HGAME(4)

🎮 HGAME(4) — Kernel Interfaces Manual 🎮

okay so bestie, buckle up, we're talking about hgame today and honestly? she's iconic. this is the Kernel Interfaces Manual entry, and it's giving "your controller finally works on FreeBSD" energy 💅

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✨ NAME ✨

hgame — the generic HID gamepad, joystick, and controller evdev driver 🕹️

like, the whole vibe: any generic game controller that speaks HID? she handles it, and she hands it straight to your apps through evdev. periodt.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

the lineup, no cap:

device hgame
device hid
device hidbus
device hidmap
device evdev

then, over in sysctl.conf(5):

dev.hgame.X.debug

and in loader.conf(5):

hw.hid.hgame.debug
hgame_load

that's the whole guest list 💖

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so hgame is the driver that supports generic game controllers — the kind that attach to the HID transport backend — and she presents them to your applications over the evdev interface. literally the matchmaker of hardware and software 🫶

if the appropriate hardware gets detected, the driver will load itself automatically thanks to devmatch(8). she's self-sufficient like that, main character energy fr.

wanna load her manually at boot instead? two options, both slay:

• set the hgame_load variable to YES at the loader(8) prompt, or
• add it to loader.conf(5)

and listen — to actually give your user applications access to the game controllers, you gotta allow user access to the /dev/input/event* nodes. how? by including your user in the games group. don't skip this step bestie, otherwise your controller is just sitting there like 💀

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🔥 HARDWARE 🔥

she supports HID gamepads, joysticks, and controllers, such as:

• 8bitdo USB Wireless Adapter 2 ⭐

(that's the one listed in the manual — yes, exactly that one, no more no less 🙈)

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💜 SYSCTL VARIABLES 💜

the following variable is available as both a sysctl(8) variable and a loader(8) tunable:

• dev.hgame.X.debug — the debug output level 🐛 where 0 means debugging is disabled, and larger values increase how verbose those debug messages get. default is 0.

its default value is set with the loader(8) tunable:

hw.hid.hgame.debug

so if you want her chatty from the jump, that's your girl ✨

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🎀 FILES 🎀

• /dev/input/event* — the input event device (evdev) node 👑

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

iichid(4), ps4dshock(4), usbhid(4), xb360gp(4), devfs.rules(5)

the whole friend group, honestly 🫶 go say hi.

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⭐ HISTORY ⭐

the hgame driver first appeared in FreeBSD 13.0. a queen since day one 👑✨

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💖 AUTHORS 💖

the hgame driver was written by Val Packett <val@packett.cool> 🌸

this manual page was written by Vladimir Kondratyev <wulf@FreeBSD.org> 🦋

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ngl they ate with this one. thank you for coming to my TED talk 🎤💅

Debian · November 30, 2025 · HGAME(4) — mwah, bye bestie, go plug in a controller 🎮💜