Controller rumble not working in emulators

Vibration is the output side of the controller, and it fails on a separate chain from buttons. A pad can register every press perfectly and still never buzz, because the emulator has to detect a motor, choose a force-feedback backend, and receive a vibration command from the game. Any of those three failing gives the same silent result.

What you actually hit

Fix it in order

1. Prove the motors work outside the emulator
   Use the platform's own input test — Steam's controller settings or the pad vendor's tool — and fire a test vibration there. If nothing buzzes outside the emulator, the problem is the driver, not the emulator.
   The pad vibrates from the system test tool.
2. Check whether the pad exposes motors at all
   DS3-style pads on Windows need a driver that actually publishes force feedback; without it the emulator correctly reports that no vibration motors were detected. That message means "the app cannot see a motor", not "vibration is disabled".
   The emulator's controller list shows a vibration or motor entry for the pad.
3. Switch the input backend
   Move the pad from one backend to another — XInput instead of DirectInput, or SDL instead of native. Adapters and third-party pads frequently report motors on one backend and not the other, and DirectInput motor mapping has crashed the emulator outright in past builds.
   Test vibration succeeds right after the backend change.
4. Enable vibration inside the game's own options
   Emulators forward vibration commands; they do not invent them. Several titles ship with rumble off by default or reset the setting on their own, which reads as a broken emulator until you check the in-game menu.
   The game's options screen shows vibration as on, and the pad buzzes in a scripted scene.
5. Reset the pad state after loading a save state
   A save state captures the vibration state at the moment of saving. Loading one can leave the motor stuck on or off until the next event. Save and reload in-game, or unplug and replug the pad, to clear it.
   Vibration starts and stops normally after the reload.

Tracked, not your setup

• No vibration with a PS/PS2 adapter over SDL on Linux: PCSX2 #14929
• DS1 pad lost force feedback after 1.6.0: PCSX2 #6617
• DS3 reports no vibration motors detected: PCSX2 #6480
• DirectInput motor mapping crashes the emulator: PCSX2 #4987
• Loading a save state does not reset vibration state: PCSX2 #3330
• A game resets its own vibration setting to off: PCSX2 #14766
• Steam Controller on Ryubing: gyro works, no vibrations: Ryubing #450

Related

Buttons not registering at all is the input side, not this one — see DualSense not detected or controller input lag. If rumble dies right after swapping to a new pad, the profile and port are the usual culprits: controller profile migration.