Once you have hooked up your controller, have opted into support if needed, and customized any general controller settings, the next step is to to get acquainted with the Configurator as you will be spending a decent chunk of time within it.
As you will see, Steams controller support extends beyond just games and to your entire PC.
Steam has 4 types of configurations for your controller. Steam needs to be running to use them.
- The Desktop Configuration - When no game or Big Picture Mode is launched, this configuration allows you to control your PC’s desktop with your controller.
- The Big Picture Mode Configuration - When Steam is in Big Picture Mode (including using Steam’s On Screen Keyboard while on the Desktop), your controller will use this configuration to navigate it.
- The Guide Chord Configuration - This is a Universal Configuration that can be accessed at any time by holding down your controllers Guide/Home/System button. This is useful for things such as media controls so you do not need to find places for them across all of your configurations.
- Per Game Configurations - Each and every game you play through Steam has its own configuration. This allows you to tailor your experience for each game.
You will need your controller connected to access any configurations.
You can find the Desktop, Big Picture Mode, and Guide Chord Configurations by clicking on “Steam”, then “Settings”, then navigating to the “Controller” category on the left hand side. From there you can access the configurations.
You can access game specific configurations in 3 ways:
- While viewing your library, click on a game. Underneath the “Play” button is a row of links to things such as the Store Page and Community Hub. With a controller connected, “Controller Configuration” will be all the way on the right of this row. NOTE: You may need to press the “dot dot dot” button to access it.
- Right click on a game in your library, navigate down to “manage”, and “controller configuration” is an option in that list.
- While in game, bringing up the overlay allows you to access the configuration
- With the Big Picture Mode overlay, “Controller Configuration” will be an option in the list on the left
- With the Desktop Overlay, “Controller Configuration” will be a button towards the top right. Pressing it will minimize the game and pop up the configuration in a separate window. Once you have made your changes and click “Done”, the game will be brought back up.
Accessing the Desktop, Big Picture Mode, and Guide Chord Configurations from Big Picture Mode is a little involved.
- Navigate to the Gear icon in the upper right of the main Big Picture.Mode page.
- Selecting it takes you to the Settings Page of Big Picture Mode
- In the left hand column, there is the Controller category
- In the Controller category is “Base Configurations”
- Selecting it takes you to a page where you can access the Desktop, Big Picture Mode, and Guide Chord configurations.
Accessing the game specific configurations is also a little different.
- On the Big Picture Mode main page, almost dead center of the screen is the Library icon. Highlight and select it.
- This takes you to your games library. It defaults to a screen that contains games you recently played and/or recently updated. You can back out of this screen to view more categories of games in your library.
- Once you have found a game you wish to play or configure your controller for, select it.
- The first thing that is highlighted when you do so is the “Your Game” button in the left hand column. However, you want to navigate down one spot to “Manage Game” and select that instead
- Once selected, the first thing highlighted is the Controller Configuration. Select that to access the configuration.
While in game, you can access the configuration any time by opening up the Steam Overlay as before.
Once you have opened a Configuration, you are brought to the main Configuration Overview Page. This is set up to give you an “at a glance” view of the configuration.
In the middle of the screen is an image of the controller the configuration is made for.
At the top is the name of the configuration, and directly underneath is the username of the person who created the configuration.
Directly below the title is where any action sets or action layers are listed (sets and layers will be covered in chapter 04).
If using a Sony DualShock 4 or Dualsense, underneath the sets and layers will be the Touchpad settings. You can swap between a unified touchpad or a split touchpad with the button.
Then starting on the left hand side of the controller and going down:
- Left Trigger Full Pull Binding (if applicable)
- Left Trigger Soft Pull Binding (if applicable)
- Left Bumper Binding
- Left Grip Button Binding (For Steam Controllers)
- Select/- Button Binding
- Mic Mute Button (Sony Dualsense)/Capture Button (Switch Pro Controller)
- The Always On Binding
Going back to the top, but this time the right hand side of the controller and going down:
- Right Trigger Full Pull Binding (if applicable)
- Right Trigger Soft Pull Binding (if applicable)
- Right Bumper Binding
- Right Grip Button Binding (For Steam Controllers)
- Start/+ Button Binding
For applicable controllers (not Xbox controllers), underneath the image of the controller is:
- Gyro (looks like a couple of ovals within a circle)
Then along the bottom are 4 rectangles in a row. These rectangles represent the 4 primary Input Devices on your controller, and left to right follow the same order as your controller left to right.
For Xbox and Switch Pro controllers, this order is:
- Left Joystick
- Directional Pad
- Right Joystick
- ABXY/BAYX Face Button Cluster
For Sony Controllers, this order is:
- Directional Pad
- Left Joystick
- Right Joystick
- Cross-Circle-Square-Triangle Face Button Cluster
For the Steam Controller, the order is:
- Left Touchpad
- Left Joystick
- ABXY Face Button Cluster
- Right Touchpad
To help locate which Bindings and Input Styles go with what part of the controller, there are lines connecting them. These lines become highlighted when you have a Binding or Input Device highlighted, to better show the connection.
Along the very bottom of the page, there is a row of UI Buttons.
If you are navigating the Configuration Overview page with a controller, those UI Buttons correspond to the Buttons on the Face Button Cluster. The Buttons are:
- Select - with a Binding or Input Style highlighted, activating this takes you into the settings for that Binding or Input Style
- Browse Configs - activating this takes you to the “Controller Configurations - Import” page, which will allow you to apply an entirely different configuration from a list of available configurations broken down into categories.
- Export Config - activating this takes you to the “Controller Configuration - Export” page, which will allow you to save your current configuration in a variety of ways.
- Done - activating this closes out of the Configuration Overview page.
If you are navigating the Configuration Overview page with a mouse, the “Select” UI Button is removed as it is no longer needed; simply clicking on the Binding or Input Style takes you into the settings. The other 3 UI buttons remain, but are now clickable instead of activated through a button press from the Face Button Cluster of the controller.
If you are using a controller to navigate the Configuration Overview page, here are the default controls:
- The Directional Pad OR Left Joystick move up/down/left/right to highlight the various Bindings and Input Styles
- Button Prompts at the bottom of the screen tell you how to interact with the page. The two most important UI Buttons are Select and Back, which use buttons from the Face Button Cluster (A and B for Steam Controller and Xbox Controllers, B and A for the Switch Pro Controller, and Cross and Circle for Sony Controllers).
The controller actually uses the Big Picture Mode configuration to interact with the Configurator, as the Configurator is part of the Big Picture Mode (even when in a window on your Desktop). As a result, you can actually customize how you navigate Big Picture Mode and by extension the Configurator by customizing the Big Picture Mode Configuration.
If you are using a Mouse to navigate the Configurator, things are way easier; it's all just point and click.
If you would like to quickly change the configuration to something else entirely, you can import a configuration.
This is done by cliking on or pressing the button on your controller associated with "Browse Configs".
This will take you to the "Controller Configurations - Import" screen. Note: All configurations found on this screen are specific to the game you are playing unless otherwise noted.
On the left side of this screen is a list of categories of where the configuration comes from. Configuration sources are:
- Recommended - If a developer has created a configuration for their game or has selected a template they think works best, you will find that configuration here. There can also be multiple configurations present if the developer has created several for different playstyles.
- Personal - This is a list of all of your configurations that you have exported for this game. Exporting configurations will be covered in the next subsection.
- Your Friends - If any of your friends have exported a configuration to the community, you can quickly find their configurations here.
- Community - This is a list of all configurations players of the game have exported.
- Templates - This category contains generic premade templates by Valve designed not to be the best but rather as a base starting point that should work
- Your Other Games - This is a list of configurations that you have made for your other games. Useful for situations where you have multiple games that you want to control the same, such as Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3.
Once you have selected a category, the list of categories fades out a bit and the list of configurations in that category take a more central position on the screen.
Using the scroll wheel on a mouse or the dpad on your controller, you can scroll through the list.
At the bottom of the screen are the button prompts for how to interact with the list. These are:
- Import Config
- Show Other Controller Types - by default, you are only shown configurations that were made with your controller. You can view and import configurations from other controllers, however while the configurator will do what it can to convert the configuration over it may not be perfect
- Back
- Share Configuration - this gives you a shareable link to the configuration that looks something like steam://controllerconfig/367520/2299077420 (This is my Hollow Knight configuration for the Steam Controller). If you see a link like that and want to view the configuration, copy and paste the link into a browser while you have Steam Running.
- Remove - only available for your own configurations. This allows you to delete configurations.
- Sort By Votes - only available in the Community Configurations. Changes the order the configurations are presented to you, focusing on votes
- Upvote - only available in the Community Configurations. Awards a configuration you like with an upvote.
When hovering over a configuration you think you might be interested in, press "Import Config".
This will take you to the Configuration Overview Preview page. PREVIEW is written just above the controller in the overview. At this point you can navigate the configuration like you would normally, but you cannot change any settings. This is just so you can check out the configuration to see if you you might be interested.
If you like the configuration, pressing "Apply Configuration" (found at the bottom of the Configuration Overview Preview screen) will fully apply it.
If you do not like the configuration, you can always return to the "Controller Configurations - Import" by pressing Back.
If you have made tweaks to a configuration and would like to save it or share it with the community, you can export it!
This is done by pressing the button associated with "Export Config" at the bottom of the Configuration Overview page.
This takes you to the "Controller Configurations - Export" page.
On the left of this screen is a list of categories that you can export to. Unless otherwise noted, all configurations will be for the game you are configuring for. These categories are:
- Personal - this is a list of your own personal configurations for the game, whether you save them offline or online.
- Your Friends - this is a list of configurations people on your friends list have exported. Unsure why this is a category when exporting a config.
- Community - If you would like to share your configuration in a place anyone can find it, you would export here.
Valve requires you play at least 5 minutes with the configuration prior to uploading it to the community. This is in theory to ensure the person making the config works out any issues first.
- Templates - You can actually export to a template, if you are making a configuration that could apply to multiple games such as your own template for RTS games as Valves Keyboard and Mouse Template is more geared for FPS'.
- Your Other Games - this category is a list of configurations from your other games. Unsure why this category is accessible when exporting a config.
Once you have selected a place to export your configuration to, a dialog box opens over the Configuration Overview page. This dialog box allows you to Name your Configuration and provide a short description of what its about. After giving it those things, pressing save completes the Export process.