I don’t need anything special or pricey, just a basic controller that does basic controller things.

I’ve tried a few generic controllers, but they have issues with bluetooth, battery life, and automatically shutting off too early from idling.

Does anyone know of any generic controllers that don’t have these issues? I don’t mind if the battery life isn’t the same or better than official controllers, but they shouldn’t straight up lie about the capacity. It should be illegal.

Update: I ended up going with a generic PS4 controller from Walmart. The brand is Yuoy, which I am unfamiliar with but I’m willing to see for myself how good their controller is.

This is the one I got https://www.walmart.com/ip/seort/5486552170 and so far I am satisfied. It’s a bit heavier than the other generic controllers I have, which I hope is a sign of a bigger battery. The d-pad isn’t quite as good as the legendary Sony d-pads, but I’m getting used to it. It’s not nearly as bad as the 360 or logitech d-pads, for example. I think it’s pretty good.

I’m also not having the issue with it turning off after 5 minutes of idle time. So far, it hasn’t turned off at all from idling. I’m not sure if there’s no auto-shutoff at all, or it may just be respecting my Steam setting to have it shut off after an hour of idle time. I don’t feel like testing it right now.

So far, for $17 this controller seems to be acceptable. I’d still like to shut off the touchpad, but that’s not really the controller’s fault.

I will continue testing and update this if I have any issues. As it stands right now, I’m looking forward to getting another one and hope it’s the same.

Update: I am having issues reconnecting the controller after I disconnect it with bluetooth. I need to go through the re-pairing process by holding the share button (select) and the PS button. The controller shows up as connected for a few seconds, then goes back with the other disconnected devices saying the connection failed. This is a big issue. I will try to see if I can find an easy fix, if not then this is enough to make me return the controller.

Here’s a video documenting the issue: https://freediverse.com/w/2DVMHpkjaA4rcX8WqhuKts

  • OutlierBlue@lemmy.caEnglish
    6·
    4 days ago

    I only use wired controllers, however my system (Mint) doesn’t acknowledge controller input as standard input, so the screen saver comes on in 20 minutes or my machine goes to sleep after an hour while I play. I haven’t figured out how to stop it yet.

    • kusivittula@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      just an idea I have. to keep my pc from sleeping while streaming content to my other devices, I have a script that uses xdotool to move the cursor 1 pixel to the right and immediately back every 30 seconds if my network adapter has transferred some data. make (or ask chatgpt to make) a script that recognizes some of your controller inputs and then moves the mouse, or it could press XF86_wakeup key (this will cause problems in web excel). also it could trigger by just having the controller plugged in.

    • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
      21·
      3 days ago

      so the screen saver comes on in 20 minutes or my machine goes to sleep after an hour while I play. I haven’t figured out how to stop it yet.

      The way I have my system set up is to not power-off the monitor unless the screensaver is up, but if it is, to flip the power off in pretty short order. I manually trigger the screensaver. So I don’t know what people who do auto-locking and all do today.

      kagis

      https://github.com/foresto/joystickwake

      This appears to do this on Xorg and Wayland for various screensavers and environments. I have not used it myself. I don’t know if it’s been packaged by anyone in Mint, though – I don’t see a package in Debian trixie, and if this site is the package repo for Mint – I know that there are variations of Mint – then I don’t see it there. You can build, install, and set it up to run manually, I suppose.

      I do see a reference to an Ubuntu package in a PPA at the bottom of their main page. One variant of Mint is based on Ubuntu; I don’t know whether that means that one can get away with using Ubuntu packages or not.

      https://launchpad.net/~foresto/+archive/ubuntu/toys