Because my desktop doesn’t have Bluetooth, I usually use a wired Xbox One controller, though because of the micro-usb I can’t say I’m a fan.
On my deck however, I typically use my Wii U Pro Controller because it’s big and comfortable in my hands, has an insane battery life due to having a 3DS battery, and I just like the joystick placement. Definitely worth trying if you have a Wii U and can find one for a decent price.
Because my desktop doesn’t have Bluetooth, I usually use a wired Xbox One controller, though because of the micro-usb I can’t say I’m a fan.
It’s not hard to get a USB Bluetooth controller for a PC.
All that being said, I don’t really think that wireless is generally worthwhile for a PC, unless you have some kind of home theater setup in your living room. If you have a wire, you have plenty of power, no concern about battery life, no interference potential (though I haven’t had problems with Bluetooth, I have with proprietary 2.4GHz protocols), less moving parts.
With video game consoles, running a wire across someone’s living room was really obnoxious; the tradeoff makes a lot of sense there. But if I’m sitting right in front of the computer, none of that really applies. It avoids me maybe managing to wrap one cord around another, but that’s about it, and I don’t think that that’s enough of a benefit.
And I’d rather not be broadcasting unique Bluetooth IDs. Okay, probably not that big a deal from a privacy standpoint with desktop hardware that doesn’t move around, doesn’t have the kind of “tracking someone’s movements” concerns that Bluetooth devices that are carried around do, but I don’t really need every nearby cell phone telling Google or Apple when I’m playing a video game, having them build up a database spanning my whole life.
I have a couple Xbox controllers. Wired they work fine. If you use Bluetooth it really depends on the Bluetooth chip and I’ve had some really bad ones. Also certain models will require firmware updates from Windows before they will pair.
I've been using a PS5 controller lately. I'm on Windows, but I think it works on Linux. I also launch every game through Steam, which handles compatibility issues well.
The Steam controller is my favorite, but I wanted something that I could buy replacements for, so I started using a PS5 controller. The touchbar is not really useful (hard to reach and pretty imprecise), but it does have a gyro for aiming in FPS games. And I play a few racing games, so I wanted analog triggers, which the Switch controllers don't have.
I bought an upgraded one from aimcontrollers.com, just to get some clicky microswitches on the d-pad, face buttons, and shoulder buttons. I hate how much I paid for it, but I do love some clicky buttons. Having looked at their site just now when posting this, apparently they now offer hall effect joysticks, too. So I might need another one. 😬
edit: Just realized that this was posted in linux_gaming. Well, I'm still pretty sure that PS5 controllers work on Linux. And I'll be switching soon anyway, since my perfectly good PC doesn't meet the requirements for Windows 11.
I use a PS5 controller connected through an 8bitdo USB adapter 2. It works great and has a much more stable connection compared to the bluetooth adapter I used to use. I’ve had no issues using it in xinput mode on Linux; games pick it up as a normal xbox controller and just work. The adapter also works great for bringing your own contoller to friends’ houses for any console party games without having to do the bluetooth pairing roundup minigame. The only real issues I have with it is that there’s no auto disconnect when it’s idle, and as you mentioned the firmware flashing tools are all Windows only.
I use a ps5 controller for all my gaming needs and it works great on Linux (Kubuntu/Nobara) and Steam Deck. I use hardwired when playing on my Linux desktop, but when playing on my Steam Deck it’s over Bluetooth while docked. Still works perfectly fine. I even played Crosscode with my controller just fine on both systems.
I primarily use it on my desktop for FFXIV which is why I do hardwired. Bluetooth can be squirrely if the game isn’t launched through Steam
Funnily enough, I just use my old Stadia controller. Works perfectly with wired or wireless (in order to utilize Bluetooth, you need to use Google’s tool to “unlock” the Bluetooth mode on it - you only need to do this once), and I can’t say I’ve ever had a game not work with it. I think it just emulates Xinput/an Xbox controller under the hood?
Before that however, I just used an Xbox One controller (particularly, the “Xbox One S” ones that have native Bluetooth support, but my non-S one worked fine over both wired and with the addon dongle that you can purchase) which also always worked out for me. I think I still prefer the Stadia controller for how it feels in the hand, and the fact that it uses USB-C however.
At some point I would like to pickup a GuliKit KK3 Max controller since it seems quite intriguing, however I can’t really justify the price point when my Stadia controller works just fine for me.
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.
I feel silly for not thinking this… It works fine without the mod unless you try to change resolution/fullscreen settings.
Apparently the mod is supposed to disable in-game resolution controls and force it to borderless window at monitor resolution when the flipmodel swapchain is enabled (which is necessary for hdr). It seems to do this by always launching the game in a 720p window and depending on if the custom swapchain is enabled it either resizes it to the screen or applies the in-game resolution setting. Gamescope doesn’t respond to the change and keeps outputting 720p in a 1440p window :/.
I can’t wait for wine wayland
Edit: Just found that using the --force-windows-fullscreen option fixes this issue!!
Huh I have that same controller with the 2.4ghz receiver dock and have no issues. I only use it with my htpc running bazzite. I don’t remember if I’ve played crosscode with it but I’ll check it out and report back. Every other game has been great.
Edit: 8bitdo Ultimate 2.4ghz worked just fine with Crosscode for me.
They are all Fedora Atomic, the “immutable” Fedora variant, and offer baked in Nvidia support.
The cool thing is:
If the driver/ Wayland breaks on your install, then it will break on thousands of others simultaneously, and the devs can fix it very very quickly, because every installation is identical.
If it breaks, you can roll back in seconds and keep using the image that still worked yesterday. And in the meantime, the developers are already working on a fix, which takes just hours or a day max.
You don’t have to install and update anything yourself. Just do your computer stuff and stop worrying.
There’s also a GTS (or whatever it’s called) variant around, which is the last major version of Fedora. You won’t get the newest stuff and will be half a year behind in terms of features, but then there won’t be any surprises. I believe the bluefin:gts isn’t around yet, but will come with the next major release.
I personally think X11 shouldn’t be used anymore. Fedora dropped official support for it recently iirc and it will soon be deprecated, so it might be even worse in the future.
Wayland works perfectly fine under Gnome from what I’ve heard, and with Plasma, it should be working great too.
I agree, but I’m not going to force my opinions on someone. They can make their own informed decisions, and if they’re having regular trouble with Wayland, maybe they can have a better experience with another option!
Yeah, I’m ready to be done with X11. Dunno why Fedora with a perfectly working Wayland & Nvidia and updates set to manual will not offer Wayland in the session manager at login about 80% of the time. Must be something I’m doign wrong, but IDK what it is. I wish I had wayland 100% of the time o’er here.
Why not? In my comment I explained exactly what benefits it would have in this case with a Nvidia GPU. I think it makes sense to at least mention the option.
OP tried Bazzite and wasn’t the biggest fan of it, but not because it’s image based, no, just because it uses the same Nvidia driver as upstream Fedora.
They could also have said that they really liked it, who knows?
And I don’t understand why the Linux user community on Lemmy pushes immutable distros so hard.
Because they’re awesome? They’re extremely low maintenance, just work (for me), are very robust, offer a lot of choice, and much much more.
I think they’re very underrated and should be used much more. Sure, some people just don’t like them, but some people would, and those should know this option exists.
I did try Bazzite after this post - defaults to Nvidia 560 driver, which is still not the stable. Also installs extra things that I had to turn off - ended up re-wiping and going back to Fedora 40. I may retry in the future, though - but in general, I’m less interested in immutable at this point.
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