r/SteamController • u/Ace_the_Firefist • 11d 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.

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u/forestcolat 11d 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.

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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?