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.
They are CRITICAL, I can make control schemes for complex games like Cold Waters DotMod that I could never dream of doing with a normal gamepad and no virtual menus… or rather the gamepad control scheme would be too complicated to remember.
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.
Have you ever checked out RetroDeck on the Steam Deck? They built their own controller profile and the radial dial menu controls all emulators and has it’s own specific icons, it’s so cool!
I’m aware of EmuDeck and RetroDeck, and prefer using RetroArch on Steam Deck directly. I’m not really interested into any layer that sits in between for the input and manages the systems. I’m deep into the manual configuration of RetroArch already on PC and the Deck and I like it this way. It is cool what those projects do, but its not for me. I do not want to give any third party control over this.
As for the controls, I already have my controls and like how it works. My only “problem” is, that Steam does not offer us a way to document and upload the document (be it text only) with the Steam Input configuration.
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.
I would love to get the most out of my trackpads, but trackball mode is currently broken on the new steam controller. Valve is aware of the problem, so hopefully they are working on a fix.
Oh I hadn’t even noticed that. Are you talking about where you can “fling” the virtual ball and have momentum carry the cursor across the screen?
Also is your username based on the Witchspring character? Or something else?
Yeah, the inertia only works like 60% of the time. I have the exact same trackball settings set on my steam deck, steam controller 1, and steam controller 2.
For inertia:
-Steam deck trackpads work perfectly.
-Original steam controller trackpads have interia about 90% of the time i flick my thumb.
-New steam controller trackpads work poorly and only have interia about 50-60% of the time.
Also is your username based on the Witchspring character? Or something else?
Yes! Love that series 🙂
I probably enjoyed 2 & 3 the most of the series, but I’ve been meaning go back and play the Steam version of the first one. The english translation wasn’t great when I played it, and I had mixed feelings about the day time limit.
They really need to fix the bug that won’t let you change from the default profile on steamdeck.
Thankfully haven’t encountered that myself, sounds terrible.
I am on the beta update channel, so might be worth switching to beta for awhile to see if it fixes it for you.
I’d love to get the most out of my steam deck if only I get actually get one. Been checking the site almost daily for months
my bad, i bought two… Jokes aside, the first one I bought had a waiting list of months, I wonder if they’re not using it anymore because of RAM prices
It’s all good. My fault for waiting so long. I build a game boy and played that but the screen is getting small for these old man eyes
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.
Trying that with my steam deck right now, the amount I have to shift my hands down for the trackpads to feel natural is so low that I can’t even reach the X/B buttons, and my hands aren’t even that small. Kinda sucks I’ve never found a use for the bottom 2/3 of them.
Also much much lighter. I love the steam deck, but the weight is no small consideration.
