What's the best controller for Steam on a Mac?

Blue Gollumer

Hey Everybody,



Hope everyone is well - been a while.



I've been out of the game for a long while but I want to play some Steam games like Celeste, Shovel Knight, etc. I have a Mac laptop. What is the best controller to buy? I'm not particulairly tech saavy so I want something that is easy to set up and preferably somewhat familiar.



-warren

arch_8ngel

If you're playing anything that is going to use a controller to emulate a mouse+KB, get a Steam Controller.



That is almost certainly the easiest thing to set up, as the community on Steam publishes button configurations that you can easily choose from.





The places a steam controller lacks are:

dual analog -- the right analog is replaced with a haptic pad, and it takes some getting used to

d-pad -- the left haptic pad as a d-pad is miserable -- you end up needing to use the left analog stick in place of a d-pad -- not ideal





So if you're playing d-pad based games, I'd recommend looking at one of the controllers from 8bitdo, as they're a fair compromise in value.

Uncle Meat

I just use a wired Xbox 360 controller, can probably find one for $15 or less and they are great for pretty well any modern game....The layout hasn't really changed much.

darkchylde28

Originally posted by: Every1whocountsluvsNedFlanders



I just use a wired Xbox 360 controller, can probably find one for $15 or less and they are great for pretty well any modern game....The layout hasn't really changed much.

I used the same thing when I still played Steam games on my Macs, but you've got to be careful when picking up a used one, as I've found it hard these days to get one where the sticks don't have some measure of drift to them--either not being quite as dialled in as they should be or starting to move when you're not pushing on them or refusing to stop after you've released the stick until you push in the opposite direction briefly.

Uncle Meat

Originally posted by: darkchylde28

 

Originally posted by: Every1whocountsluvsNedFlanders



I just use a wired Xbox 360 controller, can probably find one for $15 or less and they are great for pretty well any modern game....The layout hasn't really changed much.

I used the same thing when I still played Steam games on my Macs, but you've got to be careful when picking up a used one, as I've found it hard these days to get one where the sticks don't have some measure of drift to them--either not being quite as dialled in as they should be or starting to move when you're not pushing on them or refusing to stop after you've released the stick until you push in the opposite direction briefly.

Yeah those used controllers ain't what they used to be.



 

dra600n

Originally posted by: Every1whocountsluvsNedFlanders



I just use a wired Xbox 360 controller, can probably find one for $15 or less and they are great for pretty well any modern game....The layout hasn't really changed much.

This, or a PS3/4 controller.

Wheelcakes

Id go with a 360/XB1 controller.

Blue Gollumer

Thanks eveybody, I have an Xbox360 controller so I ordered the cable for it to try that out. I was also strongly concidering the PS4 controller...



My biggest worry is compatibility with the games I want to play. I used to use a couple of PS3 controllers but sometimes they wouldn't work on certain games.