Wireless PC Controller?

[Okjoek]

We're setting up my backup AMD machine to the main television downstairs to use as a sort of new age console and as a way to watch stuff like Youtube without using a built in app on the TV.

 

The device is a proprietary HP compaq pro with an Athlon2 dual core 3.4GHz CPU and we slapped an ATI GPU which was the only thing we could find in the catacombs with low enough power consumption for the thing's mere 240W PSU and with an HDMI output for use with our TV. We're a bit at a loss though when it comes to controllers.

 

Should I get like one of those Steam controllers or something?

 

 

 

[Un4tural]

ps3 and xbox with dongle should work, though I'm not sure about navigating windows or whatever with it. If it's just navigating OS, why not get one of those mini keyboard/touchpad combos, allowing you to browse easily too.

[ShaithEatery]

I use an Xbox 360 wireless controller with the wireless receiver for my HTPC, and it's worked great.  I use Controller Companion (sold for a couple bucks via Steam) to control things in the windows environment including websites like Youtube (use www.youtube.com/tv for the shortcut, way better interface for TVs and you can use arrow keys/dpad on the 360 controller+controller companion to navigate).  If you want to get fancy, you can get the 360 chatpad and Controller Companion has a driver that actually makes it work, though it has to do some weird stuff and means that while the chatpad works it won't be recognized in a game as an xinput device.

[berderder]

3 hours ago, Okjoek said:

We're setting up my backup AMD machine to the main television downstairs to use as a sort of new age console and as a way to watch stuff like Youtube without using a built in app on the TV.

 

The device is a proprietary HP compaq pro with an Athlon2 dual core 3.4GHz CPU and we slapped an ATI GPU which was the only thing we could find in the catacombs with low enough power consumption for the thing's mere 240W PSU and with an HDMI output for use with our TV. We're a bit at a loss though when it comes to controllers.

 

Should I get like one of those Steam controllers or something?

 

 

 

 

8 minutes ago, ShaithEatery said:

I use an Xbox 360 wireless controller with the wireless receiver for my HTPC, and it's worked great.  I use Controller Companion (sold for a couple bucks via Steam) to control things in the windows environment including websites like Youtube (use www.youtube.com/tv for the shortcut, way better interface for TVs and you can use arrow keys/dpad on the 360 controller+controller companion to navigate).  If you want to get fancy, you can get the 360 chatpad and Controller Companion has a driver that actually makes it work, though it has to do some weird stuff and means that while the chatpad works it won't be recognized in a game as an xinput device.

I like the ideas here.

 

First of all, I have this device and I love it:

 

http://www.amazon.com/VENSMILE-Wireless-Keyboard-Touchpad-Windows/dp/B00T7MSR5C?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00

 

It's like having a remote for your computer.

 

HOWEVER, ShaithEatery's idea might be a little less clunky since you may already be used to something like an XBox 360 Wireless Controller. I think they might handle even better than the remote I recommended. And I'm sure Controller Companion works fine. 

[Dash Lambda]

I'd say that, for an HTPC, if you're going with a gaming style controller, the Steam Controller is the best option. It's versatile as all hell, comfortable, and actually has input methods that make sense for general computer use (touchpads vs analog sticks for mouse). Aside from the OSK (which is amazing for an OSK, but it's still an OSK), the only problems would stem from how patient you are. You have to get used to it, and you have to fiddle with it.

 

If you don't care much about gaming, then the combination remote @berderder recommended seems like the most reasonable solution.

[ShaithEatery]

My goal for my setup was to use the mouse cursor as little as possible and control as much as possible with just the D-Pad, and with a few exceptions it works really well.  I use Windows 8.1 so it starts up with the infamous "Metro" start screen which I can control with the D-Pad to select what I want to open.  Steam opens straight into Big Picture mode as you would expect, and since I use Kodi for most of my media playback that all supports native controller support as well.  The only things I have to use the analog stick to control my mouse cursor with are websites that don't have a "leanback" mode like the Youtube Leanback site does (sites include Vessel, Netflix, and a few others).  I use Chrome Launcher in Kodi to go straight to whatever site I want to watch content on, and I mapped Y in Controller Companion to Alt-F4 to close out of the full screen page and get right back into Kodi.

 

The fact that so many things support the 360 controller to control things natively, in combination with Controller Companion to handle navigating in-between these things in Windows as well as navigate the places that don't support controllers makes me pretty happy with my setup.  The only downside with the added chatpad support is that if you go into a program that natively supports a 360 controller such as Kodi or Steam, it has to basically disconnect your controller and re-connect it as an XINPUT device which takes a few seconds.  Then, if I go from Kodi to the Youtube Leanback site, it has to disconnect it again and you have to re-connect it as it switches the driver it uses to support the chatpad.  This also means I can't use the chatpad inside of any program that uses the controller as an XINPUT device, so for example I can use the chatpad to search inside of Youtube, but I can't use it to search inside of Kodi or use it inside of a game.  There's definitely trade-offs, but I tried to set everything up with the best of every world and this is what I've come up with so far.  I even tried upgrading to Windows 10 and a wireless Xbox One controller with chatpad as Win10 actually has the proper driver for the Xbox One chatpad to work without any driver-switching weirdness, but Kodi doesn't work properly with the XBONE controller and I found a bunch of other weirdness that made me go back to 8.1 + 360 controller.

[Okjoek]

On 5/2/2016 at 3:25 PM, berderder said:

 

I like the ideas here.

 

First of all, I have this device and I love it:

 

http://www.amazon.com/VENSMILE-Wireless-Keyboard-Touchpad-Windows/dp/B00T7MSR5C?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00

 

It's like having a remote for your computer.

 

HOWEVER, ShaithEatery's idea might be a little less clunky since you may already be used to something like an XBox 360 Wireless Controller. I think they might handle even better than the remote I recommended. And I'm sure Controller Companion works fine. 

That's a pretty nice idea to use a remote-like device. I think this model has a nicer layout just from the pictures and the sort of shape it has makes me wonder if it could double as a controller or if the keys are too clustered together for that to work comfortably on either model. 

 

As far as dedicated controllers go my younger brother says we should get an XB360 controller with an adapter for PC. Has anyone tried that? If so how well does it work?