Windows Version

[uppps]

There is a WIP Windows branch but there have not been any progress in the last month. Can I expect a release anytime soon?

[kozec]

Nope, unless you have someone with at least some Windows coding experience :D

What I was trying to do was to get at least SendInput level of "emulation", what would work badly and with no gamepad support. AFAIK, there is no way to actually emulate gamepad spare of replacing xinput.dll and/or some system libraries.

[Ryochan7]

There are two main options for emulating an Xbox 360 gamepad across the system on Windows. The old standby is using the Scp Virtual Bus Driver. That driver is not really being maintained anymore though. A newer driver that will eventually replace it is called ViGEm. One nice feature about that driver is that it will be capable of emulating more than just an Xbox 360 gamepad. It still has some stability problems so it is not ready for mass consumption yet. Hopefully those issues will be ironed out soon.

https://github.com/nefarius/ViGEm

[kozec]

Thanks, that sounds useful.

But just to be clear, Windows support is currently somewhere at very bottom of TODO list, somewhere bellow support for non-steam controllers, i18n and probably VR integration or something :D But contributions are always welcomed.

There is long list of stuff that needs to be solved in potential Windows port:

• libusb is not exactly reliable under Windows and pyusb is not 100% compatible with Linux version. Later is partially solved at least for wired controller
• There is no uinput, so keyboard and mouse emulation has to be rewritten. This should be possible using winapi.
• There is no uinput, so gamepad emualtion has to be rewritten. Most likely using ViGEm that @Ryochan7 linked post above
• Windows uses different keycodes, button names etc, so conversion code has to be made to convert stuff like Keys.KEY_LEFTMETA to whatever numerical constant Windows uses for Winkey.
• Reverse conversion has to be done for grabbing keys using GUI
• And grabing keys in GUI will not work with current code at all :)
• GUI uses unix socket to communicate with daemon. And while it's easy to just use TCP here, it opens whole can of security issues along with possibility of everything crashing when something else uses same port
• And when we are talking about daemon, there is no such thing on Windows. Or rather, proces can act as daemon without all magic needed on Linux. This is already partially fixed by converting daemon into normal "exe", but stuff like stopping and restarting currently does nothing.
• OSD (including on-screen keyboard) depends on X11 to create non-clickable, non-managed window. I'm not sure if same is even possible on Windows
• Gesture recognition uses OSD. But at least drawing "blindly" should work.
• Similarly, stuff like restricting mouse to specific area depends on X11 as well. But adding support throug winapi shouldn't be hard
• And autoswitcher is X11-only as well.

I'll update that list if I remember anything else :)

[BanCrash]

Well, thanks for at least having it on the todo list!!

[kozec]

Absolutely nothing is happening, I'm just writing down library that may be usable as uinput replaceament.

http://vjoystick.sourceforge.net/site/index.php/dev216

[BanCrash]

Like the meme says, it's something!! Thanks for letting us know!

[uppps]

@kozec Any progress? There haven't been any new commits in the windows branch recently.

[elboletaire]

I know nothing about windows programming (at least at that low level), so I cannot help, but would love to see this implemented.

I understand the priority of the tasks, but man, having this app on windows would be awesome. I always said that the worst thing about steam controller is... steam, and this app solves that issue and in a very, very good manner, seriously! good job @kozec and other collaborators!

[kozec]

If someone is still watching this and feels really adventurous, there is now work-in-progress SCC that should work on Windows.

[faldor20]

I AM STILL WATCHING.... :) i have been for a long time, its awesome to see this might one day be a real thing, i would love to ditch the steam setup for my non steam games.

[kozec]

It kinda works already, as long as you don't need GUI :)

Main problem is this ViGEM issue that can literally freeze Windows 7, but I can make another prerelease with xinput-compatible pad emulation at least for Win10 tomorow.

[faldor20]

ahh i see, well considering most of the world is moving towards windows 10 anyway i think even if it never gets fixed dropping support for windows 7 while unfortunate is not totally unacceptable.

[dastious]

Win 7 user, seems to work but it only emulate ps4 pad, i cannot use the mouse pad or mix desktop option with mouse or keyboard. Also Desktop mode only work outside of game, inside game it stop working.
Also i need to launch many time the daemon, because it always return serial number can't be obtain.

Is there a way to get mouse pad ? Or something useful ? Also the camera pad for ps4 don't work : relXY function is not here.
So for now the pad is not usable.

[kozec]

Win 7 user, seems to work but it only emulate ps4 pad

That's intentional, and probably will stay like that for foreseeable future :( It's better alternative than crashing entire OS.

Also i need to launch many time the daemon, because it always return serial number can't be obtain.

... but this is not. Those serials are working differently between "versions" of Steam Controller, but I thought I had it finally got it right. I'll add workaround for case when it can't be retrieved at all.

Also the camera pad for ps4 don't work : relXY function is not here.

Probably good thing to prioritize, thanks for reminding me.