What is stick drift?

Stick drift is when a game moves your character or camera while you aren't touching the stick. Each stick sits on two small sensors, one for left and right and one for up and down. As they wear or collect dust, they stop reporting the center when the stick is at rest. Games ignore small movements near the center, called the dead zone, so drift only shows up once the error gets bigger than that.

Tool description

This tester shows what your Xbox Series X|S controller sends to the browser. Connect it with a USB-C cable or Bluetooth and press any button, since browsers only show a controller once one of its buttons is pressed.

The gamepad picture lights up A, B, X, Y and every other button as you press them, Share included, fills LT and RT as far as you pull them and moves the sticks with your thumbs. Under it, each button has a tile with how far it's pressed, and both sticks show their exact X and Y position from -1 to 1. Test vibration rumbles both grip motors for one second. The motors inside the triggers aren't part of the test.

It all runs in your browser, with nothing to install.

Checking the sticks

Let go of both sticks and watch the four stick values. A healthy stick rests close to zero, like 0.0039. A value that stays around 0.1 or more, or changes on its own, means the stick drifts. Then push each stick all the way left, right, up and down. It should get close to -1 or 1 each way. Up reads as -1.

Features

  • A controller picture that lights up Xbox, View, Menu, Share and every other button
  • How far each button and trigger is pressed, and each stick's exact position
  • A one second test of the vibration motors