As a lot of reviewers are saying, it feels very close to the Steam Deck controls. The trackpads are slightly different texture and a bit more refined (in a good way). The D-pad and face buttons feel good to me as a longtime gamer.
I’m used to the Xbox Elite 2 these days and this is quite a bit lighter in weight and feels more like plastic, but still solid enough (again, like the Deck). I do maybe prefer the 8-edged D-pad and I’ll probably miss the trigger stops, but gyro and trackpads and grip sense should more than make up for it.
There’s an app called SISR I think that will let you use the controller without Steam (converts to X-input commands I think).
It got recommended to me multiple times now. :D I wonder if there are quirks using SISR, that makes it behave differently in Steam when it is active. One of my reasons to purchase the Steam Controller was, to not rely on third party drivers, as I had some issues with drivers for other controllers. I might end up using my previous gamepad for non Steam games, so both are connected now.
I’m curious too.
Yeah if you wanted to avoid 3rd party software then valve ain’t the company for you. Both the OG and the new controller need either steam input or 3rd party software.
SISR is kinda buggy for me. Until today any time I opened the program it would break my alt tab menu. Like it just never went away on its own, and explorer kept crashing. They also suggest having the controller connected before starting the program. Didn’t matter if the program was quit, once opened it bugged out windows. But randomly today I rebooted to fix the issue and it hasn’t happened since. Yay?
If you launch the game through steam you can use steam input to customize the controller. Otherwise it acts like an Xbox 360 controller that also happens to have a trackpad (or however you have it configured for desktop mode)