Compatibility of controllers for PC games

controllerspc

As the number of console ports seems to increase, there are more and more games that are meant to be played with a controller like on a console. The keyboard controls are sometimes pretty clumsy.

If I want to play games with a controller on my PC, are there any compatibility problems with different controllers and games? Are there some standard controllers that work with most games?

So, could I just choose any controller and happily play my games or do I have to be more careful in my selection?

Best Answer

Short answer:

XBOX 360 controller or XBOX ONE controller

.

Why:

  1. These are officially supported by many new PC games that are designed for them (that's called the XInput API), so no configuration needed, not even remapping buttons. (Super easy).

  2. Where not officially supported, it's still recognised as a windows DirectX controller, so any windows game will support it, (as long as it supports joysticks/joypads and is no older than 1995 or so). You may have to re-map buttons, or even fiddle with config files, though. (Easy enough).

  3. Where there is no/broken joystick support, you can use a utility that turns control pad commands into key presses and mouse movements like xPadder. (Do-able).

  4. It's a pretty well-built controller. 3rd party controllers are almost never as accurate, responsive and comfortable as the ones that ship with the major consoles.

Any controller you can buy for PC can do 2 and 3, but not necessarily 1 and 4 (Note: there are a few other controllers that also support XInput, so games recognise them just like the 360 controller). I have the pc dongle and wireless x360 controller, as well as many other controllers. The dongle - Microsoft Wireless Gaming Receiver - is very cheap (you can get an off-brand one on eBay for less than $10 delivered).

The one drawback of the 360 controller is the older ones (the vast majority of them) have an average D-pad, which sucks in older emulated games (fast 2D platformers, SNES games, Streetfighter 2, etc). I recommend (and use) a USB adapter off eBay with an old SNES controller for those (though any genuine Nintendo controller - NES, N64, GC, Wii Classic controller, etc - will have a good D-pad, and the Sony ones are OK too).

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