Steam Controller trailer, $50

Krejlooc said:
Trust me - Try System Shock 2 when you get the controller. It is a great example of a game that realistically could never be played with a normal controller.
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I hated that even though SS2 was demoed with the controller at GDC barely any footage seemed to have been recorded of it. SS2 is right at the top of my list of games I want to play when I finally get my mitts on one of these controllers.
 
So this thing is recognized as a normal keyboard and mouse in Windows, but can it also act like an Xinput controller? I assume that's the point of keeping the Xbox-style buttons, since that's the default on PC
 
Krejlooc said:
Trust me - Try System Shock 2 when you get the controller. It is a great example of a game that realistically could never be played with a normal controller. I played it using my steam controller on an actual windows 98 PC with dual Voodoo 2 accelerator's installed in SLI.

As in, a PC that was built like 2 years before Valve even existed.
Click to expand...

The way the system itself works is actually very impressive.
 
This is pretty big for me, I can't use K/M due to pain in the hands, so if I can use this controller, I'll be able to play PC games that don't have controller support.

Wait and see.
 
Aske said:
Love that it runs on AAs. Hate messing around with cables to charge my DS4s. Whacking in a couple of precharged AAs every 80 hours rocks.
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Especially with battery life as terrible as the DS4's. I don't mind re-charging my Wii U Pro controller as much but fuck, the DS4 would be a million times better if it took AA's.
 
Krejlooc said:
to do so would be to announce keyboard and mouse support for the PS4 and Xbox One.
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You don't think each system could push specific drivers that use a pre-determined handshake to allow JUST a steam controller to be used in game, but not a keyboard and mouse? :P

Not that I think either company will ever support the Steam Controller like this, just saying it'd definitely be possible for them to allow only that one product.

Zeyphersan said:
So this thing is recognized as a normal keyboard and mouse in Windows, but can it also act like an Xinput controller? I assume that's the point of keeping the Xbox-style buttons, since that's the default on PC
Click to expand...

Yep.
 
Krejlooc said:
Trust me - Try System Shock 2 when you get the controller. It is a great example of a game that realistically could never be played with a normal controller. I played it using my steam controller on an actual windows 98 PC with dual Voodoo 2 accelerator's installed in SLI.

As in, a PC that was built like 2 years before Valve even existed.
Click to expand...

Can you post what the control settings were for SS2 please? I'd like to get a look at them to see how they mapped it.
 
I don't use controllers much but what does it mean by that the shoulder buttons both have analogue and digital? One is analogue and other is digital or some magic voodoo that each button is both?
 
Still using standard batteries. Sigh I guess I've been spoiled by the ease of use of Sony controllers. I hate having to worry about batteries.
 
I can't wait to try one of these. The other controllers work well enough on Windows, but no one has really even tried to fix some of the pc-specific input and compatibility issues.
 
Sarcasm said:
I don't use controllers much but what does it mean by that the shoulder buttons both have analogue and digital? One is analogue and other is digital or some magic voodoo that each button is both?
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Analog means there's gradation levels. You can hold it half way (or anything short of fully depressed) to aim down sights, and then fully press it down to actually shoot. Some people don't like this at all, so they have digital as well which initiates a full button press the instant you depress the trigger even the slightest.
 
Ordered through GameStop. It ships free so there's nothing to lose.

Edit: concerning batteries, I don't care. If I want rechargeable I could buy some, but worse comes to worst you can play corded. I've played tethered to a console far more often then not in my time as a gamer so I'm cool with that.
 
$10 cheaper than console controllers, how? ehhh still kind of iffy on this myself. nothing will replace m/kb for me for fps games and i still have my 360 controller for everything else. but at $50, ill definitely give it a try.
 
grandwizard said:
Can you post what the control settings were for SS2 please? I'd like to get a look at them to see how they mapped it.
Click to expand...

Just to make sure you understand correctly, there are two separate things which can be reconfigured. The controller itself presents itself in hardware as a keyboard and mouse, and by default, if steam isn't present, it'll revert to a default configuration (the exact keys it maps escapes me, I know the left pad is wasd, the right pad is the mouse, one of the buttons around the face is E, one is enter, one is escape, etc).

If you have steam installed, steam itself will reconfigure the controller according to your mappings. What that means is that you tell steam, "Hey, make the left trigger activate the 'E' key," and when you launch the game, steam reprograms the controller internally. That way, when you pull the trigger, it actually sends the key code for the "e" key. That trigger literally becomes the "e" key.

Now, in game, you have a separate set of mappings - the default binding. So you look up in the list and see that the "e" key maps to "use item." So when you pull the trigger, it sends the "e" key, which the game recognizes as "use item." Now, you can reconfigure the key in-game so that, say, the e key makes you fire your gun. That means when you pull the trigger, the controller sends the "e" key, which the game recognizes as "fire gun."

Or, you could do that backwards. If "fire gun" by default is the left mouse button, you can tell steam to make pulling the trigger send the "left mouse" signal, which the game would then recognize as "fire gun."

Now, since I didn't have steam on that windows 98 computer, it defaulted to the normal mappings, and what I did was just go in-game and rebind the keys. So whatever key gets sent when I pressed the left trigger, I would map that to fire, or whatever.

Now, you surely have seen that valve has integrated community key bindings for the steam controller into steam. What this means is that people will change the way steam programs the controller, under the assumption that people will be using the default key bindings for a specific game. That is, if CoD4 makes "e" the "use" key by default, and most people feel comfortable using the "b" button on the controller as the "use" command, they will make the "b" button send the "e" key command.

If you want to go one step further, sometimes what I will do is make each key on the controller send a key press that resembles the button label itself. As an example, sometimes I will tell steam, "make the left trigger send the left arrow key, make the left bumper send the L key, and make the left grip send the [ key. Then make the right trigger send the right arrow key, make the right bumper send the R key, and make the right grip send the ] key."

Then I'll go in game and remap specific uses to those keys. So like, I'll make the R key fire my gun, the L key activate my ADS, etc. That way, when the game flashes keyboard icons corresponding to actions, the label will resemble the controller. It's confusing when some games will flash "press the Q key to heal" and you look at the controller and think, 'which one of these is the Q key?"

It makes more sense when the game tells you "Press <- to heal" and you think "ah, that's my left trigger!"

Hope that makes sense.

jester_ said:
Analog means there's gradation levels. You can hold it half way (or anything short of fully depressed) to aim down sights, and then fully press it down to actually shoot. Some people don't like this at all, so they have digital as well which initiates a full button press the instant you depress the trigger even the slightest.
Click to expand...

That's not quite what they mean. The trigger is two-stages. There is an anlog slider component, and then, when you get down to the base of the slider, there is another, physical button to depress that you can click. It's exactly like the gamecube should buttons.
 
Mengy said:
Yep, Valve is strategically executing a pretty intense gameplan. Honestly it's what Microsoft should have done many years ago, they had all of the tech and expertise in place to do so, they just lacked the vision and willpower. It will be interesting to see where Valve is sitting a year or two from now.
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MS was too much invested in shitting on Desktop/Couch PC gamers and instead put everything into Xbone/Tablets/Windows phone.
Hopefully they doesn't fuck Win10 and X12.
 
Mengy said:
Yep, Valve is strategically executing a pretty intense gameplan. Honestly it's what Microsoft should have done many years ago, they had all of the tech and expertise in place to do so, they just lacked the vision and willpower. It will be interesting to see where Valve is sitting a year or two from now.
Click to expand...
Microsoft had zero incentive since they can survive without pc gaming triving. valve's business model is entirely based off on pc Gaming. So it is in their best interests to innovate more so than Microsoft.
 
The batteries are such a turn off..
Read through the thread though and had never heard of these eneloops. Someone mind recommending me some?
 
Krejlooc said:
That's not quite what they mean. The trigger is two-stages. There is an anlog slider component, and then, when you get down to the base of the slider, there is another, physical button to depress that you can click. It's exactly like the gamecube should buttons.
Click to expand...
EDIT: im dum
 
Hikami said:
The batteries are such a turn off..
Read through the thread though and had never heard of these eneloops. Someone mind recommending me some?
Click to expand...

I could never find eneloops in a retail store. But I have duracell rechargeables witch are eneloops re branded if that helps.

And I can testify that I have had them for years and they still hold their charge like the day I first bought them over many charges.
 
jester_ said:
Word, guess the terminology they used made me think it truly had analog input, but I guess its just On/sort-of On/Off.
Click to expand...

No, it does have true analog input. The trigger is two inputs in one. The top half of the input is a full analog slider, from 0 to 255, and below 0 is a binary on/off switch. It's a full axis, that can be entirely on or entirely off or anything in between, and a digital push button switch below the analog slider.

Better way to think of it - it's an analog trigger which itself rests on a physical push button. You can slide the analog trigger all the way in and out, or push the physical button it rests on too.

The triggers are recognized as two entirely different sets of input. You can map one function to digital, and another completely unrelated function to the analog slider.

Again, it's exactly like the gamecube controller shoulder buttons.
 
I bet you Valve will make a version with a rechargeable battery, hopefully they do that sooner rather than later. I'm not a fan of AA's, I'd rather charge every once in a while with a cable.
 
Hikami said:
The batteries are such a turn off..
Read through the thread though and had never heard of these eneloops. Someone mind recommending me some?
Click to expand...

It's a brand name, they are batteries that hold their capacity extremely well after years and years of depleting/recharging.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KQ2L9NY/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Krejlooc said:
No, it does have true analog input. The trigger is two inputs in one. The top half of the input is a full analog slider, from 0 to 255, and below 0 is a binary on/off switch. It's a full axis, that can be entirely on or entirely off or anything in between, and a digital push button switch below the analog slider.

Better way to think of it - it's an analog trigger which itself rests on a physical push button. You can slide the analog trigger all the way in and out, or push the physical button it rests on too.

The triggers are recognized as two entirely different sets of input. You can map one function to digital, and another completely unrelated function to the analog slider.

Again, it's exactly like the gamecube controller shoulder buttons.
Click to expand...

Oh, thought you were correcting my first post in a different way, I was originally right but I was off about the digital component, which is only initiated at the very bottom of the trigger. Thanks for explaining, I gotcha
 
Looks ugly as sin, and cheapo as well.

It's something I'll have to try to really judge how it feels, but even so...

But AA batteries, lmao what is this 2005? Instant turn off.

But finger grip buttons on the underside of controllers is something that I thought should have been a thing for ages now, it just seems like common sense, no idea why ms/nintendo/sony haven't done it.
 
jester_ said:
Oh, thought you were correcting my first post in a different way, I was originally right but I was off about the digital component, which is only initiated at the very bottom of the trigger. Thanks for explaining, I gotcha
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's a little bit tricky to understand unless you've held a gamecube controller in hand. I always really liked those triggers on the gamecube controller and was kind of bummed that they didn't take off, so it's cool to see them come back.

To give an example of how they can be used in-game, you can map the analog portion to the mouse scroll wheel (as you slowly depress it, it will slowly scroll forward) and map actually pressing the mouse scroll wheel to the digital portion of the button.

Imagine the left analog portion is mapped to mouse wheel down, and the right analog portion is mapped to mouse wheel up. And both digital portions are mapped to pressing the mouse wheel all together. If you were using firefox or chrome or whatever under this configuration, it would mean pressing the left or right triggers slightly would slowly scroll you up or down, proportional to the amount you depress. Or, pressing them all the way would let you free scroll, at which point using the right touch pad, which itself maps to the mouse, will scroll you.

So many cool things you can do with these controllers, I've been raving about them since january of last year because of how highly programmable and customizable they are. I think these controllers are going to blow a lot of minds, because they can do so much. I really, honestly believe these controllers can play any type of game at least competently. Obviously it's better for some than others, but I see no reason why someone couldn't play a fighting game with these things. I'm being honest, I really think these controllers have more utility than just about any other controller I've ever used.

I actually think the PS4 controller is similarly awesome, to be honest. Especially with sony working system-wide button remapping into the PS4 OS. I like how Valve does the remapping in hardware, however. They specifically did so to eliminate latency that a middleware solution induces.
 
Krejlooc said:
Trust me - Try System Shock 2 when you get the controller. It is a great example of a game that realistically could never be played with a normal controller. I played it using my steam controller on an actual windows 98 PC with dual Voodoo 2 accelerator's installed in SLI.

As in, a PC that was built like 2 years before Valve even existed.
Click to expand...
Wow.

Is there a writeup anywhere on how it works with profiles and flashing and such? I'm curious and would like to delve into it. But very clever on Valve's part for the implementation. Good for them (and us).
 
Hmm. I was thinking of buying the Shield Console but maybe I should wait. Anybody else in the same situation? I really like Grid on my Shield Portable.
 
Krejlooc said:
Trust me - Try System Shock 2 when you get the controller. It is a great example of a game that realistically could never be played with a normal controller. I played it using my steam controller on an actual windows 98 PC with dual Voodoo 2 accelerator's installed in SLI.

As in, a PC that was built like 2 years before Valve even existed.
Click to expand...

So with the way the flashing works, you could have Steam on a modern computer change the layout (let's say every button is now "e"), disconnect the controller, plug it into a Windows 98 machine, and every button is still "e", and every button will remain "e" on every machine until you reflash it?
 
Krejlooc said:
Yeah, it's a little bit tricky to understand unless you've held a gamecube controller in hand. I always really liked those triggers on the gamecube controller and was kind of bummed that they didn't take off, so it's cool to see them come back.

To give an example of how they can be used in-game, you can map the analog portion to the mouse scroll wheel (as you slowly depress it, it will slowly scroll forward) and map actually pressing the mouse scroll wheel to the digital portion of the button.

Imagine the left analog portion is mapped to mouse wheel down, and the right analog portion is mapped to mouse wheel up. And both digital portions are mapped to pressing the mouse wheel all together. If you were using firefox or chrome or whatever under this configuration, it would mean pressing the left or right triggers slightly would slowly scroll you up or down, proportional to the amount you depress. Or, pressing them all the way would let you free scroll, at which point using the right touch pad, which itself maps to the mouse, will scroll you.

So many cool things you can do with these controllers, I've been raving about them since january of last year because of how highly programmable and customizable they are. I think these controllers are going to blow a lot of minds, because they can do so much. I really, honestly believe these controllers can play any type of game at least competently. Obviously it's better for some than others, but I see no reason why someone couldn't play a fighting game with these things. I'm being honest, I really think these controllers have more utility than just about any other controller I've ever used.

I actually think the PS4 controller is similarly awesome, to be honest. Especially with sony working system-wide button remapping into the PS4 OS. I like how Valve does the remapping in hardware, however. They specifically did so to eliminate latency that a middleware solution induces.
Click to expand...
Yep, I'm super excited for mine to arrive. Especially hearing that I can effectively use it for general HTPC Windows navigation (hopefully you meant outside of XBMC). I currently have the Logitech K830
 and it's only advantage is that we can use it one-handed when we are eating :)


I feel like it's really gonna expand my library of HTPC-usable games because I can't fit the Couchmaster we have on the loveseat when wife is sitting there. So being able to grab the controller and play nearly any game is really exciting

Zeyphersan said:
So with the way the flashing works, you could have Steam on a modern computer change the layout (let's say every button is now "e"), disconnect the controller, plug it into a Windows 98 machine, and every button is still "e", and every button will remain "e" on every machine until you reflash it?
Click to expand...

I believe so. I'm wrong

harSon said:
Everyone laughing at AA batteries needs to get themselves some Enloops. Having non-proprietary replaceable long lasting batteries with readied alternates on standby is simply too awesome to give up.
Click to expand...

++++++
 
Everyone laughing at AA batteries needs to get themselves some Enloops. Having non-proprietary replaceable long lasting batteries with readied alternates on standby is simply too awesome to give up.
 
The only thing that's going to trip me up is with games that don't support Xinput trying to remember what keyboard button I mapped to what when a button prompt appears
 
Poetic.Injustice said:
AA batteries? It's 2015.
Click to expand...

How are the alternatives a better solution? You're either forced to deal with the possibility of charging your controller while playing, or purchasing an extra proprietary battery pack (assuming it's not built in) to have on standby. How is that better than having some quality rechargeable AA/AAA batteries that you use with a plethora of other devices?
 
molvetica said:
Especially with battery life as terrible as the DS4's. I don't mind re-charging my Wii U Pro controller as much but fuck, the DS4 would be a million times better if it took AA's.
Click to expand...
Absolutely this. I had to buy a second DS4 when I was really into Destiny because the battery kept dying. With the Steam controller I can just use some rechargeable batteries I already have.
 
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