I don’t need anything special or pricey, just a basic controller that does basic controller things.
I’ve tried a few generic controllers, but they have issues with bluetooth, battery life, and automatically shutting off too early from idling.
Does anyone know of any generic controllers that don’t have these issues? I don’t mind if the battery life isn’t the same or better than official controllers, but they shouldn’t straight up lie about the capacity. It should be illegal.
I’m using a MSI Force GC30 V2, currently per usb, but it comes with a 2.4GHz adapter that works on the OG Steam Link, so it will probably work under any linux distro. XBox Layout, great battery life, shutoff is ca. 5 Minutes. Only drawback is the integrated battery, but i have not yet experienced much of a reduced battery life over the last 2 years. bonus: can be switched to an Android-compatibility mode for gaming on smartphones. costs 35€ currently, but the build quality is the same as the official xbox series controller (which i used exclusively before)
If you want to go as cheap as possible while retaining usable status, I’d recommend generic Xbox 360 controllers. You can get deals on two of them in a set for sub-$20 and they’re usually fine functionally. They will have cheap sticks and poor build quality, but they take AA or the Play N Charge packs and their 2.4ghz dongles they come with work on Linux perfectly for every “brand” I’ve tried.
If you want a nice non-Xbox/PlayStation controller, as others have said: get an 8BitDo.
Don’t bother with anything else. I’ve bought plenty of generic Switch controllers, off brand Xbox or PlayStation controllers, etc. They all lead to pain, connection issues, and frustration. ESPECIALLY if they’re Bluetooth. You might be OK if they come with a dongle for 2.4ghz, but even those are spotty sometimes and often have range issues.
I just use a Dualshock 4
It like.
Works. Linux games and Emulators recognise it as a generic SDL-compatible controller 99.9% of the time (and for that .1% there’s ds4drv in emulate-xpad mode). And Windows games on Proton use Steam Input which is not just functional, it even works with things like the motion sensors and shit.
Not much else I can say to it. It never gave me Bluetooth problems (and I use a generic bluetooth USB adaptor from China), its battery lasts long enough to not bother me, and it never shut off during a cutscene.
Thanks. I’ve been using generic DS4s but they all have some of the issues I’ve been describing.
Do you know how to turn off the touchpad? It just gets in the way for me.
Yes and no
I know how to turn it off on KDE Plasma Wayland which is the DE I use. Different WMs and DEs will do it differently. X11 will do it differently. I’m sure it can be done, I just have no idea how.
With the controller connected, Plasma-Wayland reports the touchpad as like. A laptop touchpad. So you can shut it off by just going into its settings programme and turning it off like you would a laptop touchpad.
… Unless of course you ARE using a laptop, at which point that would possibly turn off both your laptop’s actual touchpad as well as the one in the DS4.
Thanks for the advice.
I’m using KDE with X11 on a laptop, so it’s probably not so easy for me to turn it of 🙁
Why are you using X11 on Plasma? Wayland support has been great for a long time on Plasma and they’re working towards deprecating X11.
Every time I’ve tried using wayland I’ve had issues with it.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Gamepad#Disable_touchpad_acting_as_mouse
and- xorg.conf entries
Section "InputClass" Identifier "joystick catchall" MatchIsJoystick "on" MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*" Driver "joystick" Option "StartKeysEnabled" "off" # Disable mouse support of joypad Option "StartMouseEnabled" "off" EndSection"You’d need to replace/add the MatchProduct directive in your xorg config file with something like this to disable the touchpad:
MatchProduct "Wireless" MatchProduct "Controller|Adaptor" MatchProduct "Touchpad"
I bought an 8bitdo ultimate Bluetooth controller (also supports 2.4ghz transceiver). It pairs with my switch and my Linux system effortlessly and works great.
I believe the button mapping is backwards from what I see in games (push b to confirm choices, but it’s really a). But I rely more on muscle memory anyway.
It might seem laughable that so many people are shilling for 8bitdo but as an owner of three of their controllers and two of their keyboards: yes they are that good.
I disagree.
It is laughable.
I wanted to get some tonal context so I could better understand your reply here so I read some of your other comments.
I regret wasting my time.
Using Logitech F310 without problems for years. I think F710 was the wireless version of it but I didn’t use it so no idea.
Not generic, but I’ve been using Xbox Series controllers with LMDE. They were plug n play and work flawlessly out of the box. I’ve used them with both bluetooth and wired and have had no problems with emulation and steam. You’d probably save more buying a used xbox controller for about $30-$50 than trial and error with cheaper off-brand gamepads
He asked for generic. 🙄
I bought an Xbox series controller, it’s too small, the triggers are too stiff, not very impressed, the separately sold rechargeable battery pack is lame. Bought a DualSense on sale and it is better in every way. Haven’t touched the Xbox controller since. It really feels like they cut corners on quality to encourage sales of the ridiculously overpriced Elite controllers.
I have the 8BitDo Ultimate controller and just store it in the dock when not in use. I’ve not had any connectivity issues (does Bluetooth & 2.4Ghz), battery life (22hrs), or ever have it just shut off. Also has rumble , motion, and hall effect sticks. The configuration of profiles can be done through a mobile app or Windows/VM.
The mobile app thing never worked for me and desynced the controller… I’ll try the VM.
I also have this controller (and the one that is SNES style) and both work well with my steam deck.
All of these are complaints specific to wireless controllers (auto-shutoff to conserve battery, battery life, some sort or Bluetooth connectivity issue). Have you considered getting a wired, USB controller? Or using your existing one in USB mode, which most wireless controllers support?
I only use wired controllers, however my system (Mint) doesn’t acknowledge controller input as standard input, so the screen saver comes on in 20 minutes or my machine goes to sleep after an hour while I play. I haven’t figured out how to stop it yet.
so the screen saver comes on in 20 minutes or my machine goes to sleep after an hour while I play. I haven’t figured out how to stop it yet.
The way I have my system set up is to not power-off the monitor unless the screensaver is up, but if it is, to flip the power off in pretty short order. I manually trigger the screensaver. So I don’t know what people who do auto-locking and all do today.
kagis
https://github.com/foresto/joystickwake
This appears to do this on Xorg and Wayland for various screensavers and environments. I have not used it myself. I don’t know if it’s been packaged by anyone in Mint, though – I don’t see a package in Debian trixie, and if this site is the package repo for Mint – I know that there are variations of Mint – then I don’t see it there. You can build, install, and set it up to run manually, I suppose.
I do see a reference to an Ubuntu package in a PPA at the bottom of their main page. One variant of Mint is based on Ubuntu; I don’t know whether that means that one can get away with using Ubuntu packages or not.
You can run caffeine in Terminal while playing the game.
Also: gaming on linux
I didn’t realise caffeine had a terminal utility, I use the gnome extension and love it
just an idea I have. to keep my pc from sleeping while streaming content to my other devices, I have a script that uses xdotool to move the cursor 1 pixel to the right and immediately back every 30 seconds if my network adapter has transferred some data. make (or ask chatgpt to make) a script that recognizes some of your controller inputs and then moves the mouse, or it could press XF86_wakeup key (this will cause problems in web excel). also it could trigger by just having the controller plugged in.
I love the 8bitdo Pro 2. No connection issues in either Xinput or DirectInput mode. Battery life is great and it can run on the included battery pack which will charge via USB-C or AAs that will actually extend the battery life.
8BitDo ultimate with hall effect joysticks. Great value and works perfectly.
I recommend the 8bitDo Pro 2 controller. The controller works well on my Linux gaming machine and the things I like about it are:
- Bluetooth or wired connection
- Replaceable battery with up to 20 hours of playtime.
Beat me to it. Outstanding controller, with replaceable parts staight from 8bitDo.
Oh. I didn’t realize that last part. The trigger pads have fallen off one of mine.
I don’t know of any generic controllers, and wouldn’t trust them to have consistent hardware between production runs. All the worthwhile controllers I’ve used have brand names. Having said that…
Logitech makes decent, affordable, basic controllers. My only complaint about the F310 / F710 is that the analog stick dead zones are a little bigger than I like. (Maybe I’m just spoiled by Sony models, though.)
Sony’s DualShock 4 v2 and DualSense are great in my experience, and not terribly expensive when they go on sale.
I’ve had pretty good success with a number of 8bitdo controllers. The wireless ones have a few different wireless “profiles” for compatibility with multiple devices, but after figuring that out, it’s pretty smooth sailing. They take several minutes to turn off from idling, and it won’t “idle” if you’re holding it (i.e., if there’s any activity on the gyroscope).
I have the SN30 Pro and the Zero 2, both have great battery life and work well on Linux (I’m using Mint). And they work wired as well.
8bitdo Pro2 is very good also for retro-gaming
