two handed split / VR controllers similar to joy-cons on nintendo switch, but for PC?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨klay@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨steamdeck@sopuli.xyz⁩

I honestly don’t care about VR headsets or full-body tracking right now, but I would love to have a controller that’s split into two pieces like the wiimote/nunchuck duo or the joy-cons. I know Steam can connect to actual joy-cons, but the bluetooth range on official joy-cons is pretty bad, and I haven’t had any luck getting third-party joy-cons to connect. Can anyone recommend me a controller? I’ve been looking at the HTC Vive controller, does that do what I want? My most played games are PlateUp, Stardew Valley, and Minecraft.

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socphoenix@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Most vr controllers talk to the units base station as far as I know, so unless you actually want to have a full vr headset that’s probably a very expensive proposition. Wii controllers are also Bluetooth compatible (least with dolphin), you might look into those instead of the joy cons if they would work

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- AceBonobo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  WMR controllers connect to Windows directly over Bluetooth
  
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Willie@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Honestly, if you want to use Nintendo Switch JoyCons as your PC controller, your best bet is to just use the JoyCons. I'm not sure if later revisions corrected it, but the HTC Vive controllers had pretty poor build quality, I'm not confident they could stand up to any real heavy usage.

The biggest issue with them though, is that they simply have too few buttons to do anything great with. On each one, you get two side buttons, a menu button, a power button, and (this is what kills it) a single trigger. This gives us 4 real buttons on each. We need ~16 to emulate a real controller, and we're only half way there. You might be able to squeak out some extra buttons from the touch pads, but I'm kind of assuming you'd be using those as joysticks, since the controllers have none. Having buttons and joysticks both in there sounds like a bad time.

So yeah, I'd probs go with the JoyCons and just live with the poor wireless range if possible. It kind of sucks, but they seem to be the right tool for the job.

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TheLongPrice@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I would love an index like controller for PC gaming

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Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
You could probably use VR controllers, though they don’t have the standard 16 buttons to do everything a standard controller can.

I never really had any issue with my Switch joy cons over Bluetooth on PC when I had a switch. The only problem I really had was the stick drift.

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zelmon64@compuverse.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The closest I ever got was just using two controllers. I really hope Valve will make a new controller for the Steam Deck and it’s able to be split in half.

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bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Since the Wii was announced everyone was joking about how the stereotypical fat gamer would never want to flail about to play their games. But honestly, playing Twilight Princess with one hand resting lazily on my thigh and the other behind my head I was wishing for the industry to go in the direction of independent controllers for every hand. But apparently only motion controls went that way.

So, good luck finding what you’re looking for!

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