• 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

Nzyme32

Member
Just got mine in, about to unbox it.

I recommend you stay away from the client beta for now. It's a beta in every sense of the word for the Steam Controller, where they changed a lot of things and have a lot of bugs and missing community bindings till they fix it up "soon"
 

Bunta

Fujiwara Tofu Shop
I recommend you stay away from the client beta for now. It's a beta in every sense of the word for the Steam Controller, where they changed a lot of things and have a lot of bugs and missing community bindings till they fix it up "soon"
Yeah, I've been reading the thread and figured I should stay away from the beta client for now.

edit: This is definitely going to take some getting use to. I'm sort of lost at the moment with the amount of options. A couple of community configs I've used with CSGO have the left analog not working for some reason, and I can't find out how to move lol.
 
Has anyone gotten any older gog games to work with the overlay? I'm thinking more specifically anything in dosbox and Rogue Squadron 3D. Would love to be able to do some of the old Lucas Arts p&c's from the couch with their big and beefy UI's
 

Bunta

Fujiwara Tofu Shop
CS:GO is acting like shit with the controller in general. Trying random configs and the controller not working at all.
 

Durante

Member
I recommend you stay away from the client beta for now. It's a beta in every sense of the word for the Steam Controller, where they changed a lot of things and have a lot of bugs and missing community bindings till they fix it up "soon"
But in the beta you get important features like custom startup/shutdown sounds!

And actually important features like changing the brightness of the logo illumination.

(Well, when you are doing local gaming with 4 Steam controllers, the custom startup sound is also somewhat useful)
 

Bunta

Fujiwara Tofu Shop
Someone said stay away from the beta, but I think the official config only works with the beta.

Hmmm. I'm using the stable client right now, and it's not only the official config that won't work for me. Other games like Insurgency are working fine.
 

Jinkies

Member
Hmmm. I'm using the stable client right now, and it's not only the official config that won't work for me. Other games like Insurgency are working fine.

The primary difference is use of fancy rumble effects Valve is rolling out in CS:GO and L4D.
 

dity

Member
So should I not being using the Steam beta? Cos I've always been using the beta.

I don't even know what would happen if I opted out of the Steam beta. I've never not been on it.
 

Bunta

Fujiwara Tofu Shop
The primary difference is use of fancy rumble effects Valve is rolling out in CS:GO and L4D.
Yeah, I tried out the beta client. The configs started working. I found the rumble really annoying while playing CS:GO, the noise it makes is irritating.
 

loganclaws

Plane Escape Torment
I just got mine and tried to play a bunch of games like Arkham Origins using the most popular community configs, I think the right pad was in mouse-joystick mode and the camera sensitivity was extremely low. I checked the settings to try and increase sensitivity in the controller options and it said to increase the sensitivity from the game options. Except that in Arkham Origins there are no in game camera sensitivity options... Not sure how people play this game???
 
Is there any way to reinstall the firmware on this controller? Ever since the last update, my controller's analog stick has been acting up. It'll work fine at first, but after a while, the right area of the stick will stop sending any input. I've tried calibrating it, restarting it, replacing the batteries, and using a wired connection, all of which fix the issue, but only for a short time. If I'm missing anything else that I could do, though, please let me know. I'd rather it turn out to be something I can solve before I try asking Valve for a return. Also, I have opted out from the beta client, and the issue still persists, so it probably isn't that.
 

Unai

Member
I just got mine and tried to play a bunch of games like Arkham Origins using the most popular community configs, I think the right pad was in mouse-joystick mode and the camera sensitivity was extremely low. I checked the settings to try and increase sensitivity in the controller options and it said to increase the sensitivity from the game options. Except that in Arkham Origins there are no in game camera sensitivity options... Not sure how people play this game???

In my opinion the Batman games play better emulating a pure keyboard and mouse setup exactly because they don't have in game sensitivity settings. Or just try to emulate the analog stick the normal way instead of Mouse Joystick but at that point it would better to just use a xbox 360 controller.
 

loganclaws

Plane Escape Torment
In my opinion the Batman games play better emulating a pure keyboard and mouse setup exactly because they don't have in game sensitivity settings. Or just try to emulate the analog stick the normal way instead of Mouse Joystick but at that point it would better to just use a xbox 360 controller.

Yeah I have an Xbox controller but I was hoping to get more refined control of the camera, I'll try keyboard and mouse and see how it is. So far I'm having a hard time finding a game that shows off the advantages of this controller...
 
I just bought a steam controller today however it looks as though the right trackpad haptic feedback appears to be non responsive. I'm getting it for the left one when I scroll through stuff. How would I test to see if the right one works? And if it doesn't, how would I go about getting a replacement? Can I just bring to gamestop and request a swap or will I have to go through Valve?
 

Unai

Member
I just bought a steam controller today however it looks as though the right trackpad haptic feedback appears to be non responsive. I'm getting it for the left one when I scroll through stuff. How would I test to see if the right one works? And if it doesn't, how would I go about getting a replacement? Can I just bring to gamestop and request a swap or will I have to go through Valve?

Setting it as mouse it's the best way to test it. If you enable the haptics, move the cursor around, and don't feel anything than you probably have a defective unity.

I just bought a steam controller today however it looks as though the right trackpad haptic feedback appears to be non responsive. I'm getting it for the left one when I scroll through stuff. How would I test to see if the right one works? And if it doesn't, how would I go about getting a replacement? Can I just bring to gamestop and request a swap or will I have to go through Valve?

This video has a lot of interesting suggestions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWf-q0FxTBM
 

Widge

Member
But in the beta you get important features like custom startup/shutdown sounds!

And actually important features like changing the brightness of the logo illumination.

(Well, when you are doing local gaming with 4 Steam controllers, the custom startup sound is also somewhat useful)

These are beta features? I got my controller new at Christmas and these are there for me to select out of the box.
 
So I just got Project Cars. Much like the Steam Controller, the emphasis in the game seems to be on tweaking. This is something I value very highly, but I also appreciate being able to stand on the shoulders of giants to begin with. So do any of the experts here on GAF have a really good solid basic Steam Controller setup for PCars? Preferably involving gyro steering and common sense.

Of course you can tweak the responses in the game as well, not to mention the fact that everyone likes things a little bit different (or even different for different kinds of driving).

It's just that marrying a totally customisable controller with a totally customisable game seems like something that really needs a bit of experienced advice to avoid wasting lots of time, and to coin a phrase, reinventing the steering wheel.

If anyone can share both controller configs and in-game settings, with the intent being a base to build on, rather than one size fits all, that would be great!

Cross-posting in the PRoject Cars OT: http://neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1041928
 

Jinkies

Member
So I just got Project Cars. Much like the Steam Controller, the emphasis in the game seems to be on tweaking. This is something I value very highly, but I also appreciate being able to stand on the shoulders of giants to begin with. So do any of the experts here on GAF have a really good solid basic Steam Controller setup for PCars? Preferably involving gyro steering and common sense.

Of course you can tweak the responses in the game as well, not to mention the fact that everyone likes things a little bit different (or even different for different kinds of driving).

It's just that marrying a totally customisable controller with a totally customisable game seems like something that really needs a bit of experienced advice to avoid wasting lots of time, and to coin a phrase, reinventing the steering wheel.

If anyone can share both controller configs and in-game settings, with the intent being a base to build on, rather than one size fits all, that would be great!

Cross-posting in the PRoject Cars OT: http://neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1041928

http://youtu.be/HWf-q0FxTBM

1:20
 

Freeman76

Member
I'm tempted to buy one of these, but I'm a man of simple pleasures and have always preferred consoles due to the lack of fucking around with settings. I have a pretty good PC I bought for GW2 and ended up building a pretty big STEAM library through trading etc, but cant be sitting at my desk all day.

Is the STEAM controller simple to use. For example, fire up MASS EFFECT 2, kick back on couch, settings are preloaded and away I go?
 

ZServ

Member
I'm tempted to buy one of these, but I'm a man of simple pleasures and have always preferred consoles due to the lack of fucking around with settings. I have a pretty good PC I bought for GW2 and ended up building a pretty big STEAM library through trading etc, but cant be sitting at my desk all day.

Is the STEAM controller simple to use. For example, fire up MASS EFFECT 2, kick back on couch, settings are preloaded and away I go?

You may have to do some slight tweaking, but yeah.

I've had no issues with World of Warcraft, Dishonored, Battlefield 4, Torchlight II, Dungeon Souls, and Borderlands 2 since I got the controller on Christmas.

Literally the only oddities I've had have been with Darksiders and Darksiders II, because of the camera being on the right touch pad, and neither game supporting mouse AND gamepad at the same time.
 

zbarron

Member
Is the STEAM controller simple to use. For example, fire up MASS EFFECT 2, kick back on couch, settings are preloaded and away I go?
Honestly I love the controller but if ease of use is what you are after I might give it another month or so. Not all games have profiles yet so if you want to play something less popular you might have to make your own which, granted is easier than you'd think, but give it a month and I'd say almost all games will have community bindings up by then.

If the games you plan on playing have 360 controller support it takes about 10 seconds to set up the controller to act like one. It's really the older PC exclusive games that need more complicated bindings.
 

Shane

Member
Feel I'm only touching the surface with this controller. The customisation is intense.

What settings on the right track pad do people use for twitch FPS'?
 
Feel I'm only touching the surface with this controller. The customisation is intense.

What settings on the right track pad do people use for twitch FPS'?
I usually set sensitivity to the point where I can do a full 180 from the left side to the right side, high haptics, no acceleration, medium spin friction, rotation set halfway (so it's a straight horizontal line), and smoothing set to 10. I've had zero issues using only the trackpad to aim with this setting, and of course, if you're still struggling after that, you can always throw in gyro aim to help.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
The controller is great but I'm shocked at how shit the ecosystem around it is. The controller only shows up right if you launch from BPM, desktop support is scattershot, you can't remap the BPM navigation controls ("Coming Soon"--didn't they work on this for over a year?!). I played Elliot Quest, which is sorta crummy technically, and got a prompt telling me my Steam Controller was having problems. It wasn't, but I couldn't dismiss the prompt or see what those problems supposedly were.

Kinda bizarre because this is so close to being not just a great controller but a great navigation device too.

Also if they want to discontinue the client in favour of BPM, no loss, but let me run BPM windowed and finish reimplementing functionality.

While I'm complaining, not being able to view achievements in offline mode is stupid as hell.
 

Crayon

Member
I'm tempted to buy one of these, but I'm a man of simple pleasures and have always preferred consoles due to the lack of fucking around with settings. I have a pretty good PC I bought for GW2 and ended up building a pretty big STEAM library through trading etc, but cant be sitting at my desk all day.

Is the STEAM controller simple to use. For example, fire up MASS EFFECT 2, kick back on couch, settings are preloaded and away I go?


It's worth a try because that's the only way to know if you will like it. I've not found any good way to summarize my feelings for the controller overall. I'd say it might be 50/50 for you love it/hate it.

I prefer consoles myself because the blinders/handcuffs keeps me from fucking off hours playing around with settings, tweaks and associated research. The steam controller setup especially in this early period is a legit time suck or at least it can be for some users. I personally have spent enough time in that setting screen to complete a short rpg.

BUT I LIKE IT because the result is WORTH IT. So while for me, the payoff for tweaking graphics is borderline and often feels like time wasted away. Tuning my own control config however... with this unprecedented device... is completely worth the hours I put into it and it makes my games more intimate and enjoyable. It's worth the time and it's a worthwhile addition to the hobby. I feel like I can play any game with this and that's what I'll do.

I will mention, for perspective, that at this juncture I actively attempt to complete usable setups as quickly as possible (1-5 min), and then fine tune as I play the game. I arrived at this approach because early on I was getting burned out by trying to make perfect setups before even playing a game. That made an obstacle to just enjoying games. I now just pick a template and go look at the game's options screen to get some ideas, then start playing. I still spend a good amount of time in the controller binding screen, but I don't let it dominate the session and I do it in little bites.

I don't know if you'll like it but there's no way to know without trying it.
 
The controller is great but I'm shocked at how shit the ecosystem around it is. The controller only shows up right if you launch from BPM, desktop support is scattershot, you can't remap the BPM navigation controls ("Coming Soon"--didn't they work on this for over a year?!). I played Elliot Quest, which is sorta crummy technically, and got a prompt telling me my Steam Controller was having problems. It wasn't, but I couldn't dismiss the prompt or see what those problems supposedly were.

Yeah, I like the controller itself, but everything around it feels like a beta at best.
 

Freeman76

Member
It's worth a try because that's the only way to know if you will like it. I've not found any good way to summarize my feelings for the controller overall. I'd say it might be 50/50 for you love it/hate it.

I prefer consoles myself because the blinders/handcuffs keeps me from fucking off hours playing around with settings, tweaks and associated research. The steam controller setup especially in this early period is a legit time suck or at least it can be for some users. I personally have spent enough time in that setting screen to complete a short rpg.

BUT I LIKE IT because the result is WORTH IT. So while for me, the payoff for tweaking graphics is borderline and often feels like time wasted away. Tuning my own control config however... with this unprecedented device... is completely worth the hours I put into it and it makes my games more intimate and enjoyable. It's worth the time and it's a worthwhile addition to the hobby. I feel like I can play any game with this and that's what I'll do.

I will mention, for perspective, that at this juncture I actively attempt to complete usable setups as quickly as possible (1-5 min), and then fine tune as I play the game. I arrived at this approach because early on I was getting burned out by trying to make perfect setups before even playing a game. That made an obstacle to just enjoying games. I now just pick a template and go look at the game's options screen to get some ideas, then start playing. I still spend a good amount of time in the controller binding screen, but I don't let it dominate the session and I do it in little bites.

I don't know if you'll like it but there's no way to know without trying it.

Cant say fairer than that, thanks man i think i will take the plunge.
 

Nabs

Member
New Beta Update:

Steam Controller
  • Fixed saving legacy configurations for titles with native controller support.
  • Fixed the configurator sometimes not displaying the correct title and author for a given set of bindings, including templates.
  • Improved responsiveness of the configuration selector in some cases.
  • Fixed a regression where the desktop keyboard would sometimes steal focus.
  • Fixed a bug where configuration migration would fail for users that had non-Steam shortcuts with special characters in their names.
  • Added ability to rename Non-Steam Game Shortcuts within Big Picture's Manage Shortcut options. Non-Steam Game Community Configurations are shared based on their name, letting users fine-tune their binding selection.
  • Fixed various bugs related to attempting to edit a configuration that wasn't linked to an associated controller/account. This would appear to work, but not be saved/reflected on the actual accounts/controllers in use.
 
Apart from Project Cars(as mentioned in that Woodsie video), any recommended racing games to try with the gyro? Preferably arcade-y, rather than a sim. Also cheapish(while Steam sale is active). I want to try one, but turns out I don't have a single racing game on Steam.

Apart from that, I'm quite enjoying the controller so far. Even something as simple as using it on the desktop and web browser is great. Love the haptics and touch pads. While having a bit more resistance than I'd like, clicking the pads is really nice. Never liked stick clicks(especially in the heat of a moment) but here it just feels right. The paddles are a great addition too.

Only thing I'm still getting used to is using the left pad for character movement. Also holding it correctly so I've got fingers on all the triggers/bumpers/paddles. Gotta break almost 2 decades of muscle memory for that.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Oh shit. How well does Prince of Persia Sands of Time work on the Steam Controller? One of the main reasons I was interested in this controller was for console-style games that came out on PC before Microsoft made Xinput.
 
So is there a good way to get Origin/GOG/uplay games into steam in a way that I can use the controller easily? I mean, I can kinda load Origin through steam, and then Syndicate (the FPS, not AC) lets me treat it like a keyboard....but the clicks dont work, and I cant search for control schemes people have made, or even popup the steam overlay?


I dunno!
 
Oh shit. How well does Prince of Persia Sands of Time work on the Steam Controller? One of the main reasons I was interested in this controller was for console-style games that came out on PC before Microsoft made Xinput.

Haven't tried it but probably just fine. You might not get analogue movement on the left stick though, as you'd be binding WASD to it.
 

Shane

Member
I usually set sensitivity to the point where I can do a full 180 from the left side to the right side, high haptics, no acceleration, medium spin friction, rotation set halfway (so it's a straight horizontal line), and smoothing set to 10. I've had zero issues using only the trackpad to aim with this setting, and of course, if you're still struggling after that, you can always throw in gyro aim to help.


Thanks, will try that.

With Gyro I can't get it to work. When using community bindings with gyro it still doesn't work. Tried resetting the gyro and still nothing. Will try again tonight.
 
Are you just emulating the Xbox pad with your FO4 config? In terms of aiming with the pads, it would most likely be better if you were emulating the mouse and keyboard instead.

I'm playing with a modified Xbox config that requires I edit an .ini to increase the sensitivity beyond what's allowed in the settings. This gets the right pad pretty close to the mouse.

Here's a user from Reddit explaining it:

I'm actually using the developer recommended profile for the game, and it feels ok for controlling the game, but after going back to a normal 360 controller to play for an hour or so, it felt like I was cheating with the speed and accuracy I got by using a traditional controller.

Which from all that I can read, is the exact opposite reaction everyone else is having, so I'm wondering if that game in particular is funky or I'm just broken after not having used a mouse as a input device for games since Half Life 2.
 

Widge

Member
I'm actually using the developer recommended profile for the game, and it feels ok for controlling the game, but after going back to a normal 360 controller to play for an hour or so, it felt like I was cheating with the speed and accuracy I got by using a traditional controller.

Which from all that I can read, is the exact opposite reaction everyone else is having, so I'm wondering if that game in particular is funky or I'm just broken after not having used a mouse as a input device for games since Half Life 2.

I was like a fish out of water with FO4. Proper panicky aiming that twitches around everywhere. Going to wait until my XB1 pad comes for this.

My purpose of Steampad is to open up games that have no controller support whatsoever (or games where controller support is terrible in comparison to KB&M like Left 4 Dead).

Some games are just fantastic on controller, recent Bethesda games, Bioshocks and Deus EX HR come to mind as ones that were just dreamy.
 

dity

Member
So, I just played an hour of Edna & Harvey with the controller. It's the first game I've played with a community configuration up and wow, the experience is amazing. So glad I have one of these now.
 

MNC

Member
New Beta Update:

Steam Controller
  • Fixed saving legacy configurations for titles with native controller support.
  • Fixed the configurator sometimes not displaying the correct title and author for a given set of bindings, including templates.
  • Improved responsiveness of the configuration selector in some cases.
  • Fixed a regression where the desktop keyboard would sometimes steal focus.
  • Fixed a bug where configuration migration would fail for users that had non-Steam shortcuts with special characters in their names.
  • Added ability to rename Non-Steam Game Shortcuts within Big Picture's Manage Shortcut options. Non-Steam Game Community Configurations are shared based on their name, letting users fine-tune their binding selection.
  • Fixed various bugs related to attempting to edit a configuration that wasn't linked to an associated controller/account. This would appear to work, but not be saved/reflected on the actual accounts/controllers in use.

For some reason, when I want to edit a configuration (Strider in this case, from the default) I change a setting, back out of the controller configuration menu, go back into the menu, and my changes have been reverted. Every single time. Have not yet tested this with other games.
 
My controller's out of the box calibration was absolute garbage. Had to recalibrate.

It's interesting. I don't think I could ever play a shooter with this (I tried FO4) but this is awesome for games like Civ.
 

Durante

Member
My controller's out of the box calibration was absolute garbage. Had to recalibrate.

It's interesting. I don't think I could ever play a shooter with this but this is awesome for games like Civ.
Can you play a shooter with a dual analog controller? If not, that's fine (and I can relate!), but if you can, do give it some more time.

I've come to the conclusion that the right pad in trackball mode is greatly superior for camera control to a thumbstick in absolutely every game I've tried.
 
Can you play a shooter with a dual analog controller? If not, that's fine (and I can relate!), but if you can, do give it some more time.

I've come to the conclusion that the right pad in trackball mode is greatly superior for camera control to a thumbstick in absolutely every game I've tried.
Yes I can.

I definitely plan to invest some more time into it. I might just need to up the right pad's sensitivity more. I'm mostly accurate, but it feels slow.

Edit - I'm going to try a shooter with a mouse-based config. It seems FO4 tries to emulate an analog stick.
 
Top Bottom