HOWTO: Make a gamepad work with SteamVR

[iVRy]

This describes the process for XBox controllers. It most likely applies to other kinds of gamepads too, but they are less well supported by PCVR titles.

Steam's Big Picture interface has to be told not to use the gamepad for its own interface. This may seem weird, but Big Picture and SteamVR are 2 competing interfaces to the Steam content, and only one of them can "own" the gamepad.

Open Steam Settings and select the "Controller" option. Press "General Controller Settings" and make sure all items are unselected. You can leave "Guide Button Focuses Steam" selected if you like, it won't affect SteamVR, but all other items must be unselected.

Once you've done the above, start SteamVR. If everything is working correctly you'll see a gamepad icon in the SteamVR status window.

- To open the SteamVR dashboard, you'll need to hold down the "Back" button on the controller.
- The method of interacting with the gamepad has changed since previous versions. It is now using 'laser mouse'. You will see a blue dot in the center of the image, which is the 'laser mouse' pointer. You can move it with your head. To simulate a 'click' of the 'mouse' button press the right trigger on the controller. If you need to scroll, you can scroll with the right thumbstick.
- To close the SteamVR dashboard, you'll need to select the big button at the bottom center of the interface to go back to your title. You can also select "Home" to go back to the SteamVR Home interface.

NOTE: Not all titles can be played with a gamepad. You can see which controllers a title supports from its Steam store page.