Just hours ago Valve announced the new Steam Controller along with the Steam Frame VR headset and new Steam Machine. While these new Steam hardware products won't be available until early 2026, Valve has just-now upstreamed support for the new Steam Controller to the SDL3 library.

The Simple DirectMedia Library (SDL) is important to Valve's Steam runtime and used by many games for cross-platform hardware/software abstractions. In ensuring good support ahead of the new Steam Controller's retail availability and seeing that it makes it into the next SDL3 update, today that new Steam Controller support is already upstreamed to SDL Git.

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[–] 50 points 1 year ago (2 children)

damn there I am simping for a company again. Promised myself it wouldn't happen after Sega

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago

    Yup that controller is mine. Gimme gimme

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    I guess with the steamdeck's touchpads in mind this design makes sense, but damn does that thing look bulky lol. Maybe it feels more comfortable to hold than it looks.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I dont think it looks that bulky at all to be fair. It looks like a PS5 controller, but on the stand I have.

    I think it looks like it will be the most comfortable and usable controller I will own, cause I love the PS5 controller, and I love the steam deck. This is the best combination of that.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Yeah i just watched the LTT video and it doesn't actually look that bad when he's holding it. I'll probably be sticking to my PS5 controller since i don't really have a good reason to buy another one. Now that i think of it, i remember initially being sceptical about the PS4 and 5 controllers as well when they came out, but i always ended up preferring the newer design. PS4 controller felt uncomfortable after using the PS5 controller, and the same thing happened going from 3 to 4.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Hey you might be able to help me, how do you find the dualsense for across program gaming? I am finding some issues with emulators and steam input. Was hoping for a catchall, someone already mapped everything file.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Finally a controller for adult-sized hands!

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Hopefully SDL2 will also get good support. It's still quite common.

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  • 3 comments in c/linux@programming.dev view that post
    [–] 21 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I wish more companies could think ahead like this. Even when it's obvious, many just won't. Long live Valve!

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    Valve uses SDL for their own games, so this stuff would have been worked on internally and developed alongside the hardware itself.

    But that's the benefit of open source in the end, when done well everybody wins. Valve gets to ensure that any game using SDL can function perfectly with their hardware (Deck, Controller and Frame), any devs using SDL in their games knows they get first-party hardware support, and gamers get the benefit of both.

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  • Great, how are they going to test it?

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