How To Set Up A Steam Controller

How to make the nearly of the Steam Controller: a comprehensive guide

The Steam controller is intimidating. Information technology's not the keyboard and mouse we've been using every bit PC gamers for years and years, but it's non a regular gamepad, either. The shape is different. The trackpads are unique. And getting the nigh out of the controller takes some serious software customization—picking command profiles, tweaking sensitivities and dead zones and input styles. Without a lot of trial and error, there'south no manner to know which command scheme works best for which game.

If yous haven't spent much time with the Steam Controller, you lot might not know that it has a great gyroscope feature for controlling motility by tilting the controller. Or that you can bind inputs to the outer rim of the trackpads. The Steam Controller tin can do many, many things that a normal gamepad tin can't do, but if you use it in its default configurations, you're often but playing with standard gamepad controls plus trackpad mouselook.

Enter this guide: our goal is to aid yous empathize the fundamentals of the Steam Controller, how each trackpad mode works, and dig into some more than advanced configuration.

Page 1: The basics of the Steam Controller
Page two: Every Steam Controller input style explained
Page 3: The most important input style options and tweaks
Page 4: Configuring Action Sets and other pro tips

Steam Controller basics

You can rebind any and all buttons on the Steam Controller to any other command from a keyboard, mouse or Xinput gamepad. These can exist mixed and matched in whatever combination for whatever game you cull to play. To customize the Steam Controller, launch Steam Large Picture mode.

You can open up the controller configuration menu regardless of whether a game is running. Simply navigate your library until you lot notice the game you want to configure and press A, select 'Manage game,' so finally 'Configure controller.'

When a command surface is highlighted in that location volition exist a blue line pointing to the control surface that applies. Selecting any of these will open the customization card for that control surface. This is where all of the settings or options for each input style volition exist. Many of these will besides contain an advanced setting push at the bottom right of your screen.

Basic input binding

For bones input binding, select the ABXY button block and striking A to enter its customization menu. Choose the push you lot want to demark an input to, and and so press a keyboard, mouse, or gamepad input to complete the binding. This is the almost basic Steam Controller customization, and probably the one yous'll be doing the about.

A more advanced feature of the binding menu is the ability to double bind each cardinal printing. By just hitting the Y button on your Steam Controller you can now select more than i command. Binding Alt + Tab together, for example, would be convenient when using Steam Big Picture to navigate the desktop.

A couple default bindings that are good to know: pressing the Steam icon button + Select will bring upwards the on-screen keyboard. Steam icon + Correct trigger volition snap a screenshot.

The dual-phase triggers

Like the GameCube controller, the Steam Controller has dual-stage triggers that click when you fully depress them. Y'all tin, for example, set a soft pull of the trigger to aim downward sights in a first-person shooter, and a total click to burn. The Steam Controller is good at minimizing how much you lot have to employ the ABXY buttons by taking your pollex off the pads, and these triggers can help with that.

Way shifting

Mode shifting lets you demark more commands to the controller than is typically possible. As you hold a specific push button on the pad—left grip, for case—it will completely switch the configuration of one specific command surface like the left pad to something completely unlike. Imagine shifting the left pad from its normal D-pad to a touch on menu. Another smashing use for this is in games that take weapon wheels and need genuine analog input from the correct stick to select the weapons and won't work with the mouse.

Wolfenstein: The New Lodge is an instance. Commonly, you would want the correct pad to be set up to a mouse style so you lot tin accept accurate aiming in firefights, simply every bit yous press the right bumper to bring upwards the weapon wheel, you lot tin't use the mouse for selecting weapons. If you set up the correct bumper to also shift the right pad to the 'Joystick movement' or 'Joystick camera' input styles you'll get the proper analog stick move for this bicycle without losing mouse aiming.

To employ fashion shifting, select the configuration for i controller input, and select mode shifting at the top right of the config menu. After this, y'all will notice that the whole config changes to a blank one, with the addition of an option for selecting which button you would like to utilise for shifting this input. From hither, you merely configure the shift in the same way yous would normally and cull a button to actually perform the shift.

On the next folio we dig into each type of input on the Steam Controller, how they piece of work, and when you should utilize them.

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