a PS4. If you have made your descision you can enter the 8 digit registration number on the next screen. If you want to register a PS4 with an older firmware you can choose the firmware of your PS4 in the drop-down list. If you do not know what that means just leave the default values. PSPad supports PS4 firmware from 5.05 - 8.03+. If you are ready Click the "Register" button on the bottom of the screen.
Step 4 - You will now see the official Sony account website. At this point you must sign in to your PSN account which you want to use for Remote Play. If you do not want to sign in you can also activate the "Register PS4 manually" checkbox in the previous screen. However since the PS4 firmware 7.0 Sony requires the Account-ID for the registration process which is unique number linked to your PSN-Account. If you do not know it by heart your only option is to continue with the sign in process. If you use an older firmware than 7.0 you can just use your well known Online-ID (Your PSN user name) during the manual registration process
Disclaimer from the developer: I know providing your account details seems to be shady and I wished there would be another method to get the Account-ID but unfortunately there is no other easy way. However, PSPad just opens the official PSN Log-In website from Sony and there is no technical way that PSPad could in any way intercept, monitor or modify the data you have entered there. PSPad only receives some generic profile information as response from the official Sony server and only the Account-ID and the Online-ID will be stored locally on your device. If really want to avoid using PSN read this. If you have some additional questions feel free to contact me at f.grill160@gmail.com.
Step 5 - If the registration was successful you will be redirected to the Home screen of PSPad where you can now choose to "Connect" or "Direct Connect" to your PS5/ PS4. If you received an error please go to Troubleshooting
Once you are successfully registered to your PS5/ PS4 you can choose to "Connect" or to "Direct Connect" to your PS5/ PS4 on the PSPad Home screen. If you are on the same network than your PS5/ PS4 simply click "Connect". If you have problems with "Connect" choose "Direct Connect" and provide the IP-Address of your PS5/ PS4.
If you want to use PSPad as second gamepad in addition to your real Dualshock controller you must have at least a second PS5/ PS4 guest profile on your PS5/ PS4. The real Dualshock controller must then be connected to the PS5/ PS4 profile which is not currently used by the PSPad Remote Play session, otherwise PSPad will be disconnected. As mentioned before, PSPad is establishing a connection to your PS5/ PS4 via the Remote Play protocol, despite no Audio and Video stream will be processed by PSPad the PS5/ PS4 is sending these data anyway to your device. So please keep in mind that this will have an impact on your internet traffic.
PSPad can be registered with multiple PS5/ PS4 consoles. A profile is linked to one specific PSN account on one specific PS5/ PS4 console. If you have multiple PS5/ PS4 consoles and/ or multiple PSN accounts, PSPad is able to register more than one profile. If you have already registered a profile just open navigation drawer on the top left corner of the Home screen and click "Register new PS". You can switch to another PS4 profile by clicking "Profiles" in the navigation drawer and click on the "PS5/ PS4 profile" setting entry on the next screen.
PSPad offers you the possibility to customize the on-screen gamepad layout. You can create a new gamepad layout by clicking "Gamepad layout" in the navigation drawer. You can switch the layouts by clicking "Profiles" in the navigation drawer and click on the "Gamepad layout" for changing the gamepad layout.
You can connect any controller which is compatibly with Android 5.0 an above via Bluetooth or USB. Because of performance problems due hardware limitations on many Android devices it is strongly recommended to use a wired USB connection for your gamepad. Otherwise high input latency and input delays can occur. If you ever encounter some unusual lags please connect your gamepad via USB if possible. Please note that this is not the fault of PSPad, the reason why this happens is because of some hardware limitations of your Android device and that there is no way that PSPad could fix this.
If the button mapping of your controller is weird you can create a button mapping profile for your controller by clicking "Button mapping" in the navigation drawer. If one of your gamepad buttons is recognized as Home button you will not be able to use this button as an App can not override this behaviour. However, you can then use the "Use 2 buttons combination" feature in the mapping process instead. If you encounter some unusual button mapping please feel free to contact me at f.grill160@gmail.com
If you are using a controller where the button mapping is messed up or you just want to change the button mapping, you can create a button mapping profile by clicking on "Button mapping" in the navigation drawer. After providing a unique button mapping profile name you can start to map individual buttons of your gamepad. Just be sure your gamepad is properly connected via Bluetooth or via USB. Please be aware that your gamepad might behave differently whether it is connected via Bluetooth or USB, so you may have to create two individual button mapping profiles.
On some devices a button on your gamepad may be interpreted as "Home" button, if that is the case you can use the "Use 2 buttons combination" feature to trigger this button by pressing a combination of two other buttons on your gamepad. You can also use this feature if you have too few buttons on your gamepad left. Again: if one of your buttons on your gamepad will be interpreted as "Home" button you will not be able to use it as an application can not override this behaviour.
More detailed instructions are available here. You should definitely read this if you have PSN login problems
Recently, some users reported problems when performing the PSN login. They will get an error message "A connection to the server could not be established". This seems to be an error on the Sony PSN login website. This PSN login is required since PS4 firmware 7.0 to get your PSN-Account-ID which is required for registering with your PS5/ PS4. There are some other possibilities to get your Account-ID.
You can go to a PC and open the following website and just follow the instructions that appear there. Please note, in the result of the trinket website your actual account id is next to the user_id variable and should look something like this
'user_id': '4474834823397313449'
It consists only of numbers. Click following link and follow the instruction:
If you are still getting the same error or another error please be sure the PSN credentials you are entering on the Sony PSN login page are correct otherwise you could also try using a free VPN service and pretend you're in a country other than the one you are actually in (also using another Browser might help). Then try to follow the instructions of the website above again.
If that doesn't work either just write me an email at f.grill160@gmail.com I will find out your Account-ID which you can then use to register with your PS5/ PS4 without performing a PSN login. All I need for that is your PSN user name. Please note that I may be living in a different time zone than you, so it may take some time for me to reply to your email.
If you have successfully queried your Account-ID you can register with your PS5/ PS4 manually without performing a PSN login. In the Register view of PSPad just activate the "Advanced Settings" check "Register PS5 manually"/ "Register PS4 manually" and add the Account-ID in the textbox.
Thanks to CSystem77 for providing this script at trinket.io.
It's very likely that you are suffering from an Android 11 bug introduced by Google. You can find more information here. Here is the official Google bug report with a few suggested workarounds https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/163120692?pli=1. You can star the issue to show Google that you are affected. On some devices it helps to disable all or certain accessibility services. It's really an annoying issue and I hope that Google is fixing this bug soon. It's not the fault of PSPad.
If possible be sure your Android device is connected to a 5GHz WiFi network instead of a 2.4GHZ. 5GHz networks are usually less prone to interference.
Be sure your PS5/ PS4 is connected to the internet via LAN cable.
Some Android devices are affected by a network performance problem. In order to fix this simply place your Android device in flight mode and re-enable WiFi afterwards. Restart the PSPad App and check if it works.
Be sure your smartphone is in the same network than your PS5/ PS4.
Be sure that your have enabled Remote Play on your PS5/ PS4. (PS5: Settings - System - Remote Play and activate "Enable Remote Play". PS4: Settings - Remote Play Connection Settings and activate the "Enable Remote Play" checkbox)
Restart the PS5/ PS4 and the PSPad App and try again.
Be sure that your smartphone and your PS5/ PS4 are connected to the same network.
Be sure your PS5/ PS4 is turned on or at least in rest mode. If a PS5/ PS4 is turned off PSPad can't wake it up.
Please be sure that your PS5/ PS4 stays connected to the internet during rest mode. On PS5 navigate to Settings - System - Power Saving - Click Features Available in Rest mode and check if both the "Stay Connected to the internet" and "Enable Turning On of PS5 from Network" are activated. On PS4 navigate to Settings - Power Saving Settings - Set Features Available in Rest mode and check if both the "Stay Connected to the internet" and "Enable Turning On of PS4 from Network" are activated.
Chrome OS offers Android app support, however some functionalities are limited and will not work. First of all, automatically discover your PS5/ PS4 will not work as the firewall on Chrome OS devices is blocking the discovery request. In order to register with your PS5/ PS4 or to simply connect, you have to enter the IP-Address of your PS5/ PS4 manually. PSPad was not designed especially for Chrome OS devices but only for Android and Android TV devices. I do not want to prevent installations on Chrome OS devices because on some Chrome OS devices PSPad might work quite well, but please keep in mind that there could be some potential limitations when you are using PSPad on Chrome OS.
If none of the above suggestions help, feel free to report a bug ticket by contacting me at f.grill160@gmail.com. In addition you can also attach the PSPad log file to your email by clicking the "Share log file" in the navigation drawer.
Please include following information in your email.