Gamepads and Steam Proton

[FT277002]

My 19.3 LM PC has Steam to make it my gaming machine. I've always been a keyboard + mouse user, but have recently tried gaming pads, 3 of them... and none of them work correctly. I got one USB pad each intended for XBox360, PS2, PS4. And if there's a single thing not right with a gamepad, it's really almost unusable. Specific problems:
- they work correctly only with the simplest of games (like DigDug), but they usually do not work at all with most of the games I've tried.
- All 3 pads can control the mouse pointer on the screen when not playing games, and some button presses or stick movements create mouse clicks. A strange problem - I did see a rather complex solution online, but didn't bother.
- Software (Antimicro, XBox360 driver, qjoy, jtest, etc.) has been installed to try and fix this without success. And Steam will not configure the pads properly either; Steam thinks all these pads are PS3 pads.
When I see discussions on YouTube over which pads works best with Linux, it leaves me wondering... What have I done wrong?
My suspicions:
- I have Steam's (play-all-Windows-games-on-Linux software) Proton 7 on installed this PC. Perhaps one of the consequences of Proton is that something somewhere is screwing up the use of gamepads. As I said above, Steam doesn't detect and configure any of the pads correctly.
-. I have tried the 3 pads with Windows 7&10 as well, and none work correctly in Windows either. Perhaps a.) The XBox360 copy controller is a cheap piece of - because it should definitely be working better. b.) The USB PS4 pad copy was not meant for a PC (no driver) and does not work quite right no matter what. c.) The USB PS2 pad copy works best with PCSX2

Anyway, this post is getting long and rambling... just note that gamepads for PC can be a big problem. I thought it was just plug n play, but usually the generic driver doesn't do a good job, Linux or Windows. Or maybe all the pads I bought are junk.

[ThaCrip]

I can confirm a real wireless XBox360 controller(I use standard AA re-chargable NiMh batteries(I recommend 'Eneloop' as these are the best all-around rechargable AA batteries you can buy and will easily give you years of use)) with the official wireless dongle (and I would imagine the wired version is okay to(?)) works fine through Lutris/Wine/GloriousEggroll runner for Lutris combo (I prefer Lutris over Steam since it's offline use and I just run the games EXE files directly). I have had my real XBox360 controller since the late 2000's (I still got the XBox360 system but that collects dust as the controller is more valuable for a limited amount of games through Lutris for me now).

it's plug-n-play as you simply plug it in and it just works. you can even switch back and fourth between the mouse+keyboard and XBox360 controller during a game (like RDR2 for example (the shooting sections mouse+keyboard is better, but for everything else I use the controller)) and the stuff on screen automatically switches depending on what button you last pressed whether it was a key on the keyboard or controller.

I am currently on Mint 21.0-Xfce but that same setup worked fine on Mint 20.x to. I would consider upgrading if I were you as Mint 19.x support ends in 8 months from now. I would just clean install to Mint 21.0, which is supported until April 2027.

but since you used a cheap knock-off controller I suspect that's your problem because you even said they don't work on the real Windows either.

also, you said... "All 3 pads can control the mouse pointer on the screen when not playing games, and some button presses or stick movements create mouse clicks"

but if the analog stick sort of acts like a mouse pointer and the buttons on your controller say register as a keyboard during games, you 'might' be able to go to the games configuration (in the game itself) and find a function of the game you want and attempt to assign it to a button on the controller you want to use and see if that helps. if so, while you would have to likely configure this stuff on a per-game basis, which will be a bit of a chore, it might be better than nothing 'if' this works since essentially the controller would basically appear to the game itself as a mouse+keyboard if what I am speculating here is true.

p.s. in the past I tried one of those cheap knock-off Gamecube controllers (connected to a Wii) and it was total junk as the buttons just did not work perfectly like a real controller did etc (currently I am using one of those Wii (RVL-005) gamepads that works well enough with the Gamecube side of things on the Wii). so after that experience, I tend to avoid non-official controllers as a general rule as, while it might be okay at times, you are more likely to run into issues. because you can tell a lot of those no-name controllers are cheap china made knock-offs made down to a price instead of up to a certain quality. honestly, I don't even think they should be selling some of those as they are so bad, it's not like I got unlucky, but I am willing to bet those generic Gamecube controllers I tried are largely all like that, or at least, too risky to take a chance on buying. because I tried one, noticed it was acting up, so we took it back to the store, tried another (and these are new controllers), and basically the same thing, at which point I just dumped it outright and got money back as it's obvious those controllers are straight up junk. because I figure the first one, maybe I just got unlucky with a faulty controller, but after trying another and it still acted the same as the first one (basically in regards to button pressing (especially certain buttons) it often would not register the button press and to get it more consistently to work you had to press on it too hard etc which is not realistic for people to do as the real controllers work as you would expect), chances are a large portion of those are junk, which makes them not even worth the risk to begin with (it's almost like you would need a pile of these and then test the controllers and swap out the working buttons with the faulty ones among a bunch of controllers to maybe make one decent generic controller. but obviously this is not going to happen since you would have to buy plenty of them to maybe make up one 'good' controller). because if they only had a slightly higher faulty rate vs the real Gamecube controller (the real controllers, as usual, are nice and reliable), and one could save decent $ with a new generic controller, it would have been a solid buy. but when the thing does not even worth properly, it's useless outright.

[antikythera]

I have two controllers, both of which work fine with Proton but also native windows. An MSI Force GC30 V2 Wireless and a Microsoft Xbox One Wireless with dongle but the Xbox One also works via bluetooth on my laptop. The latter I have worn out to the point one of the analog sticks need a replacement, I was too sick to deal with it when it failed so bought the MSI controller. Ridiculously lazy but turned out to be worth the £40 because the controller is excellent. I will sort that bust stick at some point though.

The MSI can switch between 4 different modes to ape various generations of controllers (default, analog, digital, android) and also has an interchangeable d-pad cap which is metal and held in place by a strong magnet.

[ThaCrip]

I have two controllers, both of which work fine with Proton but also native windows. An MSI Force GC30 V2 Wireless and a Microsoft Xbox One Wireless with dongle but the Xbox One also works via bluetooth on my laptop. The latter I have worn out to the point one of the analog sticks need a replacement, I was too sick to deal with it when it failed so bought the MSI controller. Ridiculously lazy but turned out to be worth the £40 because the controller is excellent. I will sort that bust stick at some point though.

The MSI can switch between 4 different modes to ape various generations of controllers (default, analog, digital, android) and also has an interchangeable d-pad cap which is metal and held in place by a strong magnet.

Thanks for that info. so basically you plugin that MSI controller and it works as expected and the overall feel of it is similar to official XBox level of controllers? ; if so, that's worth buying.

if my XBox360 controller ever acts up that could be a good alternative especially the MSI wired version (it's also cheaper, about $25 currently vs about $40 for the wireless) since it does not use lithium battery as I have never been a fan of lithium battery tech on controller and other devices I expect to last many years (like 5-10+ years at least) since the battery will die before the controller does. that's why I prefer either wired, or of it's wireless, I want a controller that can take regular AA NiMh batteries (like my wireless XBox360 controller does) as those will easily last years and when they do die, it's easy to find high quality replacement batteries (i.e. Eneloop) and the controller is set for years once again.

but I figured there had to be decent alternatives to the usual official console types of controllers that are decent and, given what you said, that MSI looks like a solid alternative to the usual official range of console controllers. but it's not surprised as pricing is still high enough, so that probably means quality went into it.

p.s. my XBox360 controllers analog sticks have some wear for sure, but so far not enough to be a real problem

[FT277002]

p.s. in the past I tried one of those cheap knock-off Gamecube controllers (connected to a Wii) and it was total junk

Thx for your response - I suspect that's right, these controllers are junk... just surprising. Problem with trying to config through a game or app is that at least one or two buttons don't correspond: Pressing a button or moving a stick creates an incorrect input, which seems like a driver problem. Incorrect inputs make these devices unusable, unfixable. I researched to find out the exact pad manufacturer and find the right drivers for Windows, but little difference made.
I will say that in Windows, none of the pads I've tried move the mouse outside of games. In LM, the game has to be on full screen to even try and use a pad with the game. And it seems that software I've tried with LM has only made it worse.