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Steam Controller Thread | Comfy Couch Sold Separately
- Thread starter Nzyme32
- Start date
GraveHorizon
poop meter feature creep
Just tweaked my desktop configuration, now it has most things I use aside from a keyboard. It's published as "Desktop and Internet Browser Settings" (ID: 542542151 if relevant) if anyone wants to give it a try. One thing I really want to know is how do you make the stick scroll continuously in desktop mode? I've messed with the deadzones and turbo settings, but the stick scrolls a notch at a time. The scrollwheel and middle click functions are perfectly usable, but sometimes I want to just use the stick for a moment. NeoGAF is an issue occasionally on this TV: most text is just slightly too small given the distance, and I'd rather slide quickly over to see all the readable posting formatted perfectly within the frame than adjust the zoom (copy or paste button + scrollwheel) to fit the whole page width onscreen or click the wheel.
ashecitism
Member
beta update, not just for this controller
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/announcements/detail/48771165951552962
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/announcements/detail/48771165951552962
No, although I had a lot of success with the sensitivity quite low, medium feedback and friction, added rotation to the orientation of the pad by about 30 degrees. Increasing the smoothing a little also helped massively, as I like to use a light touch that ends up being a bit shaky. I basically set it up so that, from the centre of the pad, by touch only I can get to see about 80 degrees further swiping left / right, so from the left most point to the right I go through about 160 degrees.
A gentle flick from the centre should get me a 90 degree turn, and a slightly stornger flick gets me a full 180. As forcefully as I can flick using the whole pad, usually gets a bit over 400 degrees.
Making sure I can consistently get that, helps massively. Further to this though, I've developed some skill in "rolling" my thumb around when trying to be accurate, which works wonderfully, but still not quite perfectly. Using the gyros in combination with all this is pretty much the best thing, but I haven't put in nearly enough practice to be adept at it yet.
Ultimately though all that is for the most competitive shooters like CS:GO. In fallout NV for example, I'm a bit more lax with the setup but still go for this kind of thing minus the gyros, and it is an absolute joy to play.
GraveHorizon
poop meter feature creep
Thanks, I didn't consider solving the reading issue outside of the controller. But I still want to know how to fix the stick problem, because that's how a stick is supposed to work, right?
How do you guys fix games that don't display properly? Jade Empire, Knights of the Old Republic, and The Last Express all work for me, except when I get to the title screens they are magnified (despite being set at correct resolutions), so more than half of what should be displayed is off screen. Happens regardless if I am in full screen or windowed.
Could just set the CTRL+ALT+DEL / CTRL+SHIFT+ESC (Or even ALT+F4) key combinations to Select or one of the grip buttons and that should work. And yeah, you'd have to do that per-game.
And its possible to turn off the controller without starting BPM by pressing the steam button for 10sec finally now.
That's a shame about having to have to set it for each game, although I never actually even thought of the start / select buttons working with modifiers. So multiple keys can be bound to one button press? Wouldn't mind binding a few shortcuts to the start and select buttons for easy alt-tabbing or easily getting to the task manager and using the CLEAR key to close a black screened game.
Yes, read the rest of the update news already posted or check the OP
Nabs
Member
New Firmware released:
An update to the Steam Controller's firmware has been released. You must be in the Steam client Beta and running Big Picture mode to receive the update.
Update notes:
- Gyro auto-calibration improvements
- Increased trackpad active area
- Battery life improvements
http://steamcommunity.com/games/353370/announcements/detail/38638504977848272
An update to the Steam Controller's firmware has been released. You must be in the Steam client Beta and running Big Picture mode to receive the update.
Update notes:
- Gyro auto-calibration improvements
- Increased trackpad active area
- Battery life improvements
http://steamcommunity.com/games/353370/announcements/detail/38638504977848272
Hahaha. Basically everything I complained about to Valve in one firmware patch. Will have to test it tomorrow and report back
mntorankusu
Member
What you want to do is mode shift the right pad. Set your ADS button as the mode shift button for the right pad, and then adjust the sensitivity to your liking. You could also increase the smoothing to stabilize your crosshairs while aiming down sights.
Yes - use the mouse dampening function, or you can use the tiggers to mode shift the pad to a lower sensitivity
lol welp
*installs new firmware*
EDIT: Okay so the trackpad active area definitely feels better now, but I'm still having my problem with a jumping cursor in Telltale games when using gamepad simulation (not really sure what other game would be a good test, but obviously it's not happening with a normal gamepad's control stick).
Kind of frustrating, hmm!
blainethemono
Member
still having the same issue with my left touchpad in d-pad mode, and also BPM is crashing a lot when pulling it up in-game
Crayon
Member
I have been on stable for the last few days. I went back to beta now and there is an enormous improvement to response when using the right pad as buttons in freedom planet. Before was having trouble hitting double buttons but now it's responding like it should. I like the new options, too. Seems to be improving conspicuously quick...
Mine has changed to "shipping soon" too.
Aiming is much easier on the Steam Controller but takes some getting used to as well as configuring it for your preferences. You can do so many things with it and different people will have different preferences. Yesterday I tried CoD:AW with the Steam Controller and set left trigger (aim) to lower mouse sensitivity and activate gyro which also acts as mouse. This allows me to use the gyro to line up shots - it's pretty great for trying to shoot several guys close to each other.
The difficult part is unlearning what you're used to on other controllers. This is probably the first one that allows you to keep all fingers where they are yet have complete control. On other controllers you're usually alternating between right stick and face buttons.
One of the things the controller still needs is toggle buttons for remapping. For example Witcher 3 has enough controls that when you have a great combat mapping you might not have equally good mapping for other situations (map, conversations, inventory/store etc). I wish a Steam + some other button combinations could be mapped to do something like this.
Maybe a good idea to create a steam controller delivery thread. The last information thread was full of people just saying mines has shipped or not.
Thanks, I don't have the controller yet but I'm looking forward to trying these options.
alexandros
Banned
I guess this kinda vindicates Valve's community'driven approach to most things. It seems the community came up with a way of using the controller that its designers hadn't thought about.
So I picked up an unopened controller off of eBay for $53 after shipping (which is literally only a penny more than it would have cost me at retail after tax) and I couldn't be happier with this thing. I was worried at first because when I first powered it on it connected and immediately the haptics on the right hand side going off and the mouse was jittering like mad - Thank God the firmware update fixed that. The tinkerer in me is having a ball trying out different configs and tweaking it to my liking. Hell, I've been sitting back on my couch and using the thing as a mouse to navigate the OS. It took me forever to realize the scroll function the the left touchpad was like a wheel rather than a flicking up and down motion.
Sir Abacus
Member
Finally.
Awesome.
Gyroscope aiming has been criminally overlooked. Also why it's frustrating Microsoft added no gyroscopes or anything to the XB1 controller as it dooms multiplatform games to just ignore it when it could've been one of the large changes of this generation.
Touchpad in the way the DS4 did it probably wasn't going anywhere though. I think we needed something like the Steam Controller's to be relevant.
So have people been able to play Mass Effect with this? Every time I try I can't get the steam overlay to show up at all and the steam controller won't do anything. Sucks because this is the series I want to replay through the most with this controller and finally play ME3 for the first time, but it has always felt like a game meant for a controller to me.
Jon of the Wired
Member
Ok, after playing some more Witcher 3 in Gamepad mode, I think mntorankusu is really on to something here. The Steam Controller needs a velocity-controlled virtual joystick mode.
I think it's generally agreed that for controlling the camera in a game the right trackpad is great when emulating a mouse/trackball, but pretty rubbish as a virtual joystick. I think one of the primary reasons for this is that camera control just feels better (and is much more precise) when the movement of your thumb on the pad (or your mouse) correlates directly with the movement of the camera. The problem is that if the relationship between a normal mouse, or the Steam Controller in mouse mode and the camera is <input velocity> -> <camera velocity>, for the virtual stick (or, indeed, a real stick) it's <input position> -> <camera velocity>. I think that already feels like junk on a normal stick, though I understand there's a lot of people now who are totally ok with it, but on the Steam Controller it's much worse, because the position of your thumb on the pad is more uncertain than it would be with a physical stick, and since the position on the pad is what matters, it just feels like you're a bit out of control all the time.
The solution, as mntorankusu points out, is to set the position of the virtual stick based not on the position of your thumb on the pad, but rather on the velocity of your thumb on the pad. Then, the relationship between the input and the in-game camera is <input velocity> -> <stick position> -> <camera velocity> which approximates the desired <input velocity> -> <camera velocity>. With the proper tuning, this should feel a lot like the excellent mouse mode for the trackpad. I'd also give major bonus points if trackball mode was supported, so the position of the virtual stick is determined not by the velocity of your thumb, but by the velocity of the virtual trackball.
ashecitism
Member
Suggest this to Valve. Before the launch they had a Stick Mouse mode, which they took out, because it was unfinished. No idea when it's coming back, if it does, but can't see why they wouldn't be open to add further modes.
Jon of the Wired
Member
How do you suggest things to Valve?
ashecitism
Member
It's in the OP
though there's a chance they're also reading this thread, as we had a dev posting in the previous one and the Link thread, but just in case here's the email
Nabs
Member
alexandros
Banned
That sounds great, send an email to Valve ASAP!
The firmware seems to have fixed some issues, partially fixed others, while not resolving other issues I had. Sent them another long message detailing it. Most of the issues I am having relate to the left pad. Now the left side is still misaligned but the right side of it is fine.
The dpad random jittering is still an issue. Now I have also found that specifically for mouse input on the left pad, a third of the left side registers no input for about 1cm from the outer edge - yet the dpad mode registers fine.
Also the relaxed hipfire trigger never maintains it's state if you set it up, it just reverts to normal or aggressive.
The dpad random jittering is still an issue. Now I have also found that specifically for mouse input on the left pad, a third of the left side registers no input for about 1cm from the outer edge - yet the dpad mode registers fine.
Also the relaxed hipfire trigger never maintains it's state if you set it up, it just reverts to normal or aggressive.
So after reading the feedback here on GAF, I placed the order for the controller through Steam on the 22nd of October. My shipping date shows December 9 2015 :/
But on Amazon, you can pre-order the controller and it shows the shipping date as November 10th so I ordered on there as well. Whichever comes first, I'll just sell the second one.
Fingers crossed.
But on Amazon, you can pre-order the controller and it shows the shipping date as November 10th so I ordered on there as well. Whichever comes first, I'll just sell the second one.
Fingers crossed.
That's already in the OP and Steam's store page for all new orders via Steam. Elsewhere will be different
Blak_Status
Member
Trying to see if I can get someone to sell me one now. I haven't been successful lol. Went ahead and pre-ordered on Amazon anyway.
Jon of the Wired
Member
Cool. I've sent them an email.
What is going on? Just downloaded the update and now steam keyboard overlay is broke. Does not type in boxes any more. Is also constantly asking me to join the beta when I'm in it erghhhhh
Betas
Edit:
Ok so the keyboard doesn't show an output but when you hit enter everything is typed at once. Weeeeird.
Betas
Edit:
Ok so the keyboard doesn't show an output but when you hit enter everything is typed at once. Weeeeird.
Has anyone successfully used this with Project64? I can launch through Steam, but keep getting an exception error when booting a game with the default controller plugin set to Xinput (this is a common problem not related to the Steam pad). Also, the Steam pad has been configured to have gamepad output, yet it still registers as a mouse when P64 launches, meaning that it will probably register as kb+mouse even if the game did load. I tried a different Xinput plugin and now the games boot, there's just no response from the Steam pad at all.
I really want to have the Steam controller output as Xinput so that P64 will recognize analog stick or trackpad movement as analog movement, but it just doesn't seem to be working. I can get the Steam pad to work as a kb+mouse with WASD movement easily, but holy shit, that's unplayable.
My goal is to use the analog stick to move, then have the gyro mapped to analog move as well so that I can activate it for gyro aim. There's got to be a way to do this, right?
I really want to have the Steam controller output as Xinput so that P64 will recognize analog stick or trackpad movement as analog movement, but it just doesn't seem to be working. I can get the Steam pad to work as a kb+mouse with WASD movement easily, but holy shit, that's unplayable.
My goal is to use the analog stick to move, then have the gyro mapped to analog move as well so that I can activate it for gyro aim. There's got to be a way to do this, right?