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Developers really need to start having DS4 support on their PC games
- Thread starter Napalm_Frank
- Start date
Ivan Amiibo
Banned
Maybe it should conform to the standards of by far the most popular operating system and work as an xinput controller instead of letting politics get in the way of supporting their customers.
I'd imagine that by making them XInput controllers, they'd essentially be creating an Xbox controller by proxy though.
They should really have their own XInput equivalent, that mirrors the inputs of the PS4, so developers can just drop in whatever implementation they're using on the PS4 into the PC version. Reporting as DirectInput just gets them lost in the sea of every other DirectInput device, and so devs don't think to create any specific implementation of the device in games (which would include stuff like button prompts, or touchpad functionality).
You act as if DirectInput isn't a standard that wasn't around years before Xinput.
Like I said (got lost at the bottom of the last page). Any game that has a standard gamepad control scheme can easily assume any DirectInput controller is a DS4, include the DS4 icons, and be done. All of the other third-party DirectInput controllers aren't in any worse a position, and games are natively supporting DS4 aside from the trackpad (which is moot for any control scheme based around the 360 controller).
Yea, but it was a standard from when joypads weren't. A generic catch-all implementation simply leads to none of the devices being standard. XInput being specifically tailored for one type of controller, is why so many games actually have had decent controller support since.. just make it the same as you would for an Xbox port. The PlayStation controller should be a similar situation on PC, but it isn't because they can't be assed.
Ultimadrago
Member
Essentially. The XboxOne/Elite controller is crazy better than any PS controller.
I suppose I agree with the argument for more options though.
The Shadow
Member
I doubt it has anything to do with something so petty as politics.
It cost money and time to develop drivers and support them when the controller was built for an entirely different platform. That's all there is to it.
Maybe I'm just old enough to remember how much it sucked when gamepad support was iffy and there were tons of different gamepads out there and it was a nightmare to get them working, there were NO button prompts because they were all different - but it was terrible.
I know that DS4 support wouldn't necessarily mean less standardized controller support, but I have personally loved the dependability of my good old wired 360 controller knowing it's going to work on the vast majority of games with button prompts, etc. I really don't want to mess that up.
I know that DS4 support wouldn't necessarily mean less standardized controller support, but I have personally loved the dependability of my good old wired 360 controller knowing it's going to work on the vast majority of games with button prompts, etc. I really don't want to mess that up.
It would not require a genius to allow DirectInput to return an image of the bloody button for any controller that supports a trivial API.
The problem is that the current mess is in microsoft's favour, and they control the Windows/DirectInput API
.But any DS4 connected as a DirectInput controller will always connect with the buttons all bound the same way, so it's not like there's a question about whether Button1 = [] or not (for example, I have no idea which button [] on DS4 binds to), so it's not really any less standard.
What this boils down to is really an API deficiency.
A modern controller API (or really, gaming input API in general -- no reason for this not to work for keyboards, mice or anything else you can imagine!) should provide image mappings for arbitrary inputs of a given input device.
If MS doesn't provide such an API (and as far as I know, it doesn't exist on any other OS either) then what is needed is an additional, community-maintained intermediate layer games can be built on and profiles can easily be plugged into.
A modern controller API (or really, gaming input API in general -- no reason for this not to work for keyboards, mice or anything else you can imagine!) should provide image mappings for arbitrary inputs of a given input device.
If MS doesn't provide such an API (and as far as I know, it doesn't exist on any other OS either) then what is needed is an additional, community-maintained intermediate layer games can be built on and profiles can easily be plugged into.
It's an awesome time that can be attributed to Microsoft of all places. Through their terrible GFWL/GFW initiative we ended up with an Xinput standard that has become ubiquitous throughout PC gaming.
Through that standard we are able to emulate just about any controller imaginable with xinput and we have access to GameCube, WiiU Pro, DS4, DS3, and other controllers.
Developers really just need to give consumers the option to switch up button prompts, which would be a simple asset swap.
CadetMahoney
Member
ouch. Glad I got a new cronus max and 360 controller for those button prompts.
Possumowner
Member
It would be nice to have official support but I currently don't see it happening.My Steam controller and Xbox One controller have me covered nicely.
agiantenemycrab
Member
The ball is really in Sony's court to write an official XInput driver. Without that, for a game to support the PS4 controller the developer must manually write DirectInput code and talk directly to the DS4. This is annoying from a development standpoint, and when almost every PC gamer has a 360 controller (because it has been on the market for close to 10 years as a PC controller), it is difficult to justify the maintenance cost.
Napalm_Frank
Member
As said before icons are a bigger problem since getting the controller to work is no effort at all.
Seraph_Nicholas
Member
It's especially weird when there's halfassed support. FO4 supports the lightbar, but double-maps the d-pad? Come ON.
Napalm_Frank
Member
Witcher 3 supports lightbar too but no button icons. I dunno what the fuck that is about.
agiantenemycrab
Member
The SDL_GameController API is probably the best cross platform solution for this that I know of. It is used by almost all of the SteamOS/Linux games that support the standard console controllers(PS3/PS4/360). I am unsure what you mean by image mapping though. Do you mean like an identifier string for an individual button or axis? And possibly an associated bitmap?
Birgitte2004
Member
What is it with people and their belief that there is "one true controller" and that all other controllers suck?
The Xbox 360 controller, and now the Xbox One controller, cause my hands to cramp if I use them too much. Why? How the hell should I know? Something about my hands and those controllers simply does not line up. I have no issue like this at all with the DS3 or DS4.
We are on like 11 years of people trying to claim Xbox controllers are objectively better than Sony ones. Why?
The Xbox 360 controller, and now the Xbox One controller, cause my hands to cramp if I use them too much. Why? How the hell should I know? Something about my hands and those controllers simply does not line up. I have no issue like this at all with the DS3 or DS4.
We are on like 11 years of people trying to claim Xbox controllers are objectively better than Sony ones. Why?
Yea, but every make of controller shows the same mapping consistently with itself... the PS4's is just one of them. There's been pretty much no reason to provide special treatment to the DualShock 4 over any other generic controller, because Sony themselves don't even bother to. The situation has resulted in a chicken/egg scenario where developers don't need to worry about DualShock 4, because only a small minority of PC players will bother attempting to use one, and few people will bother to use one because it's not as well supported. This was the issue with all controllers using DirectInput prior to the Xbox 360 controller. When you specifically market your hardware as being PC compatible (and offer the drivers and API implementation to back it up) you can get the ball rolling on people actually wanting to use the device on that system, and consequently developers actually bothering to include standard configurations for it. As long as Sony pretends the device is purely a console peripheral, then developers will likely continue to treat it as one too.
The Shadow
Member
I'm not disagreeing with you, as this is on Sony more than anyone else to develop proper drivers in order to open up acceptance of using the DS4 on Windows.
However, it wouldn't be hard for developers to incorporate DS4 support as many games are multiplatform and already have an established controls scheme designed for the DS4. A lot of newer games already do this. If Sony won't develop drivers, it'd be nice if developers took that extra step.
Fanboys will be fanboys.
I have and use both controllers pretty frequently. The difference between them really isn't all that much so I'm forced to believe that's where people are coming from when opinions are so misaligned.
I see what you did there. There's no need to be subtle, is there something you'd like to tell me?
The topic of this thread is "DS4 support on their PC games", but the thread filled up with people recommending Xbox controllers.
MillionStabs
Banned
What the fuxk?
As someone who gave up PC gaming for the most part, I decided to try Steam on my media centre Mac Mini. I had heard that DS4 would work and games on steam touted that they had full controller support but man was I surprised to find out how much of a mess it was. XCom and Tomb Raider worked fine but a bunch of others just wouldn't work, or would only partially work. And of course they all have XBox symbols. Basically that turned me off the whole thing, which was a shame as it could very well have made me move to Steam for a lot of my games.
I mean the bitmap part in particular. Basically, in the API I envision, every "action" (which would need to be some higher level abstraction than just buttons, including button presses of course but also stuff like moving a joystick in one direction) would have an image associated with it in addition to a string ID, and perhaps a description. Software could then use those images in configuration and on prompts.
Kudo
Member
I hope Dark Souls 3 supports Dualshock 4 natively, I don't play that much on PC but that's one game I'll be playing and I don't like Xbox controllers at all.
If it doesn't I'll still have them as I would rather play with Xbox controller than mess my computer with 3rd party drivers.
That Hori controller looks nice, but I already have 4 controllers so not too keen to buy 5th!
Shouldn't Sony be releasing some sort of drivers for DS4 when the RemotePlay for PC comes? I doubt they'll try to make people play the games with Xbox controller.
If it doesn't I'll still have them as I would rather play with Xbox controller than mess my computer with 3rd party drivers.
That Hori controller looks nice, but I already have 4 controllers so not too keen to buy 5th!
Shouldn't Sony be releasing some sort of drivers for DS4 when the RemotePlay for PC comes? I doubt they'll try to make people play the games with Xbox controller.
Why would they need to? It'd be nice, yes, but why should they care enough to? I'm lucky that the Mayflash adapter for the Wii U Pro controller has dinput and xinput, but if a game didn't support it I wouldn't blame the developers for it. It would be disappointing, sure, but the onus is on me to have found this out before I bought the game.
Yea I agree that it'd be nice. I just think the reason that it doesn't happen more often is because each time a developers chooses to go that extra step, it's a small individual thing... there's no momentum behind it, because people will still expect the next game they play to not have support for it. It'd take Sony actually trying to position the controller as a viable PC option in order for people to expect to be able to use it, and it'll take people expecting to be able to use it for developers on the whole to make it so they actually can consistently.
Ol No Bones
Banned
Some people prefer the Xbox controller and some prefer the Dualshock. Its not that hard to understand and this thread is full of posturing from every angle. Even though the xbox controller is irrefutably better in almost every way the ops suggestion is good for everybody as some people just don't appreciate nicer things. Lets try to be objective here people.
Seriously though, I would like DS4 support for fighting games.
Seriously though, I would like DS4 support for fighting games.
Even if I could casually afford it sometimes the PS4 layout is preferred, I.E. 2D platformers.
Though going by the standard one's D-Pad at least it's a legitimate option rather than a farce of a D-Pad like on the 360.
Napalm_Frank
Member
Because there are consumers that want it and having PS button icons as an option is extremely small thing to ask for especially from AAA games with huge budgets that have a PS4 version with all those icons already implemented.
Tell me why they shouldn't care.
Thank you for proving my point again the OS is crap at handling this issue. This is unnecessary once a device is HID compliant windows should do a better job then requiring specific drivers to get functionality which isn't always possible like in this instance. It's the same problem mice users also face with extra mice buttons, which even with official drivers still isn't recognized by windows or the games properly because of this dumb archaic system.
Also go back to my original post and use some context. I was saying MS should let companies have input or let people used customized icons for prompts. I don't see how on earth sony or any other company can really make this happen without MS doing something on their end, care to explain how such a change could happen if they don't have the option currently. Even more so it's dumb as it adds another layer when MS could make it so that people could customize prompts regardless of input thus saving companies the need to do it for themselves considering as you keep saying only a certain amount of games have proper support. Don't give me this generic crap either when MS is the company that made and exploited the open environment of windows for what it is. They have the talent/money and it's not even that hard considering freeware does it better than things with official support. Being open doesn't entitle MS to creating a dumb setup that is for all intents and purposes based on usage is useless for most gamers and dev in a situation like this. x360ce is pretty damn open supports just about anything and it's mapping shits on what MS gives by default in windows with no other software installed. Mapping is not hard, has almost no latency issues when done right, and would be very easy to implement as a global tool if a gamer needed it. This is something the OS already does all we are asking for is proper tool to let us utilize what is there.
It's not a job of company that isn't really supporting a pc controller to provide anything that wasn't really coming to begin with. Could sony provide drivers, yea, Will sony mostly like provide drivers no, and the last two years speak clearly about their intentions. You expecting any company that isn't really involved with windows platform to do their job is ridiculous. Yet if windows better managed devices, which extends beyond the DS4 on this issue or let users actually do the process for themselves would be better than what we got. Also stop acting like I feel MS is obligated too when I clearly wrote in the last post I don't expect them to do jack like sony.
I agree. Having native DS4 support would be nice, but even if they can't do that there should be an option to use PS4 icons. Like, it seriously can't be that much work to implement.
Of course there are people that want it, and of course it is a small thing to implement, but developers are more often than not subjectively deaf when it comes to the small things we want. DS4 owners who use that controller on the pc are also an extremely tiny subset of consumers.
Being able to use the keyboard to select choices in a Telltale game would be amazing and save me from dragging their extremely slow mouse cursor down to the available choices, but even if I suggested it on their own forum, I won't hold my breath.
You know that Sony has an patent on these symbols, right?
Napalm_Frank
Member
Can't be too hard to get to use them if something like I Am Bread can do it. Along with many other games mentioned in the thread.
AmuroChan
Member
Sorry, but I'm not paying $150 for a controller.
Kwansu Dudes
Member
Playing Dark Souls with an Xbox Pad feels weird due to the plastic bumpers and how far apart they feel compared to the DS4. I don't like the increase in joystick height either.
Nerds are as annoying as those drunk sports fans who always argue bullshit and it makes me hate the "community".
PulseONE
Member
OP asks for DS4 support, a bunch of guys jump in going NOOOOO! as if DS4 support means that all devs suddenly drop support for the Xbox One controller.
Really, people? I have a PS4 and a PC, therefore I already own a DS4, so the idea of getting native support would be excellent!
But no, according to you guys I should shell out $50 and get an Xbox controller instead. Because reasons.
Really, people? I have a PS4 and a PC, therefore I already own a DS4, so the idea of getting native support would be excellent!
But no, according to you guys I should shell out $50 and get an Xbox controller instead. Because reasons.
Well Sony could always step up, and provide better support with native button rebinding and profiles like both the Xbox Elite and Steam Controller.
Frankly at this point I'd rather see devs put resources into creating good Steam Controller profiles, especially since that pad can work with more diverse types of games on the PC platform.
Frankly at this point I'd rather see devs put resources into creating good Steam Controller profiles, especially since that pad can work with more diverse types of games on the PC platform.
ShadowSoldier89
Member
I dont even care about full support, id be completely satisfied with a simple toggle for iconsets. This is a 5 second implementation since the icons are already built for the PS4 versions
RealityCheque
Banned
Sony needs to release official drivers first.