Stay in the game's profile even when it's out of focus?

[1kimon0]

I want the SC to NOT switch to the Desktop profile when the game window loses focus, so that I can keep playing the games that accept XInput inputs even when the window is inactive, while doing other tasks with my mouse and keyboard on another windows/monitors.

I know that technically there's nothing stopping you from doing this, but is there a option for it? Does anyone know?

[•]

That's how it works, might be a problem for multiple monitors I guess, I have ony one myself. Does fullscreen works? Think, borderless window can be an issue.

[cammelspit]

This is a new one. In almost a year I have been here as a permanent fixture of this forum, I have yet to see anyone even mention this as a problem. Why do you need it to not work while not in focus? Do you have someone else using your second monitor while you game? To answer your question, no there isn't.

[1kimon0]

To clarify, there are some games that accept XInput signals even if the game's window is out of focus.
Some of those games don't require constant attention to play (e.g. dialogue-heavy games, or straight-up visual novels), so I want to "play" (which is kinda stretching the word) those games with the little attention they require, while focusing my main attention on other tasks.

Well, I hope they implement the option in the future. Thanks anyway~

[•]

Oh...

[saluk]

Some games use a launcher, and they have the steam mappings in the launcher, but once you go into the actual game steam thinks you aren't in focus anymore.

This is so overengineered - just apply the profile when you launch the game, and remove the profile when the game is over (or have an option to tell steam you are done with the profile.

[skovacs1]

Provided the games in question supported accepting controller input while not in focus (some just don't), the way I was able to have it accept controller input through Steam controller profiles when not in focus was to duplicate the controller profile I was using for the game onto the desktop profile. This isn't optimal as it means duplicating multiple such profiles if you have several games in this situation.

When not playing the game and still wanting to use the controller for something else, you would have to switch your desktop profile back.

As there is no general or universal way to select controller profile through Steam regardless of application focus, the only true solution is to use a controller-mapping application that provides this functionality. I have had strong success using XOutput for this sort of thing by setting up multiple controller mappings and then just starting or stopping those that I want active at a given time.

[DaMu]

Now, this specific scenario is perhaps where GloSC can shine. Copy your Xinput config to GloSC, then run GloSC before you start the game. Ideally, GloSC will keep the controller in the game config because you never focus outside of GloSC if everything you do, game or not, is inside GloSC.

[1kimon0]

Yeah, GloSC and similar softwares are pretty great.
Valve even recommended GloSC in a patch note somewhere, so they probably aren't gonna implement a similar feature officially, which is a shame, but oh well.

[GatorLionHawk]

Not sure if it's better to reply here or make a new question: But I was able to do this with my PS5 controller. I started using a Switch Pro controller and it stopped working. Before I could move my character while typing in an Excel sheet; now I can't. Anybody know why?

[ThePotatoChair{TTV}]

Originally posted by GatorLionHawk:

Not sure if it's better to reply here or make a new question: But I was able to do this with my PS5 controller. I started using a Switch Pro controller and it stopped working. Before I could move my character while typing in an Excel sheet; now I can't. Anybody know why?

This also happened with the recent steam update for me. I have two monitors and my xbox controller could be playing dead by daylight out of focus while I watched Youtube. This is important for me because spending bloodpoints can take like 30 minutes and when I do it in focus, it's loud being both annoying and most of the time distracting me from watching anything. I could turn the volume down each time I go to do it, but I would rather not have to do that when the functionality was there to begin with. All I would have to do is select mute when out of focus in settings, press the windows button, watch a youtube video on second monitor and then scroll back to DBD without it going back to focus. Now I can't use my controller to click back on the game, forcing me to click on it with mouse, forcing me back into focus. This seems to have happened with recent steam update in January, but there seems to be no fix from what I could look up. And to couple that with the added problem that they change their controller UI, so that potential old solutions can't be attempted in the same way.

I'm gonna open a question about this soon, and I'll get back to you if I find one.

[ThePotatoChair{TTV}]

Originally posted by GatorLionHawk:

Not sure if it's better to reply here or make a new question: But I was able to do this with my PS5 controller. I started using a Switch Pro controller and it stopped working. Before I could move my character while typing in an Excel sheet; now I can't. Anybody know why?

Actually I think I found a partial solution. It doesn't work entirely, it may just need configuration though. Go to steam settings>Controller>Desktop Configuration and then change the layout from Official Layout to Gamepad. You do this by going to Templates, clicking Gamepad, and applying the layout.

I'll see if there is something game specific you can do though. I may have to get back to you.

[Shana]

Originally posted by ThePotatoChair{TTV}:

Originally posted by GatorLionHawk:

Not sure if it's better to reply here or make a new question: But I was able to do this with my PS5 controller. I started using a Switch Pro controller and it stopped working. Before I could move my character while typing in an Excel sheet; now I can't. Anybody know why?

Actually I think I found a partial solution. It doesn't work entirely, it may just need configuration though. Go to steam settings>Controller>Desktop Configuration and then change the layout from Official Layout to Gamepad. You do this by going to Templates, clicking Gamepad, and applying the layout.

I'll see if there is something game specific you can do though. I may have to get back to you.

Just tried this for FFXIII and it worked like a charm. Helps when I want to follow a guide to get all the achievements too, so i am happy I found this.

[tintingaroo]

Something I learnt from a post by austinp_valve.
You can force a layout by running

steam://forceinputappid/APPID

(replace APPID with the appid...)

To reset things so Steam auto-switches layouts again:

steam://forceinputappid/0

If you want to trigger them via a batch file, use

start steam://forceinputappid/APPID