freefall May 7, 2020 @ 4:00am
Arcade stick recognized in Steam controller & Big Picture mode, but not in any game.
Hi guys, my arcade stick (a Qanba Carbon) is not recognizable in any game, but it's usable in Big Picture Mode or when configuring the controller setup. Normally when starting a game, there will be a pop up that shows what devices are connected at the bottom right. My Xbox 360 controller works fine, but the arcade stick no longer shows up.

I hadn't been playing fighting games for over a month as I was playing the other games, so I don't know when this incidence of the problem really started. I only noticed it when I tried to launch a fighting game, and it's not in the control options. So I tried it on my other installed fighting games, and the stick simply isn't there.

But the first time this happened was when Steam changed its implementation so you had to register a controller into the Steam interface and configure it from there. Before this when the controller was directly tied and configured from Windows, it was working fine.


Previously I could solve this by unplugging my stick plugging it back in and reconfiguring it. But now that my stick is working fine in Big Picture or when configuring my controller, I really don't know what to do anymore, and I really need help.

Thank you in advance
Last edited by freefall; May 7, 2020 @ 4:03am

Something went wrong while displaying this content. Refresh

Error Reference: Community_9708323_
Loading CSS chunk 7561 failed.
(error: https://community.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/public/css/applications/community/communityawardsapp.css?contenthash=789dd1fbdb6c6b5c773d)
< 1 2 >
Showing 1-15 of 24 comments
ReBoot May 7, 2020 @ 4:28am 
Disable Steam's input mapper for that thing so Steam won't get in the way of games using it.
freefall May 7, 2020 @ 4:42am 
Originally posted by ReBoot:
Disable Steam's input mapper for that thing so Steam won't get in the way of games using it.

How do I do that? Also, the core problem is my stick is completely undetectable in-game. It simply doesn't register as plugged in, even if it is in my Windows Device Manager.
ReBoot May 7, 2020 @ 4:44am 
Originally posted by freefall:
Originally posted by ReBoot:
Disable Steam's input mapper for that thing so Steam won't get in the way of games using it.

How do I do that? Also, the core problem is my stick is completely undetectable in-game. It simply doesn't register as plugged in, even if it is in my Windows Device Manager.
Because Steam is hogging it, mapping it to someone else. Open the "controller" tab in the Steam settings & go from there. After disabling the input mapper, replug the controller & restart Steam,it might otherwise still be hogging it.
freefall May 7, 2020 @ 4:53am 
Originally posted by ReBoot:
Originally posted by freefall:

How do I do that? Also, the core problem is my stick is completely undetectable in-game. It simply doesn't register as plugged in, even if it is in my Windows Device Manager.
Because Steam is hogging it, mapping it to someone else. Open the "controller" tab in the Steam settings & go from there. After disabling the input mapper, replug the controller & restart Steam,it might otherwise still be hogging it.

Thanks! That worked in getting my stick recognized in-game again. All my key configurations were lost, but that's a smaller problem than losing input altogether.

Thanks again, really appreciate it! So essentially if it happens again, just hide my controller and plug it in again?
ReBoot May 7, 2020 @ 5:03am 
Won't happen again unless you enable the input mapper or reset your Steam settings.
freefall May 7, 2020 @ 5:05am 
Noted, and thank you again for everything!
freefall May 7, 2020 @ 5:14am 
Originally posted by ReBoot:
Won't happen again unless you enable the input mapper or reset your Steam settings.

Ugh, I need your help again. Somehow it trying to configure my stick I ended up wiping all my controllers, and I don't know how to bring them back.

I also have a problem with the Big Picture and controller option where my mouse cursor is not actually aligned with the screen, so I'm not able to hit the last two buttons at the bottom.
ReBoot May 7, 2020 @ 5:17am 
Originally posted by freefall:
Originally posted by ReBoot:
Won't happen again unless you enable the input mapper or reset your Steam settings.

Ugh, I need your help again. Somehow it trying to configure my stick I ended up wiping all my controllers, and I don't know how to bring them back.

I also have a problem with the Big Picture and controller option where my mouse cursor is not actually aligned with the screen, so I'm not able to hit the last two buttons at the bottom.
For starters, are those all controllers natively supported by games? If yes, don't do anything.
As for the latter part, is your desktop DPI set to anything higher than 100%? I'm not aware of Steam having scaling issues, but that's a classical symptom.

You should be able to navigate that console-esque interface with your keyboard though, that's the easiest stop-gap measure if you ain't gonna use that dialog frequently. And that's what Steam's or any input mapper is best treated: set it up once sensibly (Valve's default settings aren't quite sensible) and forget forever.
freefall May 7, 2020 @ 5:28am 
Yes, before the integration into Steam's input, I was playing these games using DirectInput plug and play, and they would have full support. All my problems only started once Steam took over, and they wiped out my key configs. With the X360 controller, it's not a big issue, but with my arcade stick it was a huge problem as there's only 9 buttons for it, so I can't map everything to be equal to an Xbox controller's.

And no, there's no screen scaling. It's more like the controller and big picture screens are running at a lower resolution than my desktop, so the cursor doesn't match where I point it. Actually there's two cursors visible.

I'm slowly trying to figure things out, and right now I'm able to access the hide and unhide controller options by auto hiding my Windows taskbar.

The previous time it happened, I actually saved my optimized configuration as a profile, but now it keeps reverting to the default Xbox controller profile and my previous profile had disappeared. And honestly, reconfiguring the controls had been absolute pain. I need to use my X360 controller to assign the keys and hit a button on my arcade stick, but some keys also clash with the controller's default options.
ReBoot May 7, 2020 @ 5:44am 
If your games support DirectInput natively, you can disable Steam's input mapper alltogether and roll with the games' native support.

You just said yourself it's a pain. So do yourself a favor and remove the pain. Ditch Steam's input mapper and just use your controllers with your games as if Steam never existed.
freefall May 7, 2020 @ 7:22am 
Originally posted by ReBoot:
If your games support DirectInput natively, you can disable Steam's input mapper alltogether and roll with the games' native support.

You just said yourself it's a pain. So do yourself a favor and remove the pain. Ditch Steam's input mapper and just use your controllers with your games as if Steam never existed.

How do I do that specifically? Once Steam took over the controller mapping, it's overridden everything, and disabling the Steam controller disables its functionality for any games running within Steam altogether?
ReBoot May 7, 2020 @ 7:31am 
Originally posted by freefall:
Originally posted by ReBoot:
If your games support DirectInput natively, you can disable Steam's input mapper alltogether and roll with the games' native support.

You just said yourself it's a pain. So do yourself a favor and remove the pain. Ditch Steam's input mapper and just use your controllers with your games as if Steam never existed.

How do I do that specifically? Once Steam took over the controller mapping, it's overridden everything, and disabling the Steam controller disables its functionality for any games running within Steam altogether?
No, disabling Steam's input mapper merely gets Steam out of the way (after that restart-Steam-replug-controller-shiz). The games can then detect your controllers just like they'd do if Steam never existed.

If a game doesn't fetch a controller, with Stream's input mapper disabled, it's because the game doesn't support that controller so you have to use an input mapper anyway. In such cases, I recommend keeping the input mapper disabled globally and enabling on a per-game basis.

Optional complexity. Going simple when possible and only adding complexity when needed, that motto has served me well over the years of being a hobbyist nerd as well as professional software engineer.
Last edited by ReBoot; May 7, 2020 @ 7:31am
freefall May 7, 2020 @ 7:33am 
I'll take a look and see what I can fiddle around. I've just managed to get a semblance of working order again, and I don't really want to mess things up, but I don't know how long things will stay this way before it becomes a problem again.

Thanks again for all your input, you've really been a big help, and I appreciate your quick response.
ReBoot May 7, 2020 @ 7:37am 
Tip: shake things up. If you got something complex working but don't understand anything, that's a situation that will you bite you sooner or later.

Understand how things work, get in gripes with the system (a hint from me: Steam's input mapper has global Steam-wide and local per-game settings, those may be different).

Messing things up IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING is key to improvements. Better come to terms with the input mapper, if you have non-standard controllers or games with lackluster support/weird gamepad control schemes. The last topic is my personal reason to use Steam's inut mapper, I enable it locally for that one game, give it a mapping that makes sense and forget about it entirely afterwards.
freefall May 7, 2020 @ 8:22am 
I've been fiddling around, but there's no single solution that works for all my games. Some require me to unplug my X360 controller for the arcade stick to be recognized. Essentially I'm going to have to tweak as I go.
< 1 2 >
Showing 1-15 of 24 comments
Per page: 1530 50

Date Posted: May 7, 2020 @ 4:00am
Posts: 24