linux_gaming

tal , 2 hours ago (edited 2 hours ago) in What gamepad?

I use an 8bitdo Ultimate Bluetooth with Hall effect thumbsticks – which may be what you’re using – but in wired mode.

It, unfortunately, has a Nintendo-style button layout rather than an XBox-style layout, but at least when I bought it, and maybe still, you couldn’t get both an XBox-style layout and Hall-effect thumbsticks. They did sell replacement button caps and you could replace them, but Steam Input allows remapping.

I do think that it’s a little obnoxious that Linux doesn’t have One Unified System for creating up virtual gamepads or other controllers out of other controllers. Like, the technical plumbing to create virtual devices is there – you can create virtual libevent devices. But there isn’t a great backend for doing that systemwide and in a persistent fashion, no controllerd that takes some sorta description file setting up controllers both systemwide and on a per-application basis. Like, I should be able to have a virtual controller where if a program wants to fiddle the LED color, I just have, I don’t know, colored keyboard LEDs change or something like that. Or remap buttons, or set up macro functionality – which is what you want – or set up buttons to switch between multiple settings in-game or whatever.

It’s great that Valve’s doing some of that with Steam Input – and they do offer some neat things, like people sharing Steam Input configs on Steam – but I feel that we shouldn’t really need to rely on Valve for something like that.

Various controllers that I’ve used on Linux in the past:

• Playstation 2 controller. Worked great, used until it wore out. Had some kind of USB adapter, IIRC.
• A Logitech F710. The D-pad rolled to diagonals too easily for my taste, but other than that, perfectly fine, worked well for quite some years. Took removable AAs, which I liked (though that does come with some weight). Unfortunately, it uses a proprietary wireless protocol on 2.4GHz, and at some point, something in my environment started occasionally disrupting it. Bluetooth and wired controllers aren’t affected. I had to switch, couldn’t stand every now and then the controller not functioning for a brief period.
• Various XBox controllers. I don’t really like the XBox layout as much as the Playstation layout, but, eh, not a huge deal; they’re reasonably interoperable. And most vendors had adopted the XBox layout. However, I have something like three different controllers using potentiometers that have drift issues. Yeah, probably possible to hide that in software, increase size of the dead zone, but goddamn it, I want to have a controller that just works correctly. Prompted me to get a controller with Hall effect sticks, which have been fine.
• A PS4 controller. IIRC that worked, but in 2024, too many games on the PC recognize and set themselves up properly for XBox controllers, but not Playstation controllers. There’s another issue that could have been fixed with a controllerd exposing a virtual XBox controller…

I also have various non-gamepad controllers floating around, like a HOTAS setup and pedals. I would not buy a HOTAS setup these days unless you are really in love with a flight sim that uses it – gamepads with thumbsticks are “good enough” for analog input axes on the PC, and widespread enough that a lot of games will only support those.