Feb 03, 2005 Nyko Technologies has released new drivers for the Air Flo EX, its PC/Mac controller that features Nyko's Air Flo tech (read: no sweaty palms). The drivers are available as. Search All NYKO AIRFLO EX for PC mapping tools Drivers Uploader Notes After Nyko pulled this Mapping software from their main website (Bast*rds) I was lucky enough to still have this on my laptop.
How to Update Device Drivers Quickly & Easily
Tech Tip: Updating drivers manually requires some computer skills and patience. A faster and easier option is to use the Driver Update Utility for NYKO to scan your system for free. The utility tells you which specific drivers are out-of-date for all of your devices.
Step 1 - Download Your Driver
To get the latest driver, including Windows 10 drivers, you can choose from a list of most popular NYKO downloads. Click the download button next to the matching model name. After you complete your download, move on to Step 2.
If your driver is not listed and you know the model name or number of your NYKO device, you can use it to search our driver archive for your NYKO device model. Simply type the model name and/or number into the search box and click the Search button. You may see different versions in the results. Choose the best match for your PC and operating system.
If you don’t know the model name or number, you can start to narrow your search down by choosing which category of NYKO device you have (such as Printer, Scanner, Video, Network, etc.). Start by selecting the correct category from our list of NYKO Device Drivers by Category.
Need more help finding the right driver? You can request a driver and we will find it for you. We employ a team from around the world. They add hundreds of new drivers to our site every day.
Tech Tip: If you are having trouble deciding which is the right driver, try the Driver Update Utility for NYKO. It is a software utility that will find the right driver for you - automatically.
NYKO updates their drivers regularly. To get the latest Windows 10 driver, you may need to go to NYKO website to find the driver for to your specific Windows version and device model.
Step 2 - Install Your Driver
After you download your new driver, then you have to install it. To install a driver in Windows, you will need to use a built-in utility called Device Manager. It allows you to see all of the devices recognized by your system, and the drivers associated with them.
How to Open Device Manager
In Windows 8.1 & Windows 10, right-click the Start menu and select Device Manager
In Windows 8, swipe up from the bottom, or right-click anywhere on the desktop and choose 'All Apps' -> swipe or scroll right and choose 'Control Panel' (under Windows System section) -> Hardware and Sound -> Device Manager
In Windows 7, click Start -> Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Device Manager
In Windows Vista, click Start -> Control Panel -> System and Maintenance -> Device Manager
In Windows XP, click Start -> Control Panel -> Performance and Maintenance -> System -> Hardware tab -> Device Manager button
How to Install drivers using Device Manager
Locate the device and model that is having the issue and double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
Select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button and follow the instructions.
In most cases, you will need to reboot your computer in order for the driver update to take effect.
Tech Tip: Driver downloads and updates come in a variety of file formats with different file extensions. For example, you may have downloaded an EXE, INF, ZIP, or SYS file. Each file type has a slighty different installation procedure to follow.
If you are having trouble installing your driver, you should use the Driver Update Utility for NYKO. It is a software utility that automatically finds, downloads and installs the right driver for your system. You can even backup your drivers before making any changes, and revert back in case there were any problems.
Try it now to safely update all of your drivers in just a few clicks. Once you download and run the utility, it will scan for out-of-date or missing drivers:
When the scan is complete, the driver update utility will display a results page showing which drivers are missing or out-of-date. You can update individual drivers, or all of the necessary drivers with one click.
For more help, visit our Driver Support Page for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.
Nyko's Air Flo EX controller brings its breezy controllers back to the PC market once again. Famous in sweaty-palmed gamer circles, Nyko's Air Flo technology uses a circulatory air system for cooling down your hands as you play intense games of Counter-Strike or Bejeweled. There are plenty of Air Flo variations in the console market, wireless and not, but the Air Flo EX marks Nyko's third installment to the PC base.
If you've read our review of the original Air Flo for PC/Mac, then you'll have a good idea of what's in store here. Aha! But there's more! For that is why this review for the Air Flo EX exists. Otherwise we'd be repeating ourselves, wouldn't we?
Layout
If you look at the images in the Air Flo review and compare them to the one below, you'll notice that the two look quite similar with regards to button layout. The casing itself is physically the same, though there's been quite a bit of tweaking done to its look. There are now thick, shaped outlines around the controller, much akin to Van Gogh's 'De Meisjes van de Rookwolk van de macht' phase. It certainly makes the controller look much more busy and less plain than the past release.
Aside from the superficial looks though, the button layout is exactly the same. Two analog sticks, four main face buttons, four shoulder buttons, a d-pad and three buttons in the center. You'll also find the three-way power switch for the fan in the center of the controller. Back to the fan in a second.
The controller is still a tad large, much bigger than a PS2 Dual Shock 2 controller but smaller than the original Xbox controller. I wouldn't say it's too big, but I'd personally appreciate maybe a 10-15% reduction in size. No huge deal though.
The buttons are still a tad clunky, which while imperfect are very usable and responsive. Like the size thing, it's not something that can be overly complained about, but it isn't perfect. The analog sticks are sized pretty nicely and have a fairly good amount of resistance; a tad looser than the Controller S, but tighter than the Dual Shock 2. Me likes.
The main selling point behind the Air Flo controllers is the fan, of course. The back (or bottom, depending on how you look at it) of the controller houses the large intake fan for the controller's air circulation. Air gets sucked in there and then spat out through numerous tiny holes throughout the grips. If you've ever used any of the other Air Flo controllers then you know exactly what to expect here.
The fan works really well in keeping things cool. There's a three-way switch in the center that swaps between off, low and high speeds. Off is obviously silent (this controller would probably fail all kinds of FCC regulations if it wasn't, plus I'd be afraid). The low setting makes the controller put out a bit of a whirring sound. If you have your sound cranked or are wearing headphones it may not be too big of a deal. I could see how it could bother some people though. The airflow in the low setting is enough that you probably don't need to switch to high, which is rather noisy. It feels good, sure, but it's annoyingly loud. While I can deal with the low setting, the high setting is probably only usable while seated next to a running jet engine.
One nice thing is that the fan is USB powered so you don't need batteries or any of that nonsense. Speaking of USB powered, the controller is Plug-and-Play for either WinXP or Mac, so you can just pop it in and it should work perfectly fine.
The Software
Instead of just using it as a Plug-and-Play joystick however, you'll want to check out Nyko's GamePad Mapping Tools. The Air Flo EX mapping software is the main difference between the old Air Flo for PC/Mac and the newer Air Flo EX in that it lets you assign almost any keyboard or mouse button, and even mouse movement, to pretty much anything on the controller. I'll get back to the 'pretty much' part in a second.
While many action games will already include joystick compatibility and (hopefully) let you map whatever keys you want to whatever buttons you want, that's not always the case, especially with something like first-person shooters. Now, this is PC gaming we're talking about here and FPS games should be played with the keyboard and mouse. But if you consider that there are very casual PC gamers out there who, for instance, spend most of their time playing Halo 2 but would like to try out Half-Life 2 with a configuration and control scheme they know and love, this can be helpful.
And even ignoring FPS games, there are plenty of games out there that don't include full joystick support for whatever reason or sometimes don't allow you to customize the buttons however you'd like. Console ports are usually the biggest offenders here.
Nyko Airflo Gamecube Controller
Nyko's software is quite simple to use. You see a picture of the Air Flo EX with numerous configuration buttons pointing to everything on the controller. It's sorta like a Paint-By-Numbers book but entirely different. At the bottom of the screen is the profile listing. When you make a new profile, you simply pick an existing one (like Default), clone it, give the new profile a name and then assign the buttons.
Nyko Airflo Pc Driver
You can assign 'mostly' anything to anything on the controller, with a few exceptions. Firstly, I could never map the mouse wheel to anything. This shouldn't be a problem since any game that uses the mouse wheel should let you change that to something else. Secondly, you can only assign mouse movement to the two analog sticks, though you can assign mouse buttons to any button on the controller.
Setting up a configuration took me all of about five minutes and it worked perfectly, mouse movement and all. I used Half-Life 2 as my main test bed for this since the game already includes built-in mouse support so comparing the two would be easy. Sure enough, switching from one to the other was practically seamless. As well, something that's cool is that you don't need to unplug your mouse once you assign the controller to emulate it. If you do this, you can literally use either your mouse or the Air Flo EX to do your general mouse work on your computer. If you wanted to, and didn't need to type, you could surf the Internet with it, and then just grab the mouse when you wanted to switch back.
Nyko Airflo Driver Pc
The only problem that I have with using the controller as a mouse input is that the analog sticks are rather touchy. There's a tad bit of a dead-zone near their center, like there should be, but the problem is that even after playing with the settings for it I couldn't get an even ramp for the speed. What I mean is that pushing the analog stick ever-so-slightly will very slowly move the pointer (or your in-game character, whatever), but pushing it just a little more will have it moving at practically full speed. There doesn't seem to be an entirely even slope of angle/speed with it, which makes FPS games a little hard to play if you crank up the sensitivity so that you can turn around faster.
Nyko Air Flo Wireless
ConclusionIn the end, the Nyko Air Flo EX is a reasonably nice controller for the PC or Mac. It's not perfect, but you could do much worse. The mapping software can really help things out when a games fails to provide full joystick support, which is a surprisingly large number of titles.