Emulation
How Joystick Gobloon stands between your controllers and a game: create virtual joysticks, hide the physical ones, choose which programs still see them, and set up a two stick game from start to finish.
A game reads joysticks through the system. Joystick Gobloon reads your real sticks first, runs your profile on every change, and writes the result to virtual joysticks. The game is set up to use only those virtual joysticks.
The real sticks are then hidden from the game. Otherwise it would see every input twice: once from the stick itself and once from the virtual joystick.
Take a game flown with a stick in each hand. It has two kinds of controls: a Combat mode and a Travel mode, where the same buttons do different jobs. You want:
The rest of this page sets that up. The last section walks through it in order.
On Windows the virtual joysticks come from the vJoy driver. The Joystick Gobloon installer adds the signed vJoy 2.1.9.1 driver if it is missing. You never need the separate Configure vJoy tool: devices are made right in the app.
Devices cannot be changed while a profile runs: stop it first. Now and then Windows needs a restart before a changed device shows up; the app says so when it happens.
Linux needs no driver: the virtual joysticks are made by the kernel's uinput module. They use the same Virtual joysticks page and the same profiles.
Windows games run through Proton or Wine see only the first hat of a virtual joystick: Wine passes the other hats on as one control. Native Linux games see all four. For games under Proton, map your stick's other hats to virtual buttons with Hat buttons.
Without System Gobloon, click Grant access on the Devices page instead (also once, with your password): the devices then appear only while a profile is active and disappear when you stop it.
Unlike vJoy devices, each Linux joystick is a product of its own for games, so a game does not mix them up when their order changes. In the device editor, Name sets the name games show; the button suggests one: Gobloon and the name of the stick the profile maps onto the device, or Gobloon Stick 1, Gobloon Throttle 1 or Gobloon Panel 1 by its layout. Product ID is normally picked from the device number; enter the ID of an earlier setup to keep a game's bindings. A game sees a renamed device as a new one.
The same page also adds virtual gamepads, up to four, named GameGob 1 and so on. They have the layout of an Xbox 360 controller, so games, Steam and Proton take them for one: a game that only understands gamepads can be played with a stick through Map to gamepad. Windows has no virtual gamepads yet.
The Linux kernel passes on at most 80 buttons of a stick. With System Gobloon installed, Joystick Gobloon reads the rest by itself. Without it, the tab of a stick with more buttons on the Devices page offers Read all buttons: after your password, Joystick Gobloon reads every button from the stick's raw HID device, numbered as on Windows, so profiles match. Programs that read raw devices, such as Steam or Proton, can then read that stick too, even while it is hidden: turn off Steam Input for it.
Below the device settings is a tester. Lock the device to take control of it, then move its axes, buttons and hats by hand. Open the game's control settings next to it: when you move an axis here, the game should react to it. The input viewer shows the same device live while a profile runs.
The tester also shows what the open profile does with each output. Blue axes, buttons and hats are used by the profile; amber ones are written by several inputs that run at the same time, so they fight over the output, and a small number shows by how many. The rest are free. Hover one to see the profile and every device, input and mode that uses it. The Used and Conflict boxes above the tester hide those outputs, so only the free ones are left; the profile does not change.
On Windows the HidHide driver hides devices for every program, even when Joystick Gobloon is closed. The installer adds the signed driver if it is missing.
Leave the virtual joysticks visible: they are what the game should read.
A hidden stick is not gone: a short list of programs still sees it. Joystick Gobloon puts itself on that list at start, so your profile keeps reading the sticks. You can turn that off in Settings with See hidden devices, but then the profile cannot read hidden sticks.
Inverse application cloak turns the list around: then only the listed programs are blind to hidden devices and every other program sees them. Use it when only one or two games should be kept from the real sticks.
The game itself should not be on the list in normal mode. If it is, it sees the real sticks again and inputs come in twice.
On Linux there is no such list: a hidden stick is hidden from every program, and the eye on each row of the Applications page is grayed out. Joystick Gobloon itself still reads hidden sticks through System Gobloon. Hide or show a stick with the eye on its tab.
Linux has no HidHide; System Gobloon does its work. Hide sticks with the same eye buttons. With System Gobloon installed (see virtual joysticks on Linux):
Without System Gobloon, Joystick Gobloon reads a hidden stick exclusively: while the app runs, no other program gets input from it, games included.
Each game on the Applications page can have its own profile. While a profile is active, bringing that game to the front switches to its profile, so you no longer open the right one by hand before every game.
Programs are matched by their file name, so every copy of a game counts, also a test build or a second install. A Windows game under Wine or Proton on Linux is known by its .exe, the same as on Windows. On Linux the program in front is read from X11 windows, which is where Wine and Proton games run, also on a Wayland desktop through XWayland; a native Wayland window in front counts as any other program and keeps the profile. Programs without a profile, like a radio tool listed only to see hidden devices, never change the profile. Joystick Gobloon never picks a profile for itself.
The status bar and the tray icon's tooltip say which program chose the profile, for example FlightSim.exe in front: Space flight.xml runs, and the Applications page highlights that program.
System Gobloon is the system part of Joystick Gobloon. Some of the work needs administrator rights: making virtual devices that stay while games run, and hiding real sticks from every program. System Gobloon does that work, so Joystick Gobloon itself runs as a normal program and never asks for your password again after it is installed.
It comes with Joystick Gobloon and has the same version. When the two differ after an update, the banner on the Devices page offers Update. Settings, General shows its state and can install, update or remove it.
On Linux System Gobloon is a small system service. Click Install on the banner on the Devices page and enter your password once; nothing else asks for it. It starts with the computer, before you log in.
For the curious: the service is system-gobloon.service, its program and state live in /var/lib/system-gobloon, and journalctl -u system-gobloon shows what it did.
On Windows, vJoy and HidHide do this work today. System Gobloon for Windows will be one driver in their place, with what Linux already has: each virtual stick with a name and product of its own, so games never mix them up. Windows loads only drivers signed through Microsoft, and that needs an extended validation certificate and a hardware developer account, paid every year. We are raising the money for that; if you would like System Gobloon on Windows, a donation brings it closer. Until then Joystick Gobloon keeps using vJoy and HidHide.
The two stick game from the start of this page, from nothing to playing:
From then on: start Joystick Gobloon, press play, start the game. In Settings, Joystick Gobloon can start with Windows and activate the profile on its own.