Getting the most out of your Steam Controller: Trackpads
Getting the most out of your Steam Controller: Virtual Menus
I see people ask a lot about what to use Trackpads for. These are great guides and really can help with getting the best experience out of these controls.
Virtual menus are a blessing when playing modded Stardew Valley as you quickly run out of physical buttons.
Virtual Menus are great for any PC first games imo. Being able to setup direct weapon shortcuts (instead of cycling through) or having direct shortcuts to map/journal/inventory/etc is really nice. Also things like quicksave/quick load menus.
I use virtual menus in RetroArch on my Steam Deck. Whenever I touch the left trackpad, the emulated game pauses and a menu shows up. On selection the game continues and runs the shortcut associated with the action in RetroArch. And there are more functionalities I am using. It really needed exact timing and fine tuning. Unfortunately I never uploaded it, because it depends on a specific configuration of some shortcuts that has to be done in RetroArch.
And that’s my biggest problem. There is no documentation or README we can write for the downloadable user configuration. Even a hyperlink would be good, so I could provide a webpage or PDF / Textfile for download.
Yeah, it’s sometimes hard to use other people’s config layouts for that reason. Even with being able to label the inputs on the “input overview” screen, it can be unclear how to use the more complex profiles. And many input profiles might require specific game settings to work properly (like small deadzone settings for gyro joystick aiming, etc).
A lot of times even if a game has a lot of community profiles available, I’ll end up making my own. That way there’s no question on how to use it, and I can tweak it as I go if I run into any issues.
My thumbs always cramp up when I use the deck’s trackpads for any length of time. I imagine the same will be true for me with a steam controller :/
I don’t know if it helps, but in my opinion the controller and console are designed so you have to grip it from a lower position to use them, that gives a more natural posture.
Also much much lighter. I love the steam deck, but the weight is no small consideration.
