Pinnacle Gamepad Software 7.7.0

Overview

Gamers certainly know the how it feels to play a game with a joystick or gamepad instead of a keyboard and mouse, and Pinnacle Game Profiler promises to give them the joy of playing several different PC games using game controllers when there’s no built-in controller support for them. Apart from that, Game Profiler can also be used as a game center that holds all installed games and categorizes them, allowing you to launch them directly from the taskbar.

Installation

Installation has no difficult steps and requires no advanced settings. At some point though you’ll have to choose whether you want to create shortcuts for the program and let it load at Windows startup. A few steps afterwards the main installation will begin and finish a couple of minutes later. When it’s complete you’ll be asked to reboot for some changes to take effect.

Supported operating systems are all versions of Windows.

Interface

Running the program will open a relatively small window, but with many functions. At the top you can see the menu bar with 3 items (Preferences, Pinnacle Update and Game Profiles) along with a link to purchase the program and the number of days left for the trial version to end (in case you’re using the trial version). Clicking on Game Profiles will open another window for configuring the saved profiles and creating new ones. Just below the menu bar is a drop down menu which lists all the connected controllers and on the main screen is located every saved game profile. Selecting a profile and clicking “PLAY” will launch the game and load the associated profile.

Pros

There’s global support with any type of PC controller. To use a quote from the program’s website, “if your game controller plugs into a PC, then it works with Pinnacle Game Profiler”. That’s pretty much self-explanatory; it doesn’t matter if you’re using a Logitech, Thrustmaster, Saitek, XBOX360, PS3 or PS2 controller, you won’t experience any compatibility issues.

Pinnacle Game Profiler has hundreds of profiles for popular video games available for download, all of them preconfigured. This means that you don’t have to configure anything; just download the profile and play the game.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. You can configure your devices to enjoy games to the fullest: use sniper assistant, rapid-fire buttons, force-feedback controls as well as taking advantage of the program’s analog-to-digital capabilities.

When the game is over, you can still use the controller and Pinnacle Game Profiler to control Windows.

Cons

When we tried to run the program for the first time, an error message would popup saying that the program isn’t compatible with the version of Windows we’re using (Windows 7) and that it would need to perform an update, although we grabbed the latest version available from the product’s website. Fortunately the program updated itself quickly and worked smoothly afterwards.

Alternatives

Xpadder is a free alternative to this software, and although it’s not as capable and doesn’t have as many features, it still serves its purpose greatly; plus it’s free.

Conclusion

This software is worth every penny. If you’re a gamer and want to enjoy playing with your favorite controllers, then don’t waste any more time and get it now!