The GamepadOS Settings screen explained: every switch and slider

The Settings tab of the GamepadOS app is short on purpose. It holds the handful of choices that change how your phone feels as a controller: how tilt steering behaves, whether the phone vibrates, and whether you feel the game's own rumble. This guide goes through every control on the screen in the order you see it, says what it is set to on a fresh install, and tells you when it is worth changing.

These are app settings rather than part of a layout, so they are not saved inside a layout or carried by a share code. It is worth noting down any values you tuned carefully before you reinstall the app or change phones. Calibration, which tells the app which angle counts as straight ahead, is not on this screen: the gyro steering guide shows where it is and when to use it.

Where to find it

Open the app and tap Settings in the bottom bar. The screen has three groups: Motion, Feel and Your device. Below them you will find the update checker and the support and feedback options.

Motion

This group controls everything that uses your phone's motion sensor. Most of it only appears once the first switch, tilt steering, is on.

Tilt steering

Steer by tilting your phone left and right. It is on by default. When it is on, GamepadOS reads your phone's motion sensor and turns tilt into stick movement; when it is off, the sensor is ignored and you steer with the on-screen controls as usual. Turn it off if you never use tilt, or if the phone sits somewhere that small movements would otherwise get picked up.

Wheel mode

Wheel mode is for a phone you hold or mount like a steering wheel and turn through large angles, the way you would in a truck or bus simulator. It is off by default. When you switch it on, the Steering sensitivity slider is replaced by a Lock-to-lock range choice.

• Lock-to-lock range offers 360°, 540°, 720° and 900°. The default is 900°. The range is the full turn from one end to the other, so a 900° range means 450° each way to reach full lock. The app shows this number under the buttons.
• Keep the phone mounted upright or tilted, never flat. The screen stays locked while wheel mode is on, so the picture does not flip as you turn.

Pick the range the game itself uses if you know it. A short range suits arcade racing, and the longer ranges suit simulators. The wheel mode guide covers mounting and calibration in detail.

Steering sensitivity

This slider appears when wheel mode is off. It sets the angle you need to tilt for full steering, from 1° to 90°, and the default is 30°. A smaller angle responds to a smaller tilt, so the car turns hard with only a small movement of your wrists. A larger angle needs a bigger tilt and feels calmer.

If steering feels twitchy or you keep over-correcting on straights, raise the number. If you run out of tilt before the car reaches full lock, lower it. Change it by a few degrees at a time and test on the same corner.

Ignore small tilts

Also called a dead zone. It keeps the car straight around the centre, from 0° to 30°, and the default is 0°, which means every tilt counts. Beyond the ignored range, steering follows your real angle, so you do not lose precision once you start turning. A few degrees here helps if your hands wobble a little or the phone is not perfectly level when you hold it straight.

Motion mode

Two choices, and the line under the buttons always tells you which is active.

• Racing (the default): left and right tilt controls the left stick. This is the mode for steering a car, a bike or a boat.
• 3D aim: tilt controls the right stick on both axes, and an on-screen scope helps you see what you are aiming at. It suits shooters and any game where the right stick moves the camera. The gyro aiming guide explains how to use it well.

Tilt throttle

Shown only in Racing mode and off by default. With it on, tilting the phone forward accelerates and tilting it back brakes, using the left stick's up and down axis. It is a neat way to play a simple racing game with one hand movement, and a poor choice if the game already maps throttle and brake to triggers you press on screen. Leave it off unless you want that behaviour.

Pause when laid flat

On by default. When the phone rests flat, tilt input pauses, so a phone lying on a desk between races does not steer on its own. Switch it off if you want continuous motion input even when the phone is nearly flat, for example on a desk mount.

Feel

Two switches that control what you feel through the phone.

• App vibration (on by default): feedback for button presses and the bump you feel when a wheel reaches a full turn. Turn it off if you prefer a silent phone or want to save a little battery on a long session.
• Game rumble: lets you feel crashes, weapons and terrain from your game. When a game sends rumble to the controller, the PC passes it back to your phone and the phone buzzes. If a game rumbles too hard for your taste, or you are playing on a phone with a weak vibration motor, switch it off.

The two are independent. You can keep the small button feedback and turn game rumble off, or the other way round.

Your device

This group shows a live Temperature reading for your phone. It shows a value in °C when the phone reports one and the word "Unavailable" when it does not. The note beside it says it plainly: your phone manages its own thermal performance, and the reading is only there so you can see it. If it feels hot, a case off, a cooler room and the screen brightness turned down will help more than any setting.

Good starting points

1. Leave everything at its default, play a few minutes, and note what bothers you.
2. If steering is too sharp or too slow, adjust Steering sensitivity first. It has the biggest effect.
3. If the car drifts when you hold the phone straight, add a few degrees of Ignore small tilts.
4. For a simulator, switch to Wheel mode, choose the range your game uses and mount the phone.
5. Change one thing at a time, and test on the same stretch of road so you can tell whether it helped.

If a setting seems to do nothing

Tilt settings only take effect while you are playing, in the controller screen. Check that Tilt steering is on and that Motion mode matches what you want to move: Racing steers with the left stick, 3D aim moves the right stick. If the phone lies flat and nothing happens, that is Pause when laid flat doing its job. For connection problems rather than feel problems, the controller checklist is the place to start.