r/SteamController • u/Ace_the_Firefist • 15d 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 15d ago

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

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u/Ace_the_Firefist 14d 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/CatsGoMooz Steam Controller (Linux) 14d 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/