• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Steam Controller Thread | Comfy Couch Sold Separately

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.
I had that a while ago. It fixed itself though after a restart of bpm. I guessed it was something to do with the predictive text as those would change as if it was typing normally.
 

hepburn3d

Member
I had that a while ago. It fixed itself though after a restart of bpm. I guessed it was something to do with the predictive text as those would change as if it was typing normally.

Restarted. Re-installed. Turned Beta on and off. Still won't show the text typing. It's manageable for the moment until a fix :)

I got a reply from Steam support about some of my feedback. Love those guys.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
What's the fair market value for the pad? I just got mine and I'm going to sell it here or eBay. I'm not even going to bother opening it.
 
Steam Controller:
Added option to turn off steam controller when leaving Big Picture mode.
Additional work to prevent noise and drift for the gyro when in a steady state. Calibration will refine when left idle for five seconds if current configuration uses Gyro. If drift is severe, leave idle for 15 seconds for repeated refinements. Note that "always on" is not required for auto-calibration, it happens regardless of button activation.

So the latest beta does some work on the gyro.
 

Nerrel

Member
Has anyone successfully used this with Project64? ... the Steam pad has been configured to have gamepad output, yet it still registers as a mouse when P64 launches

Bumping this question to add that the same happens in Dolphin. I can't seem to take the Steam controller out of Big Picture mode with Xinput. Even if I launch through Steam with the controller configured as a gamepad in the shortcut options, it still reverts to desktop kb+mouse controls when the emulator window opens.

Is there any way to get the controller to function as Xinput in emulators? I wonder if disabling/blanking out the desktop configuration would do anything. Maybe there's a conflict of the two input types?
 
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?

Even if you get the program to accept input from the controller, using a joystick output from the controller will probably not get the result you want. The configuration interface doesn't support any kind of "relative movement only" output for joystick emulation. Using the gyro to emulate a joystick will only work like a steering wheel-- tilting in any direction will cause continuous movement in that direction. It's not really usable for aiming.

As it is, you can use a P64 plugin that supports mouse input to get the right pad/gyro aiming to work the way you want, but there''s no way to get the right kind of mouse emulation to make the left stick work when doing it this way.

Everybody please send Valve an e-mail and tell them that you want a relative/trackball mode for joystick emulation.
 
Even if you get the program to accept input from the controller, using a joystick output from the controller will probably not get the result you want. The configuration interface doesn't support any kind of "relative movement only" output for joystick emulation. Using the gyro to emulate a joystick will only work like a steering wheel-- tilting in any direction will cause continuous movement in that direction. It's not really usable for aiming.

As it is, you can use a P64 plugin that supports mouse input to get the right pad/gyro aiming to work the way you want, but there''s no way to get the right kind of mouse emulation to make the left stick work when doing it this way.

Everybody please send Valve an e-mail and tell them that you want a relative/trackball mode for joystick emulation.

That won't work.

Every game treats the analog stick differently, from deadzones to acceleration to deadzone SHAPES to everything. I used to frequent the XIM forums, and one of their biggest selling points was specifically that they had software to literally play a game for 24 hours straight to learn all the different nuances of how that game treated the stick.... just to map it to a mouse well. Without any of that, it was very... bad feeling, and the trackball mode will do the same.

That being said, the guys at XIM might be able to work something out with it, I'd email them first.
 

Nerrel

Member
Even if you get the program to accept input from the controller, using a joystick output from the controller will probably not get the result you want. The configuration interface doesn't support any kind of "relative movement only" output for joystick emulation. Using the gyro to emulate a joystick will only work like a steering wheel-- tilting in any direction will cause continuous movement in that direction. It's not really usable for aiming.

As it is, you can use a P64 plugin that supports mouse input to get the right pad/gyro aiming to work the way you want, but there''s no way to get the right kind of mouse emulation to make the left stick work when doing it this way.

Everybody please send Valve an e-mail and tell them that you want a relative/trackball mode for joystick emulation.

Dammit, you're right. I've actually got gyro-aim working by mapping the mouse input to the analog stick. It's not as smooth as I'd like, but it's working:
22509921146_5b5b686494_b.jpg


The problem is that moving Link with the same configuration requires flicking the trackpad forward constantly for character movement. It is possible to select absolute mouse movement in P64's menu, which lets you hold a direction on the trackpad like an analog stick and even get analog movement, but then the gyro aim is pretty wonky.

I suppose having the Steam pad output absolute movement on one trackpad and relative movement on the other might make this possible, but for now I think I'm going to have to let this one go.

This has been the biggest letdown of the controller so far- the pad itself is great and can do anything you want. The problem is on the software side of things- few programs or games actually allow you to fully utilize the controller's features. I'm hoping this thing takes off enough that developers start providing native Steam pad support in the future; one would think that emulators would be a big target for this controller since its configuration allows it to work with pretty much any game from any genre.
 
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.

I second this. My order (placed on Oct. 9) still says Pre-Order as the shipping status, but with an estimated shipping date of Nov. 10.
 

Red

Member
Dammit, you're right. I've actually got gyro-aim working by mapping the mouse input to the analog stick. It's not as smooth as I'd like, but it's working:
22509921146_5b5b686494_b.jpg


The problem is that moving Link with the same configuration requires flicking the trackpad forward constantly for character movement. It is possible to select absolute mouse movement in P64's menu, which lets you hold a direction on the trackpad like an analog stick and even get analog movement, but then the gyro aim is pretty wonky.

I suppose having the Steam pad output absolute movement on one trackpad and relative movement on the other might make this possible, but for now I think I'm going to have to let this one go.

This has been the biggest letdown of the controller so far- the pad itself is great and can do anything you want. The problem is on the software side of things- few programs or games actually allow you to fully utilize the controller's features. I'm hoping this thing takes off enough that developers start providing native Steam pad support in the future; one would think that emulators would be a big target for this controller since its configuration allows it to work with pretty much any game from any genre.
why don't you use the stick for character movement?
 
That won't work.

Every game treats the analog stick differently, from deadzones to acceleration to deadzone SHAPES to everything. I used to frequent the XIM forums, and one of their biggest selling points was specifically that they had software to literally play a game for 24 hours straight to learn all the different nuances of how that game treated the stick.... just to map it to a mouse well. Without any of that, it was very... bad feeling, and the trackball mode will do the same.

That being said, the guys at XIM might be able to work something out with it, I'd email them first.

It works fine with lots of games. It works beautifully to control a third person camera because the same level of precision isn't required.

Some games work fine with Gamepad + Mouse at the same time, but most games don't. And yet we have that option prominently advertised and available.
 

Veal

Member
I second this. My order (placed on Oct. 9) still says Pre-Order as the shipping status, but with an estimated shipping date of Nov. 10.
This made me check the status of mine and it lists shipping soon! Ordered on August 21. Late bird peeps, check the status of your order! We might be getting them early!
 
That won't work.

Every game treats the analog stick differently, from deadzones to acceleration to deadzone SHAPES to everything. I used to frequent the XIM forums, and one of their biggest selling points was specifically that they had software to literally play a game for 24 hours straight to learn all the different nuances of how that game treated the stick.... just to map it to a mouse well. Without any of that, it was very... bad feeling, and the trackball mode will do the same.

That being said, the guys at XIM might be able to work something out with it, I'd email them first.

I think it would be fine. That XIM stuff sounds mostly like marketing bumf, and the Steam Controller software already has anti-deadzone features. As for figuring out the right settings, that's what community profile sharing is for.
 
Some games work fine with Gamepad + Mouse at the same time, but most games don't. And yet we have that option prominently advertised and available.

I'm happy with the controller but this is my biggest gripe with it. Granted its not Valves fault that games don't have simultaneous gamepad+mouse control but their marketing is misleading in this respect and the right trackpad is a poor replacement for a right stick.

For example, I've used Tomb Raider as a good test case for this. Map the right pad as a mouse and the rest as a gamepad and theres a huge delay everytime you want the camera to move. Map it all as M+K and the subtle analog control for movement is lost. I also prefer console-style onscreen prompts for those sorts of games so I'm currently stuck between worlds in that regard. And I don't like the aiming, gyro or not. When it all works well (ie witcher 3) its brilliant. I wish there was a way for valve to retrofit older games with gamepad+mouse compatibility as that would be perfect for me.

On the other side, its opened up my entire steam library for playing on my TV so I consider it a great investment. It works brilliantly with Sim City/XCom etc etc.

I can see myself going back and forth between this and the Xbone controller for the foreseeable future. But as of right now I'm not sure the steam controller is ready to take over 100%.
 

Nzyme32

Member
Is the radial touch menu new? I saw a post on reddit, and it looks like a feature that could grow into something special.

I just found it in the big picture controller configuration menus. It's an option for both touchpads. Maybe for the joystick too, forgot to check.
Not sure how long it's been there, probably since a recent beta update.

Awesome. This is a bit of a simpler version of the ghosting idea they talked about at dev days which was to be part of the touch screen that they then removed but said they would integrate that kind of functionality to the touchpads.

I'm hoping they build this into something much bigger. The suggestions at dev days that you could split the pads into any number of segments would be useful, but it would be amazing to let the community mod the hell out of it and make their own UI / elements to support different older games / mods etc.
 

Nerrel

Member
why don't you use the stick for character movement?

The stick won't register as analog input due to the Steam controller not working in Xinput mode in P64. You'd have to use kb+mouse mode and use the analog stick as WASD, which really, really sucks for this game, and that digital movement would also apply to aiming. I could easily get the gyro to work with WASD movement, but god, what's the point.
 

hollams

Gold Member
Had a strange issue after the firmware update. I like to setup my right trigger to use the dual zones so I can aim and shoot with one button. The trigger is set to hair trigger and even though I change it to hip fire normal it always reverts back to hair trigger so that function wouldn't work in a couple of new games that I tried. I went back to an older game and the configuration was still set but I didn't try changing it.
 

dsk1210

Member
The stick won't register as analog input due to the Steam controller not working in Xinput mode in P64. You'd have to use kb+mouse mode and use the analog stick as WASD, which really, really sucks for this game, and that digital movement would also apply to aiming. I could easily get the gyro to work with WASD movement, but god, what's the point.

Can't you set the controller to controller and high precision aim for mouse in BPM?
 

Red

Member
The stick won't register as analog input due to the Steam controller not working in Xinput mode in P64. You'd have to use kb+mouse mode and use the analog stick as WASD, which really, really sucks for this game, and that digital movement would also apply to aiming. I could easily get the gyro to work with WASD movement, but god, what's the point.
I see. That's too bad.
 

Milpool

Member
...The trigger is set to hair trigger and even though I change it to hip fire normal it always reverts back to hair trigger...

I'm having a similar issue with GTA V, I want to set the left trigger full press to enable gyro but it changes it to the right trigger. Also if I set it to right grip it changes it to the left bumper.
 

Nerrel

Member
Can't you set the controller to controller and high precision aim for mouse in BPM?

You can, but P64 crashes/closes when opening the control settings when running through Steam, so you can't configure it. Even if it worked, P64 doesn't allow multiple inputs for one action, so the game's analog stick has to be mapped to one or the other- the Steam analog or the gyro mouse. I think the best I can do is just map the gyro as analog stick output so that they both work with the same configuration, but aiming wouldn't be great.

There are modifiers that can be set in P64, but I don't even have the first clue to using them. Maybe there's a way to program the analog mapping to shift when holding the aim button.
 
I am having an odd issue with my Steam Controller. When I play rocket league, the haptics on the right trigger just stop. Then when I turn off the controller I have to then remove the batteries and put them back in order for it to work.

I don't know if its just a Rocket League problem or if it is more widespread. The batteries are fine in terms of charge.

Is this a known issue?
 

Vinlaen

Member
Can somebody explain why simultaneous mouse and joystick support is important for games using the Steam Controller? I'm trying to learn the best way to configure the controller, etc.
 
Can somebody explain why simultaneous mouse and joystick support is important for games using the Steam Controller? I'm trying to learn the best way to configure the controller, etc.

I'm no expert, but I assume it's so you can use the left analog stick as an ordinary controller's analog stick and use right touchpad as a mouse/trackball.
 

Nerrel

Member
Have you tried adding PJ64 to your Steam library?

Yes, that's where I'm launching it from. Unfortunately, P64 has major problems with Xinput when launching from Steam, even with a real 360 controller: https://github.com/project64/project64/issues/455

I've tried launching Dolphin from Steam, but can't get Xinput to register in the controller settings there, either. It just functions as a keyboard and mouse regardless of having set "gamepad" in Steam's shortcut controller configuration settings.
 
Can somebody explain why simultaneous mouse and joystick support is important for games using the Steam Controller? I'm trying to learn the best way to configure the controller, etc.
In games that don't support it, when you use a controller input and then a mouse/keyboard input, the game has to switch between the two. In general if it's just button presses there isn't a noticable delay involved...unless you use joystick for movement and mouse for camera/aim. Then to do both at the same time it has to constantly switch between the two and it murders the framerate. For example, in Witcher 3 I average about 45fps, but as soon as I panned the camera using mouse input it dropped to 15.
 
I had to go back to DS4 for Max Payne 3, the game crashes Steam as soon as I press the Steam button, and having to configure the control and restart the game over and over is annoying as all hell, tried for like 2 hours to configure a scheme but it wasn't working.

Game also constantly crashes on game over screens when being played with the Steam Controller, dont know whats going on.

Tried DX9, DX11, nothing, wonder if its just me.
 

hepburn3d

Member
A reply from Steam to some feedback I had in case anyone is interested:

Thanks for all your feedback. We’re glad you’re enjoying the controller.


We’re continuing to work on the software and enhancements to customization. There will continue to be more features coming on that front. But it’s already a complex system, so we want to make sure that the additions add power but also do so in ways that are reducing the complexity to set it up and to understand. We have some plans there that hopefully will allow you to configure it as you’d like, but I don’t want to promise anything before it’s ready to go.


While we don’t currently have a way to access OS specific buttons, you can bind Alt-Tab to a single button. Turning on multiband mode and selecting both should allow a single button press to alt-tab you to the desktop. The default desktop configuration also has separate alt and tab buttons (and shift) – right bumper, select button, and right pad click respectively, so getting back to the game should also be possible with no changes there.


We’ll have to look into the audio options availability from the overlay.


Thanks and hope you continue to enjoy playing everything from your couch!
 

Nzyme32

Member
I am having an odd issue with my Steam Controller. When I play rocket league, the haptics on the right trigger just stop. Then when I turn off the controller I have to then remove the batteries and put them back in order for it to work.

I don't know if its just a Rocket League problem or if it is more widespread. The batteries are fine in terms of charge.

Is this a known issue?

There seem to be some very weird game specific bugs with the controller, that also seem to vary between controller users. I don't have that issue with rocket league - but then again now that I think about it, I don't recall the right trigger doing much of anything, so maybe it is broken.

I know Binding of Isaac is broken for some reason. Undertale if set to use the dpad as move, will either not respond or auto-move around until you make several random inputs to the dpad yourself, after which point, it is fine.
 
There seem to be some very weird game specific bugs with the controller, that also seem to vary between controller users. I don't have that issue with rocket league - but then again now that I think about it, I don't recall the right trigger doing much of anything, so maybe it is broken.

I know Binding of Isaac is broken for some reason. Undertale if set to use the dpad as move, will either not respond or auto-move around until you make several random inputs to the dpad yourself, after which point, it is fine.

I am not surprised at the bugs just this one seems to be rather strange. As soon as the haptics goes and I decide to turn off the controller, I can't turn it on again without removing the batteries.

Still enjoying it though, I must say.
 

Awakened

Member
Yes, that's where I'm launching it from. Unfortunately, P64 has major problems with Xinput when launching from Steam, even with a real 360 controller: https://github.com/project64/project64/issues/455

I've tried launching Dolphin from Steam, but can't get Xinput to register in the controller settings there, either. It just functions as a keyboard and mouse regardless of having set "gamepad" in Steam's shortcut controller configuration settings.
Can you set your desktop profile to use xinput gamepad settings? Maybe when the input settings dialog is open the controller reverts to your desktop profile.

You might have better luck with RetroArch since it's input settings are in the main window in it's menu overlay. Though there's no Dolphin port for that yet and it doesn't let you set multiple inputs per button or analog.
 
This made me check the status of mine and it lists shipping soon! Ordered on August 21. Late bird peeps, check the status of your order! We might be getting them early!

Just checked mine again today and it's been changed to Shipping Soon too! Ordered on October 9. I'm not expecting to get it early though, I'm going to just assume that it will arrive on Nov. 10 and if I get it earlier than that, awesome.
 
Top Bottom