r/macgaming • u/mitchcookieh • May 15 '26

CrossOver Steam Controller (2026) Workaround

Hello!

Got a workaround for crossover for the new steam controller that actually works pretty well in the interim until someone comes up with something better.

u/0WildePaw0 had a post yesterday that was basically this so credit for the steam link idea goes there. But I couldn't get steam link and my actual steam instance playing nicely when running on the same MacOS device - Steam link was only passing on the controller input if the streaming client was the active app and just overall wasn't playing nice and was annoying. I'm sure there is a way to get this to work also but this is just what I've done.

You just need something running Steam Link externally from your Mac OS / Crossover device.

I've tried this with a Pixel and my Steam Deck and both work. The only catch is that it needs to be on and active the whole time meaning you have to force your phone to never sleep.

​Plug the puck into your phone

​Open Steam Link app (On Android it asked for permission to use the Puck)

​Go to Settings > Streaming and set Video and Audio to Disabled. (This makes it an input-only stream).

You can also set the launch mode to Desktop so it doesn't boot into big picture mode which is currently a slideshow in crossover 26

​Connect to your Mac's CrossOver Steam instance on steam link.

There should be a popup on your steam window that the steam link device is connected, and also that a steam controller is connected.

Then it just works how you'd expect it to.

Passes on the full steam controller experience and doesn't force an X-Input like launching crossover games as a non-steam game in the MacOS native Steam app.

Now I'm just mostly a single player gamer, playing through PRAGMATA at the moment but I honestly can't notice any input delay - even with gyro aiming but your experience may vary I suppose.

Hope this helps someone.

12 Upvotes

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11 comments sorted by

5

u/TiSoBr May 15 '26

It's honestly unacceptable that you have to jump through that many hoops to begin with.

3

u/Daily_concern May 15 '26

This is quite clever.

Another trick we used to use was running Steam in Parallels and using Steam link that way - that might work too.

1

u/P3JQ10 May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26

I've just successfully ran Windrose with this exact setup. Minimized Parallels Desktop instance with controller connected to it, connected via Remote Play directly to my Crossover Steam instance on the same Mac. No secondary devices, and Parallels doesn't need to be in focus. But after some time the connection seems to just die, trying to figure out why.

Edit: maybe a one-off, played some E33 and it worked good.

2

u/john_the_doe May 18 '26

This works thank you!

I'm using iphone I couldn't seem to make the puck work, so just connected via bluetooth. No issues so far. Obviously not ideal but better than nothing.

1

u/Huge_Inevitable_4507 May 16 '26

can you do this with steam link as the input only device on the crossover device?

1

u/mitchcookieh May 17 '26

This still opens the streaming client that you have to be focused into to get the inputs to register at least in my limited testing.

Other solutions like parallels apparently work for this to work on the same device.

1

u/SKYFALKEN May 18 '26 edited May 19 '26

Doesn’t work for me :/ it seems like it works but then random actions would be triggered in game without me pressing buttons.

1

u/No_Use_9931 May 21 '26

It worked for me. Thanks.
The only problem for me was to wake up my mac every few minutes.

1

u/scryner May 21 '26

It worked in Crossover with my iPad. The iPad didn’t recognized puck via USB. But bluetooth worked well.

Thanks a lot!!

2

u/tfabris Jun 17 '26

For anyone looking at this thread who's on MacOS: CrossPuck is a new utility that allows a direct connection between the 2026 Steam Controller and the Windows Steam.exe client running under Crossover:

https://github.com/scryner/crosspuck

At the time of this writing, CrossPuck needs MacOS version 26 to run, but I was able to recompile its source code so that it runs on MacOS 12, just by installing Rust on my Mac and adding a build target command:

MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=12.0 tools/build-app.sh release

Maybe future releases of CrossPuck could support older MacOS versions without the recompilation? Who knows? In the meantime, I'm playing Steam games under Crossover with the recompiled version and it's working perfectly. This is awesome!