Steam has been putting in some extra work as of late and they have been improving their support for the PS4 controller.
Steam has added leaning support for the PS4 gyro input, LED Brightness/Color controller action binding, and support for LED Color setting along with many other things under the hood.
With Steam and Sony supporting the DS4 on the PC, things are looking good for PC user without having to mess with 3rd party programs just to use your favorite controller. Changes since the last major release include the following:
Controller
- Added Steam Configuration support for PS4 Dual Shock Controller. Enable in Big Picture settings Add/Test Controller settings. When enabled, PS4 controllers will have access to the same sort of customization/configuration support as Steam Controllers, including native API support. PS4 Controllers using this system can map the trackpad, gyro, buttons, etc. to keyboard, mouse, or x-input outputs and can make use of action sets, touch menus, radial menus, and so forth.
- Added software gyro+accelerometer integration for IMUs without hardware integration. Allows Joystick-Move/D-Pad/Mouse Leaning support for the PS4 gyro input.
- Added New Mode – Joystick Mouse. This is a joystick based mouse control useful for stick based controllers.
- Added controller preference setting for haptics. Haptics can now be globally disabled for a controller or default to the configuration preferences.
- Added support for LED Color setting. Controllers which are capable of setting an LED color can now set this in controller personalization.
- Added LED Brightness/Color controller action binding. The light on the controller can now be changed via a binding. This is useful to mark changes in state such as different action sets or mode shifts, or on start/release press activators for changing while a button is pressed, for example. Light settings are reset to user preference when changing applications/configurations.
- Added software calibration for non-Steam controller based IMUs to counter for gyro drift.
- Modes and bindings which are unavailable to desktop and Big Picture modes will no longer be shown in the configurator.
- Steam now shows a dialog when trying to edit a config for a controller which has opted out of being configurable.
- Unified Radial Menu Button Press/Release behavior on digital inputs such as physical face buttons or d-pads.
- Dismiss quit menu when minimizing or turning off a controller.
- Controllers now support a default Rumble Preference to be On or Off. Games can override this setting or use the default preference for that controller. Setting is available under each controllers Preferences in Controller Settings in Big Picture.
- Individual games can opt out of using Steam Configuration support for the PS4 controller under each game’s Controller Settings. If a game has native PS4 support this allows it to continue to be recognized directly.
- Changed mode shift button activators to be uninterruptible by default.
- Changed Mouse mode Gyro Enable Button to default to Always On when placed on a PS4 Controller.
- Changed Joystick Mouse to default to Wide Response.
- Configuration Browser can now be toggled to show all available controller types rather than the default of the in-use controller type.
- Configurations can now be marked as “Unique” to a specific controller. This configuration will only be applied to that controller for that user’s account. By default, all controllers of a specific type will share a configuration unless marked as Unique.
- Fixed a bug where rumble would send to the incorrect controller and could cause controllers to control the incorrect player.
- Fixed default settings not applying properly to mode shifted modes, which could cause certain parameters to be incorrect by default on mode-shifts.
- SteamOS users should update to the latest version of SteamOS, as described here.
- Linux users should consider upgrading your udev rules to allow Steam access to /dev/hidraw* , as described here.
Thanks for reading and keep doing it for the love of the game.