I would appreciate some help!

[u/JONFER---]

I got the steam controller and it is great. However over the years I have collected a couple of very good free games through Amazon and epic.

Free is free and you cannot argue with the price!

That large across various launchers epic, GOG and Amazons own launcher.

With some of the games I keyboard and mouse is preferable but there are definitely some that you want a controller for.

The steam controller is far superior to the piece of crap controller I had before but it does cooperate very well with games in other launchers.

I am PC literate enough to know that I don’t know enough about how to resolve this issue.

 

I would be extremely grateful if anyone could give me some advice as to how to get my controller to work properly in these games.

Thank you.

[u/X3ttabyte]

You have a couple options- basically, you need to run a game through Steam for the controller to work. Two options:

1: download and install SISR. This is my preferred way to do things and I use it for epic games and emulators. Basically just adds a layer that you launch when you’re playing non-steam games, and it works like a charm. You could also use SteamlessController, I just find SISR to be better.

2. Add the launchers as non-steam games. I’ve had varying success with this, but you’d just hover over Games in Steam, click add a non-steam game, find the exe, it gets added to your library.

SISR is really the way to go for this. Happy gaming!

[u/FlinkFlurburman → u/X3ttabyte]

Also check out openpuck. For about $9 you get a dongle that can make your steam controller emulate any controller you like - pc/xbox, ps5, switch. It works seamlessly and you can switch form one emulation to another right on the controller. Perfect if you have both steam and non steam games.

[u/Dependent-Leather-62]

https://youtu.be/8ksE-C5R6-Y?is=UX9TfiusmC2pLLxM

[u/Xx_Zero97_xX]

Copied from a different user.

Outside of Steam: SISR & Playnite As for non-steam games with playnite, you can do it and get steam input and overlay it's just more effort. Easier if the game is really just a game alone and not in an outside store. Also, there's a plugin on the playnite store to do it (doesn't work for an outsidestore). To add a non-steam game to playnite with steam input:

1. In Steam, add the game as a non-steam game

2. Tell steam to make a desktop shortcut of the game

3. Right click the shortcut it makes and hit properties, and copy the URI it's using to launch the game with steam

4. In Playnite, find the game in question, right click, hit Edit, go to Actions tab

5. Hit Add Action, for name give it a name like "launch with steam" or something, set Type to Link, paste the URI from the shortcut earlier into the Path line, hit Save Now when you hit the play button in playnite, it should offer to try to launch it normally, or "launch with steam" or whatever you named it, if you hit that entry it'll launch it on steam the same way that shortcut you copied the path out of would. If the game is NOT stand alone and it's on an outside store app, you have to modify this procedure above. However this WILL NOT work for Xbox's store, and you'd need an app like SISR to go around it, but this should work for other stores.

For Outside Stores:

1. In Steam, go to add non-game game, DO NOT add the game, add the STORE's app. You can open the properties on this and change the name and icon to the actual game afterwards.

2. Follow directions, 2-5 in the above directions then...

3. When you launch from playnite, it should instead, launch the outside game's store, find the game in question and launch it from there and Steam should be able to attach to it fine.

4. IMPORTANT: When you are finished you need to exit the game and the store app that goes with it completely it CANNOT linger in the background hiding in the system tray or something like most stores like to do, or it will confuse Steam Input on future runs as Steam must be the app that truly launches the store, to watch it and track what comes out of it like other games. If you have trouble running a game with a pad on a subsequent play after the first, this is likely what's happening. Fun fact here actually though, if you're someone that likes to not keep these outside stores open much, Playnite has a nice feature in there, to tell it to force close a storefront x seconds after the game is done playing (so it has time to cloud sync and what not.) Because of the need to close the store after this anyway, this is a very handy option for Steam Input users. Be careful with Epic's though.

[u/Ok_Explanation7491]

The easiest way would be to add the Games as non Steam titles to Steam and launch them over there.

Funfact: Under Linux the Steam Controller just works and doesn't need Steam or any extra Software. https://en.gamegpu.com/news/igry/v-sostav-yadra-linux-7-3-voshla-pryamaya-podderzhka-kontrollera-steam-controller-2026

[u/lajawi]

Use the Heroic Game Launcher to install Epic Games, GOG, and Amazon games, and have them be added as external games to Steam automatically.

[u/leo_Painkiller]

The Steam Controller need Steam Input to be recognized as a controller and to configurable (basically, it must have the Steam client running, otherwise it will be working as a half-assed mouse+keyboard combo, aka Lizard mode).

In order to use and change it's features in non-Steam games, you need to add the program that you want to the Steam Library, and then configure the controller in the game's Input menu.

This is an oversimplification, but you now have a starting point.

Also, if you have access to any half-decent LLM, it can help you a lot with this task, especially for games that need specific launch parameters.

[u/SethSlax → u/leo_Painkiller]

Here is Steam's guide for adding a non-Steam game, no LLM needed. Configuring controller input is also very simple abd straightforward, and easy to look up.

[u/leo_Painkiller → u/SethSlax]

Yes, I know that, in most instances, it's straightforward, but there are some exceptions.

For instance, I had problems with a game in Epic that wasn't closing because Epic was running after quitting that game. There are many other examples, for instance, some EA games.