Rumble Feedback ?

[80TCS]

Ok, so all I'm hearing it's about how awesome Haptic Feedback is and how well implemented is and how many things it can "emulate". But what about the "standard" Low and High rumble that all Controllers/Gamepads should have ? Does it have The Big/Small Rumble Motors for the actual game specific vibration effects... ? Because Haptic Feedback it's only there to give you a feedback/feel on the device itself, not the feedback from the game. Does anyone have any recent link to a Steam Controller disassembly or something ?

[8BitCerberus]

HD haptics
Haptic force actuators on both sides of the controller deliver precise, high-fidelity vibrations measured in microseconds. Feel the spin of a virtual trackball, the click of a scroll wheel, or the shot of a rifle. Every input, from the triggers to the trackpads, can offer haptic feedback to your fingertips, delivering vital, high-bandwidth, tactile feedback about speed, boundaries, thresholds, textures, or actions.

From here: http://store.steampowered.com/universe/controller

[80TCS]

Originally posted by 8-Bit Cerberus:

HD haptics
Haptic force actuators on both sides of the controller deliver precise, high-fidelity vibrations measured in microseconds. Feel the spin of a virtual trackball, the click of a scroll wheel, or the shot of a rifle. Every input, from the triggers to the trackpads, can offer haptic feedback to your fingertips, delivering vital, high-bandwidth, tactile feedback about speed, boundaries, thresholds, textures, or actions.

From here: http://store.steampowered.com/universe/controller

Yeah I know that... What I don't know if it's for ex. if I'm playing a driving game would i feel a "jolt of feedback" when crashing into a wall or other cars... ? Would I feel the feedback while driving on the rumble strips in a corner's apex or the corner's exit ? Because all I see that's stated there it's about feedback of the device not feedback controlled by the game itself... Like feedback emulating a trackball or feedback emulating a trigger pull. But I'm asking about rumble effects "about" what's happening in-game on-screen like the recoil of a weapon, or the kickback from a grenade exploding nearby, or a car crash... not feedback that's interpreting what controls am I pressing...

[Pila]

Good questions.
Since the controller has Xinput capabilities, it might be able to get the force feedback from the Xinput vibration channel, like a regular xbox 360 gamepad. But i don't know if this was implemented

[Vepar]

This is literally fro the store page that 8-Bit Cerberus linked:

"Haptic force actuators on both sides of the controller deliver precise, high-fidelity vibrations measured in microseconds. Feel the spin of a virtual trackball, the click of a scroll wheel, or the shot of a rifle. Every input, from the triggers to the trackpads, can offer haptic feedback to your fingertips, delivering vital, high-bandwidth, tactile feedback about speed, boundaries, thresholds, textures, or actions."

You can feel wall textures if you want (and when someone implements this in games).
As for if the whole controller vibrates, probably that too since most buttons have haptic feedback.

[80TCS]

Originally posted by Vepar:

This is literally fro the store page that 8-Bit Cerberus linked:

"Haptic force actuators on both sides of the controller deliver precise, high-fidelity vibrations measured in microseconds. Feel the spin of a virtual trackball, the click of a scroll wheel, or the shot of a rifle. Every input, from the triggers to the trackpads, can offer haptic feedback to your fingertips, delivering vital, high-bandwidth, tactile feedback about speed, boundaries, thresholds, textures, or actions."

Originally posted by Vepar:

You can feel wall textures if you want

There's no "wall" word inthere. Textures might mean surface textures as in surface which the trackpad emulates (a scroll-wheel, a trackball, hence even sandpaper lol...)

Originally posted by Vepar:

(and when someone implements this in games).

There's already an implementation like that in racing games since forever. It's the road surface on which you're driving on. You can "feel" the road surface being it asphalt, debris, sand, mud, gravel, etc. It's nothing new in that.

Originally posted by Vepar:

As for if the whole controller vibrates, probably that too since most buttons have haptic feedback.

Only the triggers and the 2 trackpads have Haptic Feedback. And Haptic Feedback it's a high frequency exclusive effect, it couldn't "shake" your whole controller like a big rumble motor would.

[8BitCerberus]

It goes beyond the simple R/C motors with an offset weight that pass for "force feedback" in most controllers. Most current games will likely not use it to it's fullest as they would have to be written with it in mind, though patching in support shouldn't be a daunting task based on the Dev Days 2014 conference. In cases where the game doesn't explicitly support the "HD Haptics" it will simply act like your typical controller rumble as a fallback.

[edit to say]I typically turn off the force feedback whenever I'm given the option (racing games are the only time I typically keep it on) because with the R/C motors it's never really felt good. It's just an annoying buzzing/vibration in your hands. (I know people have found... alternative uses for it, however)

[80TCS]

Originally posted by 8-Bit Cerberus:

It goes beyond the simple R/C motors with an offset weight that pass for "force feedback" in most controllers. Most current games will likely not use it to it's fullest as they would have to be written with it in mind, though patching in support shouldn't be a daunting task based on the Dev Days 2014 conference. In cases where the game doesn't explicitly support the "HD Haptics" it will simply act like your typical controller rumble as a fallback.

So it actually "rumbles" if I get that right ^ ^... ? And no, I never said force feedback lol... That's completely another thing and it's DInput exclusive. XInput only "knows" rumble, not force-feedback.

Originally posted by 8-Bit Cerberus:

[edit to say]I typically turn off the force feedback whenever I'm given the option (racing games are the only time I typically keep it on) because with the R/C motors it's never really felt good. It's just an annoying buzzing/vibration in your hands. (I know people have found... alternative uses for it, however)

Yes, some games, mostly XInput ones don't pull much of any good rumble effects since XInput it's very limited in that regard as per tech specs. The rumble forces in XInput are limited at 2 motors with 256 steps of force each. There are no specific driver effect like constant force, damper, sawtooth, triangle etc. like in DInput specs. I think the best job at rumble effects was done by the PS2/DualShock2 Controller and probably also PS3/DS3 (but I couldn't know that since I didn't play much on the PS3) Not PC related but I just felt like it was worth mentioning... ^ ^.
Where force-feedback actually shines it's in input devices with mechanical parts making use of it like Joysticks, Flight Sticks, and Racing Wheels.

Oh and one more thing: If you're using wireless Controllers/Gamepads, then the rumble/vibration effects are becoming kinda irrelevant and as you described them "just an annoying buzzing/vibration in your hands" since the rumble it's so weak (not even 50% of the force of a wired Controller) than any effect becomes unrecognizable. Most subtle rumble effects aren't even registering any movement (just a slight "buzz" from the R/C Motors) since there's not enough voltage to drive the motors properly and stronger effects are faded so much than it's impossible to actually control what they're doing, thus giving the desired effect/s "feeling".
That's a very common and old issue with wireless Controllers and it seems that not many gamers are aware about it (if using wireless gamepads exclusively) and don't really even care about it because most of them already associated rumble feedback with that slight, bland and unshaped form of effect. That's really just a degraded form of what it should be and doesn't add nothing to the gameplay experience in that form.

[8BitCerberus]

Yeah true force feedback is far more advanced than the simple vibration of most controllers, it's just that many games and gamers kind of lump it all into the same moniker of force feedback as that's what it was being sold as during the PS2/Xbox era.

Will the whole Steam Controller rumble? Very likely, I'd even say yes definitively. The prototype didn't have haptics in the triggers and other inptus, and the trackpad haptics were simply working like a scroll wheel. There was no intensity setting to adjust and games even written with the API in mind couldn't adjust the haptic feedback. The prototype was using a pretty basic haptic actuator just to convey the general idea they were going for. But even this basic implementation was enough to produce a sensation through the whole controller, not as strong as a 360 pad, but noticeable.

The final controller has more nuanced haptics, game and user controllable intensity settings, and it's spread over a larger area of the controller which would allow the whole thing to "rumble" simlilar to a 360 pad. It might be slightly different feeling, with the vibration originating from the top of the pad instead of the grips, but overall the same basic effect. But it also goes further and games hooked into the API can produce far more subtle effects, stuff like Vepar mentioned, feeling the texture on a wall (or as you've said, the road, rumble strips, grass, dirt, and sand in a racing game), feeling a sharp knock when you get hit in a game, or a more satisfying jolt beyond the empty click of a plastic trigger when firing a weapon. I'm pretty excited to see what ways developers find for using them.

If it just ends up being used like the typical vibration in other controllers, then I'll just turn it off when possible. I'm hoping developers see the potential, though, and embrace it rather than just emulating other controllers.

[80TCS]

As long as the HD Haptics are not controlled exclusively by the Controller itself and it's also controlled by the in-game effects, than it's a good direction. As for how detailed or strong those effects would turn out to be I guess it remains to be seen.

I only wanted to know for sure that the Controller wouldn't just have it's own independent effects.
I wanted to be certain that the feedback will also come from the games themselves. Because if it wasn't, than it wouldn't have been any much different than playing with your iPhone and a rumble app...

[Vepar]

I miss my MS Force Feedback Joystick. I used to play Freespace and other simmilar games with it. It was amazing. The way the stick threw your arm off depending on the direction you were hit. Or if you drove a car or something on a dirty gravel road it would be hard to controll. You could also configure it so that it's really stiff and hard to move. The force was strong in that one. :P

But, alas, with Windows 7, MS decided to stop supporting it and all of the gameport devices. :(
Now it just sits in a drawer at home.

Still, i hope somewhere down the line, developers will do something like that with the Steam controller (beyond simple rumble effects). HD Haptics has much more potential than force feedback and rumble.

[80TCS]

Originally posted by Vepar:

I miss my MS Force Feedback Joystick. I used to play Freespace and other simmilar games with it. It was amazing. The way the stick threw your arm off depending on the direction you were hit. Or if you drove a car or something on a dirty gravel road it would be hard to controll. You could also configure it so that it's really stiff and hard to move. The force was strong in that one. :P

But, alas, with Windows 7, MS decided to stop supporting it and all of the gameport devices. :(
Now it just sits in a drawer at home.

Still, i hope somewhere down the line, developers will do something like that with the Steam controller (beyond simple rumble effects). HD Haptics has much more potential than force feedback and rumble.

https://www.google.ro/search?q=gameport+adapter&biw=1920&bih=943&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIsfiQnISGxwIVyGrbCh1nrguo

I'm not familiar with gameport devices (never had one) but those ^ ^ should be coming with the appropriate drivers so you could make use of your Joystick like any other standard DInput HiD.

[Vepar]

Originally posted by 80TCS:

https://www.google.ro/search?q=gameport+adapter&biw=1920&bih=943&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIsfiQnISGxwIVyGrbCh1nrguo

I'm not familiar with gameport devices (never had one) but those ^ ^ should be coming with the appropriate drivers so you could make use of your Joystick like any other standard DInput HiD.

Thanks. :)

I was looking into that and a lot of people say it doesn't work for the Microsoft joystick. And if it does, there are no drivers for force feedback. MS had their own configuring software for that joystick so it's kinda tricky to really convert it. I saw some people are making adapters specifically for the Microsoft's joystick because that's the only way it works.

When i have a game to play with the joystick, i'll see if i can find a good adapter and try it out. For now, i don't have much use for it.

EDIT:

This: https://code.google.com/p/adapt-ffb-joy/
Those joysticks used some weird programming and connections, so you can't just stick it in an adapter. :(

[80TCS]

Originally posted by Vepar:

Originally posted by 80TCS:

https://www.google.ro/search?q=gameport+adapter&biw=1920&bih=943&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIsfiQnISGxwIVyGrbCh1nrguo

I'm not familiar with gameport devices (never had one) but those ^ ^ should be coming with the appropriate drivers so you could make use of your Joystick like any other standard DInput HiD.

Thanks. :)

I was looking into that and a lot of people say it doesn't work for the Microsoft joystick. And if it does, there are no drivers for force feedback. MS had their own configuring software for that joystick so it's kinda tricky to really convert it. I saw some people are making adapters specifically for the Microsoft's joystick because that's the only way it works.

When i have a game to play with the joystick, i'll see if i can find a good adapter and try it out. For now, i don't have much use for it.

Yes, you should definitely inform yourself in depth about those kind of adapters as there might be good feature rich ones with good compatibility and who knows maybe "out of the box" rumble support, and there might be (although in the same price range) worse ones or even "fake" ones that wouldn't do the job right and leave you with a bad taste in your mouth...
I, for one can't recommend you anything, since I've never had the need to fiddle with them.

[numinousnimon]

So . . . my question is, if a game already has rumble for a 360 pad, does the final steam controller know what to do with it, if the developers do not bother updating the game to implement the steam-controller specific API, or does it just ignore the rumble?

[Eisen]

So there's no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rumble feature? Are you kidding me? What did I throw my money at here? Some of the most basic stuff is not supported? Some vibration in your thumb =/= rumble