Modern Indie Games Ignoring 2nd Party Controllers?

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Has anyone noticed that a lot of Steam games these days won't work with any offbrand/custom joysticks or controllers?
From what I can gather a lot of it stems from games using SDL 2's (abomination) of a controller interface which essentially is a whitelist of controllers it supports.

Just need to vent my frustrations.
I have a joystick I've built which my OS sees just fine but a lot of games won't detect it because it's not made by Sony, Microsoft, or Logitech.
A few years ago in the SDL 1 days, if your OS saw a controller, a game made in SDL generally let you use it.

This whitelisting controllers and making custom SDL 2 mappings to map button 0 and such to "X" needs to stop.

[mamboFoxtrot]

oh, is that what the issue is? I had always chalked it up to just being a D-Input vs X-Input thing

at least with Steam games now it seems like you can use Steam's universal controller settings thing to make it work, though sometimes with these budget doujin games I get the opposite issue where I have to turn all that "modernizing" off lol

though the most baffling thing I encountered from an indie game was Shantae: Pirate's Curse not supporting my older controller, but also somehow actively blocking joy2key its like damn y'all really don't want me playin this

[BulletMagnet]

though the most baffling thing I encountered from an indie game was Shantae: Pirate's Curse not supporting my older controller, but also somehow actively blocking joy2key its like damn y'all really don't want me playin this

I believe the default controller for that one is a wig with a USB plug on it that you have to whip around by moving your neck IRL.

[ED-057]

Yes I've had a few rants about this, several games from gog have the same problem. They assume a certain a controller, don't specify that in the system requirements, don't have proper reconfig for controls, and can't be tamed using joy2key. So I either use keyboard+mouse or don't play at all.

I was starting to wonder if there is some other workaround out there (like a special joystick driver or something) to work around this bit of developer retardation, but I haven't gotten around to investigating it yet.

[null1024]

SDL's new controller API is basically just XInput. The whitelist is a set of non-XInput controllers that have had mappings submitted.
https://wiki.libsdl.org/CategoryGameController
Steam's "generic gamepad configuration support" outright creates the required mappings, though. Non-Steam games should be able to load external mapping sets with a line like the following in the source:

Code: Select all

SDL_GameControllerAddMappingsFromFile("gamecontrollerdb.txt");

...but many don't.

Also, fuck XInput, which has drastically shrunk the amount of useful gamepads available.
A lot of games in general don't support non-XInput controllers these days.
That wouldn't even be so bad if Windows had a system-wide remapping thing, but it doesn't, which is absurd.
API changes shouldn't require entirely new hardware.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

SDL's new controller API is basically just XInput. The whitelist is a set of non-XInput controllers that have had mappings submitted.
https://wiki.libsdl.org/CategoryGameController
Steam's "generic gamepad configuration support" outright creates the required mappings, though. Non-Steam games should be able to load external mapping sets with a line like the following in the source:

Code: Select all

SDL_GameControllerAddMappingsFromFile("gamecontrollerdb.txt");

...but many don't.

Also, fuck XInput, which has drastically shrunk the amount of useful gamepads available.
A lot of games in general don't support non-XInput controllers these days.

That is similar to what I found too.
For others on Linux you might try the following line before calling steam.
It seems that they've removed the traditional way of reading controllers.

Code: Select all

export SDL_JOYSTICK_DEVICE=/dev/input/js0

Make sure you reset if afterwards:

Code: Select all

unset SDL_JOYSTICK_DEVICE

And here is the bright guy who wrecked it.

SDL2 code skips over the non event* named files in /dev/inpuot
changeset: 6729:fdaeea9e7567
date: Tue Dec 11 11:07:48 2012 -0500
summary: Removed old Linux joystick API (/dev/js*).

changeset: 6728:0f8336c1f6d9
date: Mon Dec 10 15:50:42 2012 -0500
summary: Removed the "logical" Linux joystick code.

[orange808]

I've disagreed with lots of decisions, committs, and reverts over the years, but I'm not sure that posting the guy's contact info will help.

Gordon didn't act unilaterally.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I've disagreed with lots of decisions, committs, and reverts over the years, but I'm not sure that posting the guy's contact info will help.

Gordon didn't act unilaterally.

Fair enough. I redacted the contact information.
People have the change ID there they can research it and contact him.

[ED-057]

found this: https://www.x360ce.com/

It appears to have fixed Memories of Celceta at least

[Jeneki]

My biggest complaint is when only analog stick is supported, with the D-Pad is completely ignored and can't be assigned to anything. Is there some extra challenge in using the D-Pad on modern controllers that makes it so difficult to enable?

There are far too many 2D indie games that would benefit from using D-Pad to move, but nope, you must use the analog stick for whatever reason.

[null1024]

My biggest complaint is when only analog stick is supported, with the D-Pad is completely ignored and can't be assigned to anything. Is there some extra challenge in using the D-Pad on modern controllers that makes it so difficult to enable?

There are far too many 2D indie games that would benefit from using D-Pad to move, but nope, you must use the analog stick for whatever reason.

It's almost entirely the fact that the D-pad has an entirely different API interface vs the sticks. This isn't too hard to fix, but it's a bit tedious, especially if your code just assumes analog stick values everywhere.

as a dev, you need to do something like this [this is with the SDL2 "joystick" API, it'd look a bit different with the "controller" API]:

Code: Select all

//CC0, use freely
//caveat emptor: none of this is tested

//pretends the dpad is an analog stick, get the x axis:
//you can muck about with this for proper sqrt(2)*distance diagonals but whatever, don't trust the analog stick to be a circle gate anyway
//this is a little simpler with the "controller" API since dpad inputs are just individual buttons there (eg, SDL_CONTROLLER_BUTTON_DPAD_UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT)
int get_dpad_x(SDL_Joystick *joy) {
  Uint8 hat = SDL_JoystickGetHat(joy,0);
  if (hat == SDL_HAT_LEFT || hat == SDL_HAT_LEFTUP || hat == SDL_HAT_LEFTDOWN) {
    return -32767; //might have gotten this exactly backwards, but one goes up, the other goes down
  }
  if (hat == SDL_HAT_RIGHT || hat == SDL_HAT_RIGHTUP || hat == SDL_HAT_RIGHTDOWN) {
    return 32767;
  }
  return 0;
}

//pretends the dpad is an analog stick, get the y axis:
int get_dpad_y(SDL_Joystick *joy) {
  Uint8 hat = SDL_JoystickGetHat(joy,1);
  if (hat == SDL_HAT_UP || hat == SDL_HAT_LEFTUP || hat == SDL_HAT_RIGHTUP) {
    return -32767;
  }
  if (hat == SDL_HAT_DOWN || hat == SDL_HAT_LEFTDOWN || hat == SDL_HAT_RIGHTDOWN) {
    return 32767;
  }
  return 0;
}

//these are what you'd use in your game code, probably replacing a bunch of SDL_JoystickGetAxis calls
//this pretends the two entirely separate inputs are one
//there's several ways to do this, but here, we prioritize d-pad inputs if given for each direction
int get_input_dir_x(SDL_Joystick *joy) {
  int dir=get_dpad_x(joy);
  if (dir!=0) { return dir; } //if d-pad is pressed, return it
  return SDL_JoystickGetAxis(joy, 0); //otherwise, read the stick position
}
int get_input_dir_y(SDL_Joystick *joy) {
  int dir=get_dpad_y(joy);
  if (dir!=0) { return dir; }
  return SDL_JoystickGetAxis(joy, 1);
}

this code muxes the two as one input, but you could change the "if (dir!=0)" checks to be some kind of external select for which to use for directions
you'd replace all the direct analog stick checks with calls to get_input_dir_x/y

[Pixel_Outlaw]

My biggest complaint is when only analog stick is supported, with the D-Pad is completely ignored and can't be assigned to anything. Is there some extra challenge in using the D-Pad on modern controllers that makes it so difficult to enable?

There are far too many 2D indie games that would benefit from using D-Pad to move, but nope, you must use the analog stick for whatever reason.

It's pretty annoying.
Mostly because they've not put serious time into a dpad and the analog stick /seems/ more encompassing and precise.
In actuality it's slower (more throw) and more imprecise (too many possible directions = inconsistent input)

[Obiwanshinobi]

So fucking gash it sounds that I DON'T wanna upgrade from WinXP Pro for a lil' bit longer, again. Even ports from PS2-era consoles, typically troubled in MANY a way (say, MGS2: Substance) would, in general, respect your average USB controller/adapter. Reverse horizontal camera movement in Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg PC port was the worst I can put my finger on (and a far cry from being that port's biggest flaw).