Latest Steam Deck update will warn you if an Xbox controller needs upgrading

Submitted ⁨⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨cm0002@lemy.lol⁩ to ⁨steamdeck@sopuli.xyz⁩

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/12/latest-steam-deck-update-will-warn-you-if-an-xbox-controller-needs-upgrading/

Valve released a new Steam Deck Beta update that includes a useful tweak to its Xbox controller detection.

There’s a bit of a problem with modern Xbox controllers and Bluetooth, where they won’t properly connect up with SteamOS / Linux unless they’ve gone through a firmware update. I’ve seen a lot of support requests about this issue over the years and so it’s good to see Valve highlight it directly. While it’s a Steam Deck Beta Client update, it should apply to other SteamOS devices too.

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Comments

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Bluegrass_Addict@lemmy.ca ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’d personally buy a new controller from anyone that isn’t mucrosoft before I flash new firmware on a controller

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- vateso5074@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Sometimes new firmware is good, though. The feature recently added to the PS5’s Dualsense that allows them to pair with multiple devices was such a huge QoL change.
  
  Still fuck Microsoft though.
  
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  - LiveLM@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    The 8BitDo Ultimate Wireless 2 also only received full Steam Input capabilities after a couple firmware updates to the Controller and 2.4g dongle.
    
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  - domi@lemmy.secnd.me ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    The feature recently added to the PS5’s Dualsense that allows them to pair with multiple devices was such a huge QoL change.
    
    Does that only apply to playstations or can you pair to multiple PCs? Might have to upgrade then.
    
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- monkeyman512@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Are you trying to say, “Don’t buy a Xbox controller then flash it”? I can understand the decision to not do business with MS, but I assume most people already possess that controller and are trying make use of what they have.
  
  This is not a critique, I just don’t understand what you are intending to communicate.
  
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  - Bluegrass_Addict@lemmy.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I assume the new ms firmware will inject copilot into the controller and make it worse. zero trust in anything microsoft
    
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- Beacon@fedia.io ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Why?
  
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  - fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Maybe they like bugs that make their controller incompatible with other systems other than the manufacturers.
    
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  - Bluegrass_Addict@lemmy.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I assume its just gonna get injected with copilot or some nonsense. zero faith in anything microsoft
    
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- BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  8bitdo is perfect. There is no reason to buy anything else these days.
  
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  - Psythik@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Do they make a pad that is exactly like the upcoming Steam Controller Mk.II, except with two extra face buttons next to B & Y (like an old Sega controller)? It should also have cooling fans for my hands without sacrificing rumble (just like an old Logitech controller I had back in the day).
    
    Something like that is my dream controller and I’ve been waiting for someone to come along and make it for years.
    
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MudMan@fedia.io ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It's hard to fault Steam's controller layer, but I really wish they finally found a way to parse gyro data from third party controllers without having to run them on Switch mode. That goes for Microsoft and their own drivers. At this point it's weird to keep pretending the Windows controller APIs are supposed to work on their first party Xbox controllers only.

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- JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It’s not possible, xinput doesn’t support gyroscopes, the controller simply doesn’t report that data. The “Switch” mode is setting it to be a standard HID/DirectInput device so that all of those inputs can be accessed, but that requires something (Steam Input) to sit between the controller and the game to map the inputs together.
  
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  - MudMan@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Yes, I'm aware, that's why I'm calling out it's weird that XInput doesn't support gyro, because we're a long way away of it being just based on Xbox controller support and a whole bunch of other controllers with a whole bunch of other features now go through it. If MS doesn't want to add gyro that's up to them, but Windows supporting it natively is way overdue. Of course at that point older controllers would probably need a firmware update, but hey, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
    
    In practice the situation we're having is games are defaulting to Xinput and relying on Steam Input as an intermediate layer for additional features, so the end result is that gyro is... not NOT supported, but often not acknowledged at all, so you end up with a bunch of situations where you have to config gyro manually per game as a bit of a Steam-level hack, and then your controller is all wonky anywhere other than Steam because the way Switch/DI/PS input modes get picked up in non-Steam stuff can be weird.
    
    And it gets worse in handhelds where you're absolutely at the mercy of how the manufacturer decided to set up their controller and gyro support, and sometimes need to do a lot of weird stuff to pass it on outside of Steam.
    
    It's the jankiest part of controller set up left on PC gaming, and it's all down to this weird "mom and dad aren't talking" dance where MS keeps pretending PC controllers are fundamentally Xbox controllers at the XInput layer and Steam is the de facto curator of the controller support but has no interest (and to be frank no expectation or need) to have their controller layer work outside their launcher.
    
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HouseWolf@pawb.social ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I have NEVER heard of any controller before this current generation needing firmware upgrades.

Even the launch model PS4 controller I use on my PC never asked for an update and still works fine…

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- ChairmanMeow@programming.dev ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Even the PS3 controller received firmware updates. This isn’t all that new.
  
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  - HouseWolf@pawb.social ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I mainly played on PS3 for years from release and that was never a thing…
    
    The console got plenty of updates but never the controller.
    
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- mephiska@fedia.io ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Have you ever used that PS4 controller on a PS4? If you did the console would definitely ask you to plug the controller in with a USB cable to update it.
  
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  - fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yeah my OG xbone controllers got numerous firmware updates.
    
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  - HouseWolf@pawb.social ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Ngl I only played the PS4 for about a month to play Bloodborne before I gave it to my brother. I just kept one of the controllers.
    
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- MudMan@fedia.io ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I'm almost entirely sure that PS4 and XOne controllers did get upgrades at some points. Definitely Switch 1 ones, which matters or not depending on how you split the gens. There were definitely revisions in older controllers, though. Some were labeled and had obvious new features, some were quieter. And PC-side drivers got updates all the time, obviously.
  
  Also, your current gen controller will also keep working indefinitely without an update. In this case Valve is annoyed about a particular dependency where THEY need the upgrade to happen for a feature compatibility thing, but the controller proper will work if you plug it in.
  
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- altphoto@lemmy.today ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I’ve run out of mouse clicks for the month!
  
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- Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Quest, Pico and I assume other VR controllers have been getting updates for years.
  
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altphoto@lemmy.today ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Warning! Shoot the thing!

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