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Comment by Uvix | Hacker News Reader

As long as I need a mouse and keyboard to install updates or to install/start my games from GOG, it's still going to be decidedly unfun, but hopefully Windows' upcoming built-in controller support will make it less unfun.

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Today you can just buy an Xbox controller and pair it with your Windows computer and it just works and it’s the same same with the Mac.

You don’t have to install any drivers or anything and with the big screen mode in Steam it’s a lean back experience where you can pick out your games and start one up without using anything other than the controller.

If you have steam, ps4/ps5 controllers also work fine.

They do but they cost a lot more.

My ps5 came with one for “free”

They do not work fine in every game. That is why I think you need a Steam controller as well.

Plus add your GOG games as non-Steam games to Steam and launch them from big screen mode as well.

But when I have to install drivers, or install a non-Steam game, I can't do that with the controller yet. That's what I need for PC gaming to work in my living room.

Or you just need a Steam controller. They're discontinued now but work well as a mouse+keyboard for desktop usage. It got squished into the Steam Deck so hopefully there's a new version in the future.

I like big picture mode in Steam, but.... controller support is spotty across Steam games, and personally I think you need both a Steam controller and a DualSense or Xbox controller. Steam also updates itself by default every time you launch, and you have to deal with Windows updates and other irritations. Oh, here's another update for .net, wonderful. And a useless new AI agent. SteamOS and Linux/Proton may be better in some ways, but there are still compatibility and configuration headaches. And half my Steam library doesn't even work on macOS, even games that used to work (not to mention the issues with intel vs. Apple Silicon, etc.)

The "it just works" factor and not having to mess with drivers is a huge advantage of consoles.

Apple TV could almost be a decent game system if Apple ever decided to ship a controller in the box and stopped breaking App Store games every year (though live service games rot on the shelf anyway.)

> [...]controller support is spotty[...]

DualSense 4 and 5 support under Linux is rock-solid, wired or wireless. That's to be expected since the drivers are maintained by Sony[1]. I have no idea about the XBox controller, but I know DS works perfectly with Steam/Proton out of the box, with the vanilla Linux kernel.

1. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Sony-HID-PlayStation-PS5

I have clarified that I meant controller support in the Steam games themselves. Some of them work well, some of them not so well. Others need to be configured. Others only work with a Steam controller. I wish everything worked well with DualSense, especially since I really like its haptics, but it's basically on the many (many) game developers to provide the same kind of controller support that is standard on consoles.

Thanks for the clarification. I've into that a couple of times - Steam's button remapping helps sometimes, but you'd have to remember which controller button the on-screen symbol maps to.

Are you sure you have steam configured right? Because with steam input you can get proper xbox controller emulation on games that don't support PS4/5 and NS controllers. It's not perfect but you should never be stuck if you don't have an xbox or steam controller when running games inside Steam.

Lots of games on Steam simply don't have great (or really any) controller support. Steam controller can sort of play some of them though since it can emulate mouse + keyboard etc.

My experience with Steam Input is ... OK in some cases. It's annoying that it seems to break games that actually do support the DualSense properly (though full haptics only work in wired mode) like FFXIV.

Launch Steam in big screen mode. Done.

I'm aware of Big Picture Mode, and it doesn't address either of the scenarios I cited specifically because they can't be done from Big Picture Mode.

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