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PC gamepad/controller advice
I have never owned a good controller for PC. I have owned 2 and both were hot garbage. I think I bought them 15 and 20 years ago respectively.
I tried playing some sports games on PC with K&M and it is not a good experience.
I would prefer a to get one Xbox and one ps style controller. Not really worried about the price, as long as it is reasonable compared to other controllers.
What are the best ones? Any advice will be appreciated.
Thanks
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--John Ruskin
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EDIT: If you want to connect wireless XBox or PS controller to PC, then make sure to look for info how to connect it first. Most of the wireless controllers use bluetooth (I think everything manufactured today uses it). If your PC doesn't have bluetooth then bluetooth USB adapter costs maybe $15.
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For example something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/USB-Bluetooth-Adapter-PC-Receiver/dp/B082H3L68P
XB and PS controllers about as good as you can get. I prefer XB
https://www.amazon.ca/PowerA-Fusion-Wired-Controller-Xbox/dp/B07XQXQMR9/ref=sr_1_8?dchild=1&keywords=powera+controller&qid=1621611472&sr=8-8
There are some things that you need to keep in mind when using a controller on PC games:
1) Most PC games do not have official controller support.
2) In most PC games that do have controller support, it doesn't work. Sometimes it literally doesn't work, as some buttons don't get recognized or some such. Other times, it technically works, but does something creatively stupid to make it unusable.
You gave me the impression that you only want to use a controller for certain games, not all or even most PC games. But if you buy a controller planning to only use it on games where the controller support immediately works right out of the box, you might never actually use the controller beyond testing it with various games to see that it doesn't work. As such, you need a way to play PC games without controller support, or to still play the game after disabling the built-in controller support.
3) Make sure that you have a way to map controller buttons to keyboard keys. That lets you get input from the controller to the game even without relying on controller support. Ideally, the controller will come with software that lets you use it. Third-party software not specific to your controller can work, but is less than ideal.
4) It helps a lot if you can map combinations of controller buttons to particular keyboard keys. Some games have the functionality to map multiple keys to a single action built in and some don't. Those that do make having it available on the controller side redundant. Those that don't may be unplayable unless you have it in your controller software, though games that don't require very many keys will be fine regardless.
5) A lot more games will be usable if you can have your controller software map a thumbstick to the mouse pointer. Many PC games are built such that activating some particular control absolutely requires clicking on something with a mouse. Having the ability to map a thumbstick to move the mouse pointer and a button to a mouse click makes that possible on a controller.
6) Games that rely heavily on fast, precise analog motion will be unplayable with a controller. You can readily do that with a mouse, but controllers simply don't have a way to offer the same functionality. I hope you weren't planning on playing first person shooters or click to move ARPGs with a controller, as it's pretty much not going to work.
7) Games that require fast access to a large number of functions are awkward on a controller. MMORPGs are among the worst offenders in this regard. Sometimes they can be playable by mapping combinations of buttons to a variety of keys.
8) Even if you want to mostly play using a controller, it helps a lot to have a mouse available. A lot of games are perhaps 95% playable using a controller, but you have to grab a mouse now and then to navigate menus. Or maybe you don't quite technically need to, but it sure makes navigating menus much easier to do. This is true even of a lot of games that are more comfortable with a controller than a mouse the other 95% of the time.
That said, it's not all bad news for controllers. Some games play quite nicely with a controller. WASD movement maps well to a D-pad, and so long as you don't need too many other keys, things are often fine. RPG Maker titles tend to be very controller-friendly.
I love the new Xbox X/S controllers, its a little more comfortable to use and most PC games use Xbox controller load outs so you are best to get one IMO. If you want to pick up the last gen PS5 or Xbox controllers. People are selling them off cheaply because they want the new fancy controllers. So buying used is a good option right now.
If you play PC games on Steam, Steam adds tones on controller support for games that dont. So PC/Controllers are 100% worth the investment for. Especially if thats how you like to play games. Great post otherwise.
Even an original wired 360 controller works fine (that's what I still use) if, for some reason, your afraid of Bluetooth.
You ~can~ use pretty much any controller you want. Steam accepts a very wide range of them and allows a lot of customization, and programs like Xpadder exist as well.
But it isn't quite as easy as console plug and play.
Still a lot of games are always going to be pretty much unplayable with a controller. If a game relies on fast, precise analog motions, you just can't do that with a controller. It's a physical hardware problem, not a software problem. You have to have a mouse for that, and thumbsticks aren't a viable replacement.
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And there are plenty of games that play far better with a controller than mouse and keyboard.
Action and games that utilize combos are horrendous with a mouse and keyboard. Repetitive clicking is way more annoying than button presses.
Third person action games feel way better with a controller, especially when dealing with platforming.
The only major exceptions are flight Sims, rts games, mmos that weren't meant for controller support, and fps games. But just about everything else feels way better with a controller, including many cross platform MMOs.
It was just in case he wants to connect a wireless console controller to PC, since the console controllers are not packaged with a wireless receiver.
But a lot of games have controller support that is broken in weird ways that makes me very skeptical that it would work with an Xbox controller, either. For example, in Champions Online, if you enable official controller support, the game would stop rendering for a second or two about once every five minutes, then start again. It would do this even if you didn't have a controller plugged in at all, as the trigger for the bug was having the official controller support enabled rather than disabled.
Or in Hyper Universe, there were more functions needed than typical controller buttons available, so they made it so that you can assign combinations of two buttons to some functions--but only if one of those buttons is pressing down on a thumbstick. Good luck doing that quickly and reliably without accidentally moving it to the side a little.
It's not one standard way that controller support is always broken. Different games seem to come up with creatively weird ways to make it unusable. That doesn't mean that you can't use a controller with PC games at all. So long as you have other software to map the controller buttons to keyboard and mouse functions, you can readily work around broken or missing controller support.
As you said, a lot of games are more comfortable with a controller than keyboard and mouse. The general rule seems to be that, at least if you're controlling a single character, moving is nicer with a controller (including the platforming that you mention), while analog aiming is much nicer with a mouse. Whether a game works well with a controller is often just a question of which of those two things is more important to the game.
But that can't fix UI/baked in graphics -- many games will still assume your using an Xbox controller, and all the on-screen prompts will be ABXY format. A minor thing, as it's not that far off from Square Circle Triangle Cross, the buttons and game play will transfer over well enough, but until you build up some muscle memory you will have to do the translation in your head.
Just use nail polish or something to mark the xbox ABXY button on your PS controller.
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