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Steam Controller Thread | Comfy Couch Sold Separately

vermadas

Member
I think this gift is for mac-affected users and you'll only get it if you "complain".

Anyway my hands are open to receive if Valve decides to give all his software to his hardware buyers.

What's funny is that I do all of my gaming on Windows box, but I do have Steam installed on my work Macbook and have used it there from time to time. I got the email and the games, but the controller has been working great for me. Thanks Valve!
 
I think the main improvement I'd like to see made is having the touchpads also sense force.
At the moment if you use the left pad as a d-pad you can either have clicking to activate a direction or touching the pad. Touching works quite well and the haptics response is good, but it means you can only rest your thumb on the deadzone. Changing it to clicking fixes that, but it needs just a bit too much force.
Sensing force and then letting you determine how much force activates the button press would be perfect.
 

Iorv3th

Member
I'm really wanting to pick one of these up to play some old school RPG's that I've been wanting to get around to on the couch, so I have to ask. Has anyone been playing games like Fallout 1 and 2, Baldur's Gate, and Planescape Torment on this controller? If so, was the transitioning learning curve too steep? Are you having fun with it now that you got the hang of it? Is it a worthy replacement for a mouse and keyboard?

Going to depend no the game and how you set up the control. I've been playing Divinity Original Sin with the controller and it works really well. The combat in that is turned based though so that helps. But overall very positive experience.
 
I'm really wanting to pick one of these up to play some old school RPG's that I've been wanting to get around to on the couch, so I have to ask. Has anyone been playing games like Fallout 1 and 2, Baldur's Gate, and Planescape Torment on this controller? If so, was the transitioning learning curve too steep? Are you having fun with it now that you got the hang of it? Is it a worthy replacement for a mouse and keyboard?

Anything that's mainly pointing and clicking should work really well without too much setting up required. Pad for cursor control, triggers for left and right click and then the various buttons set up to whatever keys you need.
It's memorising the buttons when there's no on screen prompts that I find takes the most getting used to.
 
This thing is nearly perfect, I am definitely interested in purchasing this controller. I am also exited to try and map the controls to older games that dont offer re-mapping and are very difficult to play like the older Tomb Raiders and Earthworm Jim
 

Russ T

Banned
So I've only played Game of Thrones and Tales of the Borderlands using my controller/link so far. Link works mostly great (though either it or big picture mode has crashed steam twice now...)

But the controller...

On the right touch pad, my controller losses the touch on the bottom right edge. Like if I run my thumb around the edge of the pad, I feel the haptic feedback the whole time until I reach the lower right edge. This would be fine, except that when it happens, the in game cursor goes fucking haywire and teleports to the top right corner of the screen, more often than not.

Is my controller defective? Should I begin the process of requesting a replacement? I'm actually quite happy with it other than that, but it's really bringing me down. Makes telltale qtes really fucking frustrating sometimes...
 

Ricker

Member
Well I'll be damned,I finally got the controller to be recognised by Steam in BPM...I was using the dongle extender or direct USB cable...this morning I tried just the little dongle and everything works now...nice.(unless they patched something overnight lol)

I tried Divinity OS,needs some getting use to but it works,I only saw 2 community templates though....is that right...? maybe people are waiting for the enhanced version that will probably have the Larian recommended template in there...

Anyway,finally I can play around with the Configure control to see if I like it,especially for non gamepad games,like Divinity,Banner Saga etc etc...

Oh and Russ T...I only tried Divinity for a bit but I noticed it did that also,the in game cursor went crazy...so its probably not a hardware defect,just happens in certain games maybe...
 
I have come to the realization that the right touchpad cant really emulate a right stick properly for games that use it a lot (FPS, TPS), its very frustrating how it works, I almost rage quit while playing Batman Arkham City with it, until I moved to a keyboard+mouse based profile and things where much better.

The problem is how as you get closer to the edge of the pad the movement gets highly accelerated, I tried changing the settings (relaxed, wide, etc) and sensitivity, but nothing feels right.

Only problem is the button prompts now, but all it takes is getting used to it. I wish there was an option to overlay the mappings with a transparency just while you are getting used to them.

Quick Q: any way to use the Dpad to navigate BPM? Im super used to that in all other consoles and I feel so slow navigating it with the stick
 
I have come to the realization that the right touchpad cant really emulate a right stick properly for games that use it a lot (FPS, TPS), its very frustrating how it works, I almost rage quit while playing Batman Arkham City with it, until I moved to a keyboard+mouse based profile and things where much better.

The problem is how as you get closer to the edge of the pad the movement gets highly accelerated, I tried changing the settings (relaxed, wide, etc) and sensitivity, but nothing feels right.

Only problem is the button prompts now, but all it takes is getting used to it. I wish there was an option to overlay the mappings with a transparency just while you are getting used to them.

Quick Q: any way to use the Dpad to navigate BPM? Im super used to that in all other consoles and I feel so slow navigating it with the stick

Does arkham allow gamepad high precision? That'd offer you the button prompts. I've found that I can get a better joystick feel by throwing on a ton of smoothing - worse for accuracy, but better in games that don't need precision.
 

SourBear

Banned
You aren't supposed to be using the diamond buttons. It is intended that you will use the dual touchpads, shoulder buttons, and grips.

The stick and diamond buttons are really only present in an auxiliary fashion. They feel better for navigating menus, also.

I can see ditching the left analog stick. Taking FPS games as an example, they require dual stick (on a regular controller), so both pads on the Steam controller need to be mapped to movement and camera. In this situation the diamond buttons need to be used. There simply isn't enough buttons on the controller if you completely ignore them.

So no, there really isn't an excuse for the shoddy placement and size of these buttons on the controller.
 

SourBear

Banned
I think this gift is for mac-affected users and you'll only get it if you "complain".

Anyway my hands are open to receive if Valve decides to give all his software to his hardware buyers.

I got this email and I didn't complain to them. I suspect I got this email because I happened to purchase the controller and link on a mac at the time.
 
I can see ditching the left analog stick. Taking FPS games as an example, they require dual stick (on a regular controller), so both pads on the Steam controller need to be mapped to movement and camera. In this situation the diamond buttons need to be used. There simply isn't enough buttons on the controller if you completely ignore them.

So no, there really isn't an excuse for the shoddy placement and size of these buttons on the controller.

I had a hard time hitting the diamond buttons until I started placing my index fingers on the bumpers and middle fingers on the trigger at all times. For my hands at least, that provided the necessary angle I needed to make the diamond buttons easy to hit. Plays Shadow of Mordor very well.
 
For the facebuttons maybe they could have tried sticking to the early prototype placement:

valve21-660x440.jpg
 

SourBear

Banned
I honestly do wish that they didn't use the traditional diamond pattern. The buttons would have been much better placed around the right pad. Like a half C on the left edge of it or something.
 

deleted

Member
I have tried all of that. When is the left pad supposed to provide feedback? I get haptic feedback using the stick and using the right pad, but nothing from the left pad. Does it only provide feedback under certain conditions? Can you have haptic feedback enabled for both pads at once?

Dunno if the question is already answered, but this seems buggy atm. Try if you get the feedback when emulating a mouse wheel with the left TP. Should give a response when most other stuff doesn't.

I've finally had some time to bite into the Controller and the Link.
Even when I activate the nouse via config edit for the BPM, it goes away little by little depending on what I do. It's really buggy for the moment and I hope it gets fixed.
On the Link I don't have mouse control even if enabled on the PC at all.

My Link itself is set up via cable to the router, the PC however is set up via wireless. Works nicely in fastest mode, but it has problems with balanced mode. Didn't try high quality yet.

Then I tried a few games:
Lethal League: Works fantastic with the normal Mouse + Keyboard template and a few rebinds. Right TP works as the jump button, the rest is shoulder buttons. Works like a charme and muscle memory adapted really fast.

Anno 1404: This one was just awesome! Used a user profile that was really nicely thought out. I just need a mod to get the text a little bigger and this would be an amazing showcase for the Link and Controller Combo. One thing though: The overlay broke after using it the first time and I wasn't able to get the onscreen keyboard to show up, so text input didn't work.

Shadowrun: Just played around a little bit, should work excellently and as expected. The High Res mode helps a lot to make this one TV compatible.

Super Meat Boy: My test for Link/Lag. Worked super responsive and nice with the left TP as the DPad, but you know every little bit of turbulence in the wireless department.

Besiege: Like it was made for this. Really fun trying stuff out with the controller.

Massive Chalice: Tried the Mouse + Keyboard ***** which worked rather nicely.

Batman Arkham Knight: So-so. Since the game is really dark, you notice some artifacts while playing with the Link on low quality settings. And since I wanted Mouse look, I tried binding the keyboard configuration to the controller. I would write this down as a miss. Mouse worked great, but everything else felt really unintuitive. Will tinker around a lot more with it, somewhere in there is a weird, but awesome Controller configuration.
 
Hm, it's weird that people are having trouble hitting the buttons. I don't have huge hands, but I can easily hit any of the buttons in complete comfort. They could be quite a bit farther away from the grip and I'd still be able to hit them. The one issue is that heel-toeing (I guess that's a term now?) is somewhat more difficult because of the different angle of your thumb compared to a normal controller, but it's still possible.

Is this another case of people getting very used to the xbox 360 controller and then thinking they need to hold every controller in a super-tight death-grip?
 

laxu

Member
Finally got my controller, stupid lazy post office.

Anyway, it is really cool! I've only tried GTA V now and having to setup from scratch because it's the non-Steam version was a bit of a bitch. I mostly setup it like the 360 controller but used mouse control for the right pad and mapped gyro toggle to holding left grip. I tried setting up it so that outer ring of joystick is run and it worked mostly fine but for some reason it activates recording video clip if you use the touch pad at the same time. It's a bit weird so I had to remove the run for now.

I'm still trying to find the right button setup and sensitivies but so far I'm quite impressed. I especially loved driving cars using the gyro, felt almost as good as it does in Drive Club on PS4 after I fiddled with the settings.

Aiming and shooting will take some practice and careful adjustment. I think I need to setup some sort of "turn sensitivity way down when you hold aim" thing but in general I was able to hit things better than I can on a controller (which requires that "point in the general direction then move sideways to align the shot). It's not going to be good enough to replace the mouse completely but I think for many games you could find a happy medium where it's good enough.

I like the controller build, it feels solid and fits in my smallish hands quite well. I do agree that the face buttons could be placed better. It's almost like they are just a little bit too far away or slightly too small. Bigger, flat buttons might've been nicer. Upper triggers could also be a bit better but at least they're big so they are usually easy to find.

PS. Has anyone encountered a bug where mapping left joystick to gyro causes up/down on the gyro to be inverted? Right joystick and mouse work as expected so it's not a faulty gyro. I'm on the Steam beta client.
 

pmj

Member
Doesn't function at all on my Linux system using the dongle, using USB it's a loud and very inaccurate mouse that has the cursor skirt around erratically as I swipe.

So far not so good. I suppose I'll have a few hours to spend troubleshooting this thing next weekend.
 

Iorv3th

Member
So I've only played Game of Thrones and Tales of the Borderlands using my controller/link so far. Link works mostly great (though either it or big picture mode has crashed steam twice now...)

But the controller...

On the right touch pad, my controller losses the touch on the bottom right edge. Like if I run my thumb around the edge of the pad, I feel the haptic feedback the whole time until I reach the lower right edge. This would be fine, except that when it happens, the in game cursor goes fucking haywire and teleports to the top right corner of the screen, more often than not.

Is my controller defective? Should I begin the process of requesting a replacement? I'm actually quite happy with it other than that, but it's really bringing me down. Makes telltale qtes really fucking frustrating sometimes...

Does it do it in all games? Chance that it could just be the configuration, but it shouldn't do that. Mine has never done that. If it does it in multiple games it's probably defective.
 
Doesn't function at all on my Linux system using the dongle, using USB it's a loud and very inaccurate mouse that has the cursor skirt around erratically as I swipe.

So far not so good. I suppose I'll have a few hours to spend troubleshooting this thing next weekend.

tried this?

http://steamcommunity.com/app/353370/discussions/0/490123197956024380/

Linux-specific notes and known issues
The controller is fully supported on Linux without needing a kernel driver, but Steam needs proper read-write access to the HID device nodes it exposes in order to program it. We are working with distributions to make sure the necessary access is provided out of the box, but this might not currently be the case depending on your distribution of choice. Here are the rules needed for proper use of the controller:

# This rule is needed for basic functionality of the controller in Steam and keyboard/mouse emulation
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="28de", MODE="0666"

# This rule is necessary for gamepad emulation; make sure you replace 'pgriffais' with the username of the user that runs Steam
KERNEL=="uinput", MODE="0660", GROUP="pgriffais", OPTIONS+="static_node=uinput"

or

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/steam-controller-on-ubuntu-a-tweak-you-need-to-do.6081

You need to change some udev rules to get it to work. Either copy /lib/udev/rules.d/99-steam-controller-perms.rules from a Steam OS installation or create it with the following

#USB devices
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="28de", MODE="0666"
# Oculus HID Sensor naming and permissioning
KERNEL=="hidraw*", SUBSYSTEM=="hidraw", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2833", MODE="0666"

There's also a quick and dirty way to do it:

Quote
sudo chmod 666 /dev/uinput

And then:

Quote
For a workaround that survives reboots: sudo apt-get install python3-autopilot Then log out/in or reboot. This will add you to a group that has write access to /dev/uinput. This will add a few packages which you probably won't need, but you can remove them once the steam package update arrives.
 

Russ T

Banned
Does it do it in all games? Chance that it could just be the configuration, but it shouldn't do that. Mine has never done that. If it does it in multiple games it's probably defective.

Does it for all configurations. Well, the pad loses touch for all configurations. I haven't built any configs myself, only tried the three supplied by default.

Like I said, I've only played Game of Thrones and Tales from the Borderlands. It's possible other games might handle the jumping cursor better, but I am 100% certain the pad losing touch is just going to happen all the time. ):
 

pmj

Member
tried this?

I did see the FAQ, which said to put stuff in a file without saying which file, which wasn't very helpful.

The second link which actually did that seems to have made my controller work in Steam BPM at least. It's detected, it updated, I can navigate. I don't have many games installed to try, but Geometry Wars 3 at least seems to be a no go. Nothing happens when pressing any button while in game, either using the default or the top community config.
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
I'm trackball all the way in every game I try now, it just feels great with everything I throw at it. I really love the sensation of giving it little spins of varying force and feeling very in control of it, it really might as well be a physical ball with the way it feels.
 

Nzyme32

Member
The big thing for me that's kept me from using this controller more often (and I know it's dumb to say) is I want to be able to use the left trackpad as a d-pad for navigating menus in steam, and with the mouse emulation I want to be able to use the left trackpad as a scroll wheel.

Is there any way to do this, is this possibly in the works, or am I just boned?
 

hepburn3d

Member
Holy hairy my balls guys! I tried out the gyro as a very fine tune aiming method. It's insanely good. Like amazing!!!! It's far too instinctive to the point I don't realise I'm doing it!!!

So fast aim track ball then a very low sensitive mouse gyro with trackball off, invert(of course) and slight haptic feedback. This is insane!!! Valve need to make a sandbox game that shows off all these setups because theryre seriously under selling this controller. It's amazing!
 
Holy hairy my balls guys! I tried out the gyro as a very fine tune aiming method. It's insanely good. Like amazing!!!! It's far too instinctive to the point I don't realise I'm doing it!!!

So fast aim track ball then a very low sensitive mouse gyro with trackball off, invert(of course) and slight haptic feedback. This is insane!!! Valve need to make a sandbox game that shows off all these setups because theryre seriously under selling this controller. It's amazing!

You don't say because I am at lost in this entire conversation.
 

Nabs

Member
Holy hairy my balls guys! I tried out the gyro as a very fine tune aiming method. It's insanely good. Like amazing!!!! It's far too instinctive to the point I don't realise I'm doing it!!!

So fast aim track ball then a very low sensitive mouse gyro with trackball off, invert(of course) and slight haptic feedback. This is insane!!! Valve need to make a sandbox game that shows off all these setups because theryre seriously under selling this controller. It's amazing!

It sucks that I have to wait a month to get my hands on this.
 
Well I am absolutely loving it now so it pains me to say it but I think I'm going to get rid of it. :( I couldn't get it working comfortably with Tomb Raider so out of interest I switched back to an XB1 controller and I've completely forgotten how to aim. Considering I spend like 90% of my gaming time on consoles this is pretty bad. :p

Going to see how I feel about it later in the week but yeah, absolutely love it but I don't like what it's doing to my traditional aiming skills. :p
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
I really need to try trackball + gyro in a shooter now, I think that's just what I needed to make those feel perfect.
 

Nerrel

Member

This is good to know. I did notice that the gyro calibration drifted after a while and led to camera sliding whenever I held my aim button.

They gryo does feel great once you lower the sensitivity. It captures the Splatoon/ Wind Waker HD feel wonderfully... This feature is pretty much everything I wanted it to be so far.

Has anyone had jitter issues? Half-life 1 was pretty much unplayable for me do to it.

The pad felt very jittery for me in the games I played. I had to toy with the sensitivity to get it stable, and when I switched to using an actual mouse the sensitivity settings I had arrived at felt very sluggish. It seems you have to go with much slower settings to get the trackpad to work than you'd use for a real mouse, which is not a good indicator of how the pad competes with the mouse. But again, I'm in the early phase of adjusting. We may just be using the wrong settings.

The way your thumb rests on the pad is also a factor in how precise the pad is. You need to be sure to bend your thumb over the pad instead of resting your thumb on it (as you would with an analog stick) so that as little of your thumb as possible is touching the surface.
 

Deadstar

Member
In my opinion it already is, with barely any need to adapt.

With what games and what settings? I tried Portal 2 with valve's official settings and it was nowhere close to dual stick accuracy. I could move the sticks faster but it wasn't as accurate and every time you stop moving, the screen still registers movement on your thumb and the screen moves a bit. It's very annoying.

If you can recommend what game you played and what the settings were that would be great so I can try it. At this point I just don't see how it's possible but I want to believe.
 

Unai

Member
Hmm. I'll have to look into it.



Easily.

In my opinion it already is, with barely any need to adapt.

DS2 is awesome with it, haven't fucked around with DS1 yet though.



It is hilariously better, even without using the gyro. Gyro will just make it even better.

Great!

With what games and what settings? I tried Portal 2 with valve's official settings and it was nowhere close to dual stick accuracy. I could move the sticks faster but it wasn't as accurate and every time you stop moving, the screen still registers movement on your thumb and the screen moves a bit. It's very annoying.

If you can recommend what game you played and what the settings were that would be great so I can try it. At this point I just don't see how it's possible but I want to believe.

I don't have the controller yet, but this is what trackball emulation is supposed to do if you lift your thumb from the controller after a swipe. You can disable it setting the right pad as a mouse instead of a trackball.
 
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