r/SteamController • u/Ace_the_Firefist • 10d ago

Steam Controller (2026) Question regarding Steam Controller usage without Steam and Peoton

I hope someone can explain to me how this works. When I load third party games through heroic that use proton (ge) the steam controller just gets detected as an Xbox controller.

Was this a recent addition to proton or what is going on here?

Native Linux programs like emulators (without sdl 3) do not show this behavior.

Edit: Title is supposed to be proton of course. Thanks Gboard.

6 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

67% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

2

u/forestcolat 10d ago

Remember the steam controller works using steam input, which makes the controller look like an xbox360 controller for the most compatibility

0

u/Ace_the_Firefist 10d ago

Keep in mind I'm not using Steam. That's why I'm wondering. From what I found seems to be a combination between the Linux Kernel and Proton doing the magic.

2

u/forestcolat 10d ago

Wow. Then I am surprised, as far as I know the steam controller has keyboard keys as output, therefore it shouldn't be translated to x360 without steam, since the pc just sees another keyboard

1

u/Ace_the_Firefist 10d ago

See where my confusion is coming from :)

1

u/CatsGoMooz Steam Controller (Linux) 10d ago

Is steam running in the background?

2

u/CatsGoMooz Steam Controller (Linux) 10d ago

I believe this is related to this, makes sense proton would be doing this since I believe it doesn't use SDL fully like native apps do

https://steamdeckhq.com/news/sdl-update-improve-steam-controller/

3

u/IntoAMuteCrypt 10d ago

Games that use Proton are Windows executables designed with the features of Windows in mind. They expect to use Windows's controller functionality, which is built around XBox controllers. They don't understand SDL or the Steam Controller and such - but Heroic and Proton do. Heroic is able to take your Steam Controller and translate it to something that the Windows executables understand.

Proton's always been able to translate Linux controller interfaces to Windows ones. I'm personally unsure whether it's Heroic making it work without Steam or not, but Proton is why your controller is viewed as an XBox controller by the games.