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Comment by retired

3 hours ago

But then I would have to install Steam, create an account, have it running in the background. And in case of macOS I would have to install Rosetta as well.

It would be better if they released drivers instead.

I don’t think steam needs Rosetta anymore.

  • Just checked. Still needs it. I don't have Rosetta installed and I don't want to install Rosetta just to be able to use a game controller with DuckStation or Aethersx2. When I can also connect a PS4 controller and not need any of that.

    • You have an old Steam.app stub, download the latest one and rosetta will not be necessary.

      If you had rosetta it would be able to self-update to the new universal binary, without it you have to do this one update manually.

      2 replies →

The Steam client is free and well-supported on all gaming OSes. It also provides Steam Input, which ensures customization parity with Steam Deck. In Valve's eyes, cross-platform support is already here.

A custom driver could always be made by the community. It feels a little absurd to expect Valve to write and support four different gamepad drivers, when they only need one.

  • > A custom driver could always be made by the community. It feels a little absurd to expect Valve to write and support four different gamepad drivers, when they only need one.

    That is what the entire industry does though. Imagine if you needed an application running in the background for every peripheral you have, for your monitor, for your GPU, for running a hotspot on your smartphone over USB. Imagine having to install a piece of software to access a thumb drive. And that all those applications also needed user accounts. That is the entire point of having drivers.

    • For complex gamepads, the entire industry most certainly doesn't do that. It's not a class-compliant device, the preexisting OS-level mechanisms for Xinput and DirectInput do not accommodate anything but fight rudimentary fight sticks. The same goes for the original touchpad-based Steam Controller.