Steam Link + iMac (MacOS Mojave) + Xbox 360 Controller = Controller not working in Overcooked 2

[ChizBallz]

I am using a wired xbox 360 controller connected to my Steam Link, and streaming the game from my Mac. The controller works in Big Screen Mode and all but not in the game? I have tried everything from testing the controller in Steam Link's Controller > Test menu to going through all the different settings for the controller in the game itself. Any idea what's going on? The game says it fully supports the controller too. This is so frustrating.

[mikela]

Hi, sorry you're having to deal with these issues. Do you know if you have Xbox Configuration Support enabled in the Big Picture Controller Settings? No macOS version has built-in support for either the wired or wireless Xbox 360 controller the way that Windows does (i.e. on macOS it does not show up as a generic gamepad).

Steam gets around this by explicitly recognized the Xbox 360 controller among the many types of controllers that it works with and this allows you to use it in Big Picture, but if the game that you're trying to play doesn't also explicitly support the controller it won't work with it as the game won't see it as a gamepad. Many games do support the Xbox 360 controller but many more also don't, especially on macOS.

One way to fix this is to enable Xbox Configuration Support in Steam which will let Steam take over reading input from the controller and sending it to the game based on the controller bindings configured through Steam. We have a guide for getting started with Steam controller configuration that you can find in our Steam Input guide:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/steam_controller/getting_started_for_players

You can also install a 3rd-party controller driver for Xbox controllers that will make the controller supported as an ordinary gamepad on macOS. You can find details about that on the 360Controller GitHub page:
https://github.com/360Controller/360Controller

[ChizBallz]

I already actually have that exact same driver installed, the latest one actually and my Xbox controller works fine when it's directly connected to my Mac, however when I connect it to the steam link is where the trouble lies.

Yes I have checked 'Xbox Configuration Support' and it's enabled. I even tried many things, such as Forced On, Forced Off, nothing seems to work.

This makes the Steam Link device useless as I cannot use my Xbox controller to play games when streaming them from my Mac.

How can you tell if a particular game supports native Steam Input or legacy mode?

Also under Steam Link > System menu there's an option to use the newer Xbox Drivers or revert to classic, what are the differences? I've tried both but still no luck.

[mikela]

So I gave Overcooked a try both locally and over the Steam Link and unfortunately this seems to be a limitation of Overcooked. When connected over your Steam Link, Steam creates a virtual controller device that games can open to receive gamepad input, this is the same virtual controller that is created when you enable Configuration Support that allows Steam to do the controller remapping internally when you set a configuration for a game.

Sadly, some games only support controllers that are actually physically connected over USB or are directly connected to the computer via Bluetooth and Overcooked happens to be one of those games, as it ignores Steam's virtual controller whether the controller is connected locally or through the Steam Link. Unfortunately there isn't anything that can be done from Steam's side to force a game to recognize this controller, it's up to the choices made by the game developer when they are working on controller support.

This leaves a few options. The first, and probably least appealing, is to use a controller connected directly to the host computer in some way. If USB is not possible but Bluetooth is, Overcooked 2 supports the PS4 controller wirelessly.

Next, if it were possible for you to use Windows rather than macOS your Steam Link would work with your wired controller as Steam turns Steam Link-connected controllers into XInput controllers that work in all games supporting XInput.

Last, Steam is able to emulate both gamepad input as well as mouse and keyboard input, so you could set up a controller configuration for Overcooked that binds your controller buttons to mouse and keyboard actions which Overcooked would receive. If you'd like to give this a try, there is a getting started guide in our Steam Input documentation that gives an overview of how to use the Steam controller configurator:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/steam_controller/getting_started_for_players

Sorry that there isn't a very trivial solution to this. Many games on macOS do support the virtual controller, basically it looks exactly like an Xbox 360 controller to a game that is connected to the computer without being USB or Bluetooth, so it's really up to how the game developers designed their controller support, whether they support any devices that look like a controller they recognize or whether they ask macOS specifically for USB or Bluetooth devices that look like gamepads.

[ChizBallz]

Thanks for taking the time to look into this for me. I really appreciate it. I will address what you wrote directly to the developer to see if they can fix this.

I have a PC but it's having problems at the moment so this is why I'm using the Mac as the Host. Seems like this is a Mac and game developer issue then. I just really hope they can do something to make this work for those of us who have Steam Link and are using it with Macs.

Worst case scenario, I'll do as you mentioned and remap the keys to the controller.