PCs and Gamepads

[Mr. Adventure]

I'm new to the PC scene after a long absence and I'm not sure what to do for controllers.

I thought to myself, well I have two 360 controllers, why not use these? So since you can't buy them from MS I bought one of those third-party wireless receivers and after setting the driver my USB 3.0 ports went dead under Windows 8. Lovely. Luckily I managed to restore those and managed somehow to get the device working on my front ports.

However, when I do the test option for the controller the triggers don't seem to, er, trigger a button to light. Is that normal? I haven't actually tried it with an actual game yet (that hour or two of wondering if I fried my PC took the wind out of my sails).

What do you guys use? Wireless? Wired 360? Dualshock (bluetooth? does USB work?)? Third-Party? Or what? Any special drivers or anything?

 

[Reverend]

I have a usb XBox360 for windows controller. Never had a problem with it.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

All you need is Microsoft's Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows, works 100% with MS xbox 360 controller, most games find them no problem.

Just make sure it has Microsoft name on it and not a compatible one, that way you wont have to worry about compat issues.

 

[bullethead]

I'm new to the PC scene after a long absence and I'm not sure what to do for controllers.

I thought to myself, well I have two 360 controllers, why not use these? So since you can't buy them from MS I bought one of those third-party wireless receivers and after setting the driver my USB 3.0 ports went dead under Windows 8. Lovely. Luckily I managed to restore those and managed somehow to get the device working on my front ports.

However, when I do the test option for the controller the triggers don't seem to, er, trigger a button to light. Is that normal? I haven't actually tried it with an actual game yet (that hour or two of wondering if I fried my PC took the wind out of my sails).

What do you guys use? Wireless? Wired 360? Dualshock (bluetooth? does USB work?)? Third-Party? Or what? Any special drivers or anything?

I've used Wireless 360 controllers and Third party ones. For the Wireless 360 ones, you have to pick out a generic driver in the hardware section of the Control Panel. I found it after a minute searching for it on Google:

Right click on Computer
Go to Properties
Click on Device Manager
Right click on the Unidentified Device
Go to Properties
Go to the Drive tab
Click on Update Driver…
Browse my computer for driver software
Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer
Microsoft Common Controller for Window Class
Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows Version: 2.1.0.1349 [8/13/2009]
Update Driver Warning
Click Yes

 

[Mr. Adventure]

All you need is Microsoft's Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows, works 100% with MS xbox 360 controller, most games find them no problem.

Just make sure it has Microsoft name on it and not a compatible one, that way you wont have to worry about compat issues.

I haven't been able to find those sold on their own and I didn't want to pay for the controller bundle when I had the controllers already. Maybe I should but I managed to get the generic working.

When I right-click the controller in devices after pairing it everything responds but the triggers don't register. The face buttons and bumpers light up 1 to 6 in the test screen but the triggers don't indicate 7 and 8. Is that normal?

 

[Haggis and tatties]

^^Yeah it's no doubt a issue because it's a third party device rather than a offical one.

Does it require drivers, possibly you might need to update the drivers manually, one of the joys of the offical one, plug in, windows install drivers, and away you go.

You could buy a wired offical xbox controller, again these plug in and away you go.

 

[ATimson]

However, when I do the test option for the controller the triggers don't seem to, er, trigger a button to light. Is that normal?

Yes. The triggers are tied to axes, not to a button. Depending on the game, you may or may not have success with them working; for Assassin's Creed, I had to rebind the trigger actions to the bumpers.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^ Interesting, it's funny that you get a pretty picture of an 360 controller in your devices yet the interface is so crude.

 

[ATimson]

^ Interesting, it's funny that you get a pretty picture of an 360 controller in your devices yet the interface is so crude.

My understanding is that most newer PC games with gamepad support will support XInput, which means they'll handle the triggers correctly. It's only older games, expecting digital triggers instead of analog, that have issues like AC did.

But I fled the PC master race several years ago, so I can't speak to the current state of things.