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Steam Controller and Puck CAD files now available!
(steamcommunity.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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Steam Hardware
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Standalone driver when? I'm waiting, Valve.
It's hard to say before we can try it out, but it defaults to generic keyboard/mouse controls for desktop. I haven't seen any official confirmation if you can swap it to a generic gamepad like the steam deck controls by holding start/menu.
There's also a 3rd party program for managing the original steam controller, hopefully we'll see it support this one as well.
the desktop layout does indeed switch between mouse + keyboard mode and gamepad mode when you hold that button (don't know which), but I've also heard of people saying that in that time the controller tells the pc that it is a keyboard with gamepad inputs, which means a decent amount of games might not recognize it properly. that might be a firmware issue that's already fixed or will be fixed, but at the moment I don't know how well it works. I've ordered it early on and seem to have gotten into the second wave in germany/europe, so maybe i can share more when i receive it in a week or so (estimated based on what the order page told me)
EDIT: I have the controller now. Gamepad action set of the desktop layout works for me to use in non-steam games without launching them through steam (hold start to switch between mouse/keyboard and gamepad. configuring it can be done in controllers -> advanced). If you want to launch non-steam games (for example from heroic on linux through steam, be sure to rename the games in steam to their steam store id. For example 2097230 for "Turnip Boy Robs a Bank". The name should show up like that in the steam library. That's how you use steam community controller layouts with non-steam games. The id can be found in the store page url, /app/{id}/{title}/.
Why would using a 3rd party program be acceptable? I mean, how can someone outside Valve make that but Valve themselves cannot? It's pretty ridiculous.
Just build one yourself if it's so easy... I'm sure you won't run into any problems mapping the gyro, touchpad, or additional buttons to an xinput controller, it's super easy right?
What an absolutely absurd non-argument. How can someone with no access to their codebase extract the bit of steam that makes the controller work? I'm not going to spend $100 on a controller amd then do Valve's work for them.
Valve made the controller and they did add support for their controller inside steam. Just extract the controller compatibility layer and make it standalone. Don't force people to use steam. It's not a wild thing to ask. I also never said they should use xinput.
Stop defending rich corporations, it's lame.
My point was there is no standard input library that the controller would map to without losing functionality.
It's not like valve told everyone who wants to play non steam games to fuck off, they built a way for you to launch non steam games through steam then the controller will work.
If the controller can work through steam then it can work through a stripped down version of steam that does not have the store, library, community, etc features. That's what I'm asking. A program that can work as a compatibility layer and does not require you to log in to anything or give your data to valve in any way.
Yes, steam does give you a workaround. A workaround that involves giving them user data.
Not even remotely related, also if they made a standalone driver it wouldnt matter because for the most part xinput doesnt support the unique hardware and if they made a standalone steaminput driver nobody else would put in any effort to support it. Its like how Valve lets anyone publish software for SteamOS by supporting flatpaks yet not a single other store acturally does. They would need to emulate xinput or directly support it meaning the touchpads and back buttons wouldnt be supported along with gyro or touchsense (at that point just get a standard controller).
Firstly, xinput support would still be useful. Reduced functionality >> no functionality. Secondly, it a standalone druver would only need to remove the steam itself and keep what makes the controller work. It would not require any extra work from any game dev. Stop making excuses for rich corporations providing half-baked support. It's kinda pathetic.
If it was xinput you would be correct it would not require any additional dev work as they already support xinput, however functionality would be so severely reduced that honestly I cannot think of a single reason to use it like that (unless you really like the ergonomics I guess). If they went out of their way to make a standalone steaminput driver though that would require additional dev work for game devs that nobody else would do. You say why make excuses for rich corporations but why are you making excuses for xbox basically limiting xinput to their own controllers. Objectively xinput sucks, its clear that they never intended it to be a universal standard and until a truly open source API can replace it then yeah you're going to have weird solutions like requiring steam open.
I specifically said "standalone driver". That does not equate to xinput support. You still have not understood what I said.
What other API are they supposed to support that has wide support and supports all features while not being tied to a specific ecosystem? Because as I said if they made a standalone steaminput driver that would require explicit support from developers (outside steam nobody else really interprets controller input the same way, typically they just allow the devs to do whatever). Its more complex than games just automatically accept any controller with any input method, they either need a stable API to call upon (which outside of steam is basically just xinput) or have a translation layer. Lets be honest nobody is going out of their way to support a standalone steaminput except maybe gog.
You think you really understand how controllers/drivers work. Unfortunately, you do not.