Fast, controller-first quick settings for the MSI Claw A8. One press of the MSI Center M button and a glass panel slides over your game, ready to drive with the D-pad.
Important
Made only for the MSI Claw A8. Claw Control was built and tested on one MSI Claw A8 (board MS-1T8K). I don't own the other Claw models (Claw A1M, Claw 7 AI+, Claw 8 AI+), so it has not been tested on them, and they use different firmware and controller details. The setup and the app both check the device and refuse to run anywhere else, before changing anything.
MSI Center M's quick settings are slow to open and awkward with a controller. Claw Control replaces them with a panel that opens instantly (it's pre-rendered and waiting), is fully driven by the controller (or touch), never lets the controller reach the game behind it, and uses almost nothing while it's closed.
 Quick tab Volume, brightness, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, controller mode, now playing |
 Power modes Super Battery, Balanced, Performance, or your own watts |
 Performance overlay FPS, power, temps, CPU, GPU, RAM… in any corner |
 Sound Output device and per-app volume |
 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Switch them, connect networks and headphones |
 Graphics tab FPS limit, frame gen, upscaling, sharpening, FreeSync |
 Display Resolution, refresh rate, Windows scaling, graphics memory |
 Controller tab Xbox, PlayStation, mouse or off; lights, rumble, gyro |
 Lights Colours, effects, speed, brightness |
 Buttons Remap any button, turbo, Nintendo layout |
 Triggers and sticks Ranges, quick trigger, dead zones, live view |
 App switcher Live previews, switch or end apps, close background apps |
 Arrange the Quick tab Move and hide tiles; panel size and side |
 Screenshot and record With game sound, on the GPU's video encoder; size, quality, folder |
 Left or right The panel and app switcher on either side, 80-130 % |
- Instant: the panel is built once at startup and only shown and hidden.
- Controller-first: D-pad to move, A select, B back, LB / RB tabs, Y Power, X ends an app in the app switcher (D-pad left from the panel) and hides a tile while editing the Quick tab. Touch works everywhere too.
- Keeps presses from the game: while the panel is open the buttons and triggers drive only the panel, not the game or Steam behind it, in Xbox and in MSI's Desktop (mouse) mode (the sticks still reach the game).
- Same size everywhere: the panel keeps its size and stays pinned to its side at any resolution or Windows scaling. Edit (bottom of the Quick tab) moves and hides tiles, makes the whole panel bigger or smaller and puts it on the left or right.
- Screenshots and recordings of the whole screen, full-screen games included, with the game's sound, encoded by the Claw's own video encoder. Pick the size, quality and folder.
- An honest overlay: besides FPS, watts and temperatures it shows whether frame generation really adds frames and whether RSR really upscales right now, not just whether they're on.
- Light on battery: with the panel closed it uses about 0.3 % of one CPU core and polls nothing. No telemetry: its only connection is one look at GitHub a day for a new version.
- Download
ClawControl-Setup-<version>.exefrom the latest release. - Run it. Windows may say "Windows protected your PC" because the setup isn't code-signed: click More info › Run anyway.
- Allow the admin prompt and click through the setup. It checks for an MSI Claw A8, MSI Center M and the AMD graphics driver first, and tells you if anything is missing.
- Press the MSI Center M button. That's it.
Prefer no installer? Use the .zip from the same release and double-click Install.cmd.
You need: an MSI Claw A8 with Windows 11, MSI Center M and the AMD graphics driver (all preinstalled on the Claw). Nothing else: the app brings its own .NET runtime.
Full guide, including what gets installed and how to check the download: docs/INSTALL.md.
| Do this | Xbox buttons | PlayStation names |
|---|---|---|
| Open / close the panel | MSI Center M button | MSI Center M button |
| Move | D-pad | D-pad |
| Select, switch on / off | A | ✕ Cross |
| Back / close | B | ○ Circle |
| Previous / next tab | LB / RB | L1 / R1 |
| Power menu | Y | △ Triangle |
| End an app (in the app switcher) | X | □ Square |
| Change a bar | D-pad left / right on it | D-pad left / right on it |
Everything applies immediately; there's no Save button. The new controller mode applies when you close the panel, and graphics memory after a restart. The full tour of every tab and screen is in the user guide.
- Installs to
C:\Program Files\ClawControland adds a scheduled task that starts it at sign-in with admin rights (needed for power limits and the controller) and restarts it after a crash. - Takes over the MSI Center M button by pausing MSI's launcher while it runs. Quitting or uninstalling hands the button straight back. Nothing of MSI's is changed or removed.
- Writes your changes where MSI Center M would: firmware power limits, the controller's own memory, AMD driver settings, display and sound settings.
Uninstall: Settings › Apps › Installed apps › Claw Control › Uninstall. The MSI button goes back to MSI Center M; the settings you applied to the device stay as they are.
- Troubleshooting and FAQ: the panel doesn't open, graphics settings only apply after a game restart, upscaling is missing, and more.
- Found a bug? Open an issue and
attach
%LOCALAPPDATA%\ClawControl\log.txt. - Security problem? See SECURITY.md.
Needs the .NET 10 SDK on Windows:
dotnet build ClawControl.csproj -c Release
installer\install.ps1 -Source bin\Release\net10.0-windows10.0.19041.0\win-x64 -Yesbuild-release.ps1 builds the setup and zip (needs Inno Setup 6). How it's put together:
docs/DEVELOPMENT.md; how the hardware is driven:
docs/HARDWARE.md. Contributions welcome: CONTRIBUTING.md.
Own another Claw model and want to help support it? Start there.
MIT. Uses Intel PresentMon (FPS), NAudio, HidSharp and .NET; see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.
Claw Control is an independent project, not made by or affiliated with MSI, AMD, Microsoft or Sony. MSI, Claw and MSI Center M are trademarks of Micro-Star International; Xbox of Microsoft; PlayStation of Sony Interactive Entertainment; AMD, Radeon and FreeSync of AMD. It comes with no warranty: use it at your own risk.