Steam is recognising my PS4 controller, but actual games are not

I'm on an ASUS TUF laptop if that matters

Controller is plugged in via USB (it would be nice to get bluetooth working too, but for now I just want it to work at all)

Steam recognises the controller - button presses are registering as expected in Test Device Inputs

But when I launch a steam game that definitely supports PS4 controller, the controller does not register at all as an input device

I tried launching a game via Lutris/Epic Games that definitely has controller support, and it didn't work there either

I have already rebooted, no dice. Couldn't find a solution from googling

Solution

Disable steam input for the game

Jump to solution

Boaz 🌻OP•12/31/24, 12:18 PM

my steam controller settings

Solution

Kyle Gospo•12/31/24, 4:39 PM

Disable steam input for the game

Kyle Gospo•12/31/24, 4:40 PM

Otherwise steam will consume the controller inputs and it won't be treated as native

KKyle Gospo Disable steam input for the game

Boaz 🌻OP•12/31/24, 5:23 PM

i marked this as solved, as it did help

whether this works seems to differ on a game-by-game basis, which is really frustrating

i actually only got the controller to work on the game I wanted to play (Steamworld Heist) by explicitly enabling steam inputs

however, i tested this solution on other games afterwards and it worked

i was really surprised Steamworld Heist was having issues, because i have played through the entire game before with a PS4 controller, and in the title sequence it says the game is "Best experienced with a gamepad"

Dan•12/31/24, 10:55 PM

if you look in the settings for the game in question in steam, you can enable/disable steam input for different types of controller, maybe just disable the playstation option?

Boaz 🌻OP•1/1/25, 3:08 AM

btw, still haven't managed to get PS4 controller working via Bluetooth

i'm just going to use an XBox One controller - because that 'just worked' (I forgot I had one when I was trying to get the PS4 controller working)

from googling, it looks like a lot of other people have had issues getting PS4 controllers to work via bluetooth on linux; but PS5 controllers are apparently better supported

I did find a potential solution to get the PS4 controller working, though it looks like more trouble than it's worth; given I found an alternative solution

I might try it later, for science; i'll update if I do

https://github.com/chrippa/ds4drv
https://github.com/jacobmischka/ds4-in-wine

GitHub

GitHub - chrippa/ds4drv: A Sony DualShock 4 userspace driver for Linux

A Sony DualShock 4 userspace driver for Linux. Contribute to chrippa/ds4drv development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

GitHub - jacobmischka/ds4-in-wine

Contribute to jacobmischka/ds4-in-wine development by creating an account on GitHub.

Steam is recognising my PS4 controller, but actual games are not

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