How to disable Steam Input globally?

[Kaldaien]

None of my games where a developer has enabled Steam Input have working input because Steam Input disables XInput, DirectInput and HID and then handles all of this stuff in a separate process.

I cannot use that, you just severed the connection between the game and input devices by doing this. It's been this way for years, but now that there's no system-wide way to disable Steam Input, I have a lot of games that are busted until I manually disable Steam Input.

[LAN021]

Regarding an option to disable Steam Input for all games: even if you don't have a simple On/Off toggle that affects all owned and new games, could you not add it as an option to Disable/Enable it for all games you currently own? That is, you select the option then confirm that you want to set all owned and installed games to disabled. It would essentially be setting it to forced off for all games simultaneously (and also to default or enabled). This does not affect new games.

[DIE SOFT]

Hello, found this thread while pulling my hair out trying to deal with Steam Input causing problems with my game. Right now I'm just dealing with it in playtest mode, but when I'm ready for launch, telling players to disable Steam Input to fix some issues seems a bit unmanageable. Is there some way as a developer, I can forcibly set Steam Input to be disabled by default?

fwiw I'm using Unity and UnityEngine.Input.anyKeyDown will stay false for gamepads in some scenarios seemingly due to Steam Input hijacking.

[Zonk]

also kindly asking how to get rid of this.

with the new Layout and Options, which got patched in recently, i am not able to deactivate this hijacking behavior anymore.

1. My Mouse becomes unuseable -> moving permanently in one direction
2. Other Software like Emulators aren't useable with Gamepads while Steam is running


I have to force Shutdown steam and its services in order to get back controll about my Hardware (Mouse + BT Gamepads like Switch Pro, PS4/5...)

Pics: https://imgur.com/a/VAHQUes
as shown, everything is off - but still hijacking any controller on PC, nonBP-Mode

[Gyskermike]

Guess I'm pretty late to this, but I can't reload or dive in tomb raiders latest game as a result. I'm a dummy, so I don't know what to do about it.

[dj15114]

austinp_valve님이 먼저 게시:

Steam Input defaults to disabled for both players and developers, so if a game has Steam Input enabled by the developer they've gone into Steamworks settings and turned it on. We do no provide an option to players to globally override developer's choices to Steam Input because it would silently break input in many games. If you want to force it off in a specific game you can in the per-game settings.

that would be great if the toggle worked, I can't play alot of games and even when steams closed I can't open gamebar using the button on my controller

edit: I know I only posted this a few seconds ago but this affects every game I play even non-steam games, that aren't even launched through the launcher

[SprayRate]

Steam doesn't have the ability to stop the guide button from going to Xbox Game Bar. There's two separate settings in Win10 for Game Bar under Settings->Game Bar and both options need to be enabled to turn on Game Bar and enable the guide button to open it. On Win11 there's just one setting for "Allow your controller to open Game Bar"

[🎃Sammy Hain🎃]

Please fix this.

[Kaldaien]

Instead of banning me when I point out I have to pirate games I already own in order to get input working, how bout you fix the Steam client and give us an option to turn Steam Input off?

I've patched a few games to make them work even while the Steam client is disabling the input APIs the game uses, but it's a hassle and I'd be better off just buying games on Epic Game Store.

[Kaldaien]

In any case, I've resolved major issues with the XInput wrapper version of Steam Input.

24.1.9
======
 + Implemented IClientUtils::SetFocusedWindow (...) to eliminate the need
     for steam://forceinputappid/ when blocking/unblocking Steam Input.
 + Added support for IClientEngine version 006, since the Steam client will
     no longer grant requests for version 005 or older.
 + Fixed IClientEngine::GetIClientUtils (...); 006 requires a pipe _AND_ user.

Native Steam Input games still do not work on my system, and I'm beyond pissed about that. The number of games I've had to purchase over on other stores because they use native Steam Input and that information was not disclosed at time of purchase is enough for me to vehemently hate Steam Input and Valve.

Since Valve is creating this problem, all users should be eligible for refunds, no matter how many hours played if the game requires Steam Input.

Otherwise, I'm going to repeat myself here -- pirating Steam Input native games is FULLY justifiable and the only way to get input working in them if you don't want to buy the same @#%$ing game twice to get a version of the game that uses normal Operating System input APIs.

[Kaldaien]

Well, jeeze. Someone should have told me the reason native Steam Input doesn't work for me is because I'm Workshop banned.

I've been fighting with this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ API for several years now, and the reason native Steam Input games have never worked is because I can't download the bindings needed to make them work.

I've purchased several games twice because they simply DO NOT work on Steam. This is insane, how can this be allowed to even be a thing?


Nonetheless, Special K is now fully compatible with Steam Input and I'm happy. I just have to figure out how the hell I'm going to get ahold of the binding files for native titles if I have no choice but to buy some games on Steam (i.e. Tales of Arise, it REQUIRES Steam Input and is not for sale on any other store).

I was not looking forward to manually patching all of my games and gutting the Steam client to get it to stop blocking games fallback APIs.


That said, this API still needs work. Simply overriding the window with input focus is an exercise in reverse engineering that nobody should have to go through. We have steam://forceinputappid and all, but it'd be much simpler if you could just declare a Process ID to retain input focus while you use mouse and keyboard in other applications.

All other input APIs on Windows (save for Windows.Gaming.Input) have this capability, and I've hacked Windows.Gaming.Input to support it... that was easier than getting to the root of the Steam Input problems.

[Mr.Spaz]

Idk if anyone reads this anymore, but PLEASE KILL STEAM INPUT API!!!

It's horrible, I have to run games as exe's to avoid the virtual text box from dropping my frames to 2fps. I can finally customize my controls when I get rid of all the bull from the hyper restrictive API. It's the least Steam thing in all of steam and it targets Steam deck users.

For example, Warframe has SIAPI. There are segments that are Literally impossible because the B button from Xinput can't be bound onto the B button... makes sense. The game can't detect a B press because it's being gated by a rather useless little filter for all my inputs. It's a horrible UX.

[Fief]

What I don't understand is the fact Steam Input affects games that aren't even on Steam.

I spent a good portion yesterday trying to figure out how to make Playstation symbols appear on Detroit: Become Human since I'm using a PS5 controller. I didn't think it would be much of an issue. It was a PS exclusive game, anyways. But, most of my problem seems to come through Steam. Even if I force the game to read my PS controller as specifically a PS controller, there's something else that keeps forcing it back to Xbox, and it cycles between the two when I hit the D-Pad.

"Whatever" I thought. I just accepted the Xbox symbols and went about my day. Today, I downloaded Assassin's Creed Syndicate for the first time and played the first couple of missions through Ubisoft. My controller was being read, and the symbols were correct. But whenever I went idle, even for a fraction of a second, the symbols would switch to keyboard. I thought it was weird, but I chalked it up to Ubisoft being Ubisoft. Then my buttons were registering. I would be mashing X or O to free run up and down respectively with no result. With my experimentation from yesterday fresh in my mind, I had a theory. I found Steam in my hidden icons and closed it completely. I went back into the game, and all of my issues stopped entirely. I do not own Assassin's Creed Syndicate on Steam. I did not run it through Steam. Steam was not involved whatsoever, and should have never been. So why was Steam Input screwing with a game that wasn't even on the platform? And, more importantly, how do I disable the damned thing?

[yellowJennifer :3]

Settings > Controller > scroll all the way down > on Desktop Layout, press "Edit" next to the settings cog > look at the top-right corner on the window that opens up

[cocopop]

The main issue I have with Steam Input, is that on any OS other than Windows, you literally can't turn it off.

So if you wanted to make use of native XInput or DS4 compatibility in certain games, or to just use HID-API controllers on supported games without any translation, and you're using MacOS or a Linux-based OS, then you're just straight outta luck.

On Windows, disabling Steam Input is as simple as others have put it, just go to the game's settings in your library, and disable SI from there.

That's it.

From that point on, any non-Steam controllers will work just as the game was designed to use them. Where Valve really dropped the ball here is that this doesn't work on MacOS or Linux at all. Not even their pre-installed SteamOS on the Steam Deck allows you to do this.

[Kaldaien]

cocopop님이 먼저 게시:

The main issue I have with Steam Input, is that on any OS other than Windows, you literally can't turn it off.

So if you wanted to make use of native XInput or DS4 compatibility in certain games, or to just use HID-API controllers on supported games without any translation, and you're using MacOS or a Linux-based OS, then you're just straight outta luck.

On Windows, disabling Steam Input is as simple as others have put it, just go to the game's settings in your library, and disable SI from there.

That's it.

From that point on, any non-Steam controllers will work just as the game was designed to use them. Where Valve really dropped the ball here is that this doesn't work on MacOS or Linux at all. Not even their pre-installed SteamOS on the Steam Deck allows you to do this.

You can't turn it off on Windows either, to be fair.

And you never really know before you buy a game if it uses native Steam Input. They have that broken controller icon on the Steam store page, but it's not always accurate.

So really you just need to avoid buying games from Steam. EGS, GOG and MIcrosoft Store versions never use the native Steam Input API.

On Windows, disabling Steam Input is as simple as others have put it, just go to the game's settings in your library, and disable SI from there.

That's it.

No, that's not it. That's only the XInput wrapper, Steam Input also has a native input API that disables all of the OS input APIs and breaks the ♥♥♥♥ out of games leaving you no option but to buy them from a competitor store.

Steam Input is the same across all platforms. If your game uses the native input API, then it disables all of the OS input APIs and the native API cannot be disabled.

The only difference is that on non-Windows platforms the native API is used more often, and the thing most people call "Steam Input" on Windows is not in fact the Steam Input API, but a simple XInput wrapper that translates HID/DirectInput to XInput and then disables HID/DirectInput.

Native Steam Input goes one step further and disables XInput as well, so there's no possible way to use any of the OS's input APIs for anything... because Valve are ♥♥♥♥♥.