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We are a little bit late on this as we are still doing our post-Christmas catch-up, but it looks like Valve hid a new Steam Controller design in their Steam client downloads.
You can find the newest design in "steam/tenfoot/resource/images/library/controller" and look for the file named "controller_config_controller.png".
New Design
Previous Design
The only real change is the d-pad style up, down, left and right sections on the left pad, but what could that mean? Is it possible they have placed buttons underneath the pad in those specific locations, or is it simply a styling change to help you quickly glance to your thumb position?
I think it looks pretty solid now, and sadly a few other "big" sites are clamouring over it saying it's copying the 360 controller, but unless they remove the touch-pads it's still going to be pretty revolutionary as far as game-pads go. The way you use it will still be very different.
This is one bit of hardware I will be selling myself for to play with. I just want to see how FPS games perform without using a mouse, or a stick in my hands.
What do you think? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
You can find the newest design in "steam/tenfoot/resource/images/library/controller" and look for the file named "controller_config_controller.png".
New Design
Previous Design
The only real change is the d-pad style up, down, left and right sections on the left pad, but what could that mean? Is it possible they have placed buttons underneath the pad in those specific locations, or is it simply a styling change to help you quickly glance to your thumb position?
I think it looks pretty solid now, and sadly a few other "big" sites are clamouring over it saying it's copying the 360 controller, but unless they remove the touch-pads it's still going to be pretty revolutionary as far as game-pads go. The way you use it will still be very different.
This is one bit of hardware I will be selling myself for to play with. I just want to see how FPS games perform without using a mouse, or a stick in my hands.
What do you think? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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This version looks like it took a page from the Dualshock 4 for the handle design. Yes, DS4 is surprisingly comfortable and probably the best controller I've ever held in that regard.
I don't know what really there is to conclude about the rest of the controller. There's a lot more to factor in with brainstorming such a controller, because the touch pads could add drawbacks and who knows if Valve was able to resolve all of them. This might explain the latest design.
I'm crossing my fingers that they made it impossible to accidentally drift your thumbs on those pads.
I also wonder about D-pad emulation, if the touch pad has a very familiar feel for an emulated D-pad at the center of it.
I don't know what really there is to conclude about the rest of the controller. There's a lot more to factor in with brainstorming such a controller, because the touch pads could add drawbacks and who knows if Valve was able to resolve all of them. This might explain the latest design.
I'm crossing my fingers that they made it impossible to accidentally drift your thumbs on those pads.
I also wonder about D-pad emulation, if the touch pad has a very familiar feel for an emulated D-pad at the center of it.
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My bet:I concur, I reckon it's just texturing on the touchpad to let u easily find the D-pad section =)
Those are grooves or ridges in the rubber of the left pad where the horizontal/vertical dead zone is, so you can easily move your finger in either a horizontal or vertical direction without affecting the other one. The right pad will probably still have the concentric ring ridges to help you locate center and border, but the left one will have a cross instead of a circle.
I also agree with more comments per page or FB like scroll loading!
Not sure if I agree with removing the analog pad, since I haven't used it, but I guess it's an alternative for people who REQUIRE not using touch pad on left thumb.
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rustybroomhandle Jan 8, 2015
If only they would release it... I'd buy the controller immediately.
As strange as it sounds, I have never gotten my Logitech Chillstream controller properly working in linux. (manjaro xfce, ubuntu, mint, kubuntu) It uses the same xbox drivers as the original xbox controller. Always there is either incorrect mapping (which can be forced to be replaced via cli) or the games have just freaked out and remapped the controller to hell, making it unusable. I just hope that when this hits the market, the linux support would be 1st class for the controller.
Weird, I have the exact same controller, but it works perfectly for me. (Manjaro)
I had a problem for a while with it, but then found that what was going on is that my Microsoft wireless keyboard was being detected as a game controller and messing with the Logitech. So I replaced the keyboard and it just works now.
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I'll say the same thing about this controller that I say about so many "to-be-released-on-Linux" games --- when it comes out, I'm going to buy it.
I'm a living room "couch" player. I can use a keyboard/mouse, but it's just more comfortable --- far more comfortable, in fact --- for me to use a controller. The WASD keys work flawlessly when mapped with Antimicro to the left stick, but mapping the mouse to the right stick doesn't work as well. It's just not as nimble or precise controlling mouse movement by mapping it to an analogue stick.
Until the Steam controller comes out, I'm using a FragFx Shark 360 by Splitfish, a sort of mongrel controller consisting of the left half of an Xbox controller and a special mouse for the right side. It's more comfortable than a keyboard, and it effectively addresses the nimbleness and precision issues, but I think the Steam controller will be more comfortable still.
I'm a living room "couch" player. I can use a keyboard/mouse, but it's just more comfortable --- far more comfortable, in fact --- for me to use a controller. The WASD keys work flawlessly when mapped with Antimicro to the left stick, but mapping the mouse to the right stick doesn't work as well. It's just not as nimble or precise controlling mouse movement by mapping it to an analogue stick.
Until the Steam controller comes out, I'm using a FragFx Shark 360 by Splitfish, a sort of mongrel controller consisting of the left half of an Xbox controller and a special mouse for the right side. It's more comfortable than a keyboard, and it effectively addresses the nimbleness and precision issues, but I think the Steam controller will be more comfortable still.
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I though the same till I was some of the videos on youtube.
Maybe it is just me but it looks like he was kind of struggling. His whole execution seemed pretty slow for this game. Would be interesting to see someone use the steam controller against someone with a "traditional" controller.
I'm reserving final judgement on the touchpads until I can get my hands on one and try it.. but I KNOW that I can't play games on mobile with onscreen "touchpads" worth a crap and that is all I can think about when I look at this controller. I remember watching a video from some event/show with random people trying to use it and pretty much everyone was having trouble with it.
Agreed, but the video gives me *some* hope. I normally don't feel like the (linux) PC needs anything more than keyboard and mouse, but fighting and driving games are the big exceptions to that rule. I really hope Valve's controller works well for both of them. I mean, the devoted driving gamer will have a racing wheel, and the devoted fighting gamer will have a fighting stick (I have the one that came with the $150 version of Mortal Kombat a couple of years ago), but I'm worried that developers won't port fighting games to SteamOS/linux if the de facto SteamOS/linux gamepad is as bad for fighting games as the XBox gamepads have been.
That 360 d-pad could not have been worse. Four separate, individual buttons is definitely the way to go for precise fighting games.
I suppose we can always hope that there will be a couple different variations of the gamepad released?
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Maybe it is just me but it looks like he was kind of struggling. His whole execution seemed pretty slow for this game.Yes but I assumed he had not been testing the controller for long as he was improving quickly. Also he did not have a dead zone set-up correctly, causing him to take his thumb off the touch pad all the time. See this other video…
View video on youtube.com
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All in all, if the changes from the previous version are a matter of small incremental, polish-level adjustments, that's a Good Thing which suggests they're pretty close to ready. If they were still making radical changes which they would then have to start testing from scratch, that would be a Bad Thing.
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iensensama Jan 11, 2015
Speaking of radical changes...
Ultimately this means nothing, but I was just bored so I messed around with the image a bit.
So, yeah "There, I fixed it!"
But it is strange that Valve, wanting to make a mouse and KEYBOARD replacement, ultimately ended up deciding on fewer buttons than the Xbox360 controller (which sometimes could use a few more when mapping keyboard controls for games without controller support). I get that they want to put varying amounts of virtual buttons onto the touchpads but, physical buttons are just better.
Ultimately this means nothing, but I was just bored so I messed around with the image a bit.
So, yeah "There, I fixed it!"
But it is strange that Valve, wanting to make a mouse and KEYBOARD replacement, ultimately ended up deciding on fewer buttons than the Xbox360 controller (which sometimes could use a few more when mapping keyboard controls for games without controller support). I get that they want to put varying amounts of virtual buttons onto the touchpads but, physical buttons are just better.
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