Steam Deck + Keyboard and Mouse

[feralwolven]

its  not a proton issue, and here is the workaround until DE fixes this https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3027980121

took me along time to figure this out so i must share it. 

[Drex83]

  

On 2023-08-10 at 9:46 PM, Nuanulla said:

Yep, you'd be correct here. In contrast to Windows, and as I noted in my first reply in this thread, "Steam Input" is set to "Always Required" on Deck. That's why, without the workaround, Warframe expects SIAPI universally (whether Game Mode or Desktop Mode) while Windows escapes this issue outside BPM. STEAM+X global chord does actually make the keyboard pop-up. But, as I clarified above, Warframe on Deck by default will be expecting SIAPI keyboard input rather than 'normal', non-SIAPI keyboard input. This inability to understand non-SIAPI input, and the inability to dynamically enable/disable SIAPI while in-game, is why everyone got stuck on the login screen when Valve messed up SIAPI with one of their recent Steam Deck stable channel updates.

The mess-up with SIAPI recently was Valve's fault. However, if Warframe didn't lock us into SIAPI, it wouldn't be as big of an issue as it was. As a testament to the inconvenience of this issue, Warframe isn't processing my Deck inputs during a Narmer Break mission since DE has forgotten to map or connect any of the 'security cam' inputs to their Deck default controller layout 🤦‍♂️. DE's default layout, using Steam Input SIAPI, works well on Proton-8.0 when compared to past months with Proton-7.0. BUT, in such cases with SIAPI bugs on Warframe's end, users would never be completely stuck if DE allowed us to disable SIAPI in-game.

This is definitely an issue I have been trying to get them to fix for years, before the deck even existed but my calls have fallen on deaf ears, I've taken time to put those calls into more recent posts about this as well since it's heavily related. But yeah the post above yours I did think that was interesting to find out it forces the BPM-style-launch on desktop mode on the deck's linux apparently, that is.... interesting to find out. But yeah, I've been trying to get them to remove this big picture mode locked in launch style thing for years, not the controller SIAPI bind system they put or anything even though it's glitchy now mind you, I just want to be able to actually launch via BPM.

As for the keyboard shortcut on desktop, I have been playing around trying to figure that out. I think this is unfortunately a Valve issue, I opened a thread on the BPM discussion since Valve has been watching it more with the BPM/Deck UI rollout to desktop the last 8 months or so, I'm hoping they see it, though maybe I should clone it to the steam beta group bug reports, I dunno. In any case it's hard to tell with Valve, I love them but they're like an enigmatic force when trying to interface with the public haha. But yeah from my testing now I think this is a Valve issue, I tried 4 Steam games and 2 non-steam, the non-steam games are perfect, the 4 Steam ones though ignore my request for the OSK to pop on desktop, but work fine if the game was launched from BPM.

But yeah I think the problem here that DE is overlooking is that that SIAPI big picture mode exclusive UI mode for the most part, just needs to be removed or optional end of story, to be clear I don't mean the input profiles stuff needs to be totally canned, I mean the exclusive mode requiring nothing but it, when launched from BPM, the kb/gamepad flip-flop UI needs to work properly, and so does Xinput, and none of these should be forcing exclusivity of the others, and frankly I see no reason it should be exclusive either, as prior to the recent patch that broke this it was working completely fine for years. As for the BPM exclusive mode, I know it's nice that it has lil popup boxes for text inputs and stuff like a console, and that's cool, and it's sleek and I wish it was more stable. I really do, but it's always been at least a little jank with old BPM too, and the way they set this up was never designed or tested with new BPM in mind. At the very least we just need to have a toggle to CHOOSE to turn this off if we don't want it, I'm not saying they even have to build UI for this just give us a well documented command line switch for power users. It'd solve a lot of issues. Though, now that I know that the global button for the keyboard is somehow not working on warframe that also needs to be fixed first, or no one will be able to login with a pad or deck, period.

But yeah I've been trying to get them to ditch this for years, because Warframe didn't always play nice with controllers. They've added the separate options for controllers in recent years, they also put in that nice newer ability like newer games, to flip flop between PC inputs and gamepad on the fly. This is great stuff! The problem is, it never effected the game, if launched from BPM (on PC that is, apparently, on deck it always launches in this style which is even worse.) I also think another reason as far as deck goes to remove the exclusivity on the UI, is touch screen taps on Windows at least are usually just seen similar to mouse clicks. I don't know if it normally is that way on deck-desktop on Warframe, but if it is, that could also be handy for just tapping the screen for the text input box you want to activate, and that's just one more thing broken by the bad exclusive BPM mode UI.

When launched from BPM (or deck at all, apparently) it locks it into an older, more exclusive UI style entirely (actually it seems they fixed some things that were old, like modding recently but up until THIS MONTH, the old way to swap mods from tray into slots instead of dragging was still there too, this was changed literally years ago.) This style disables keyboard and mouse in many parts of the UI and that is a lot of crap, that needs to go. Though I will say for the sake of mixed input for doing cool things with the SC/Deck/Switch/Playstation gyro with steam, I do recommend they allow mouse (because mouse is great on gyro) to move the cursor, without shifting the UI to another type, just make button presses change it and you're golden imho, I used to do this for years with my Steam Controller and it was fantastic.

To be clear too, SIAPI (as in the actual game inputs from the pad that are named in the API) is NOT shut off in this newer input mode that lets you change between keyboard/gamepad on the fly, it works just fine whether the game is launched on desktop or BPM, it just doesn't stay locked in the gamepad UI mode like it is when launched from big picture mode, and doesn't have the prompts that can force open a box for typing in chat via the BPM overlay and such. Now, it did have a few issues, like the fishing UI and other niche things like that for example, the binds didn't work right in but if they fix that up it should be fine. Now as for me, my Steam Controllers are failing on a few bits of them now sadly, and I'm using a Stadia pad which has to use Steam or something else to translate it to Xbox outputs. I don't always play on pad it's more of a casual thing though but...

Prior to them breaking everything in this patch, I was actually using a very lightly modified basic Xbox template on the Stadia pad, instead of the SIAPI one that was horribly outdated for years. That Xbox template because it was basic, and plain console style the way DE expects it generally, worked completely fine, bypassing many bugs in DE's official controller profile that has been outdated for like half a decade now. However, once they put in that update that shut off Xinput support that all went out the window right back to SIAPI with no choice, I'm glad it works at all but I still have to launch with desktop to get the newer UI that can change if I decide to, not to mention the movement on the stick aiming feels somehow worse now, though I may just need to tweak it a bit, I wouldn't be surprised if some of their earlier gamepad fixes were completely ignored in the SIAPI version. Afterall, as I said earlier, the modding UI was actually still using a version from years ago before the "Destiny Style" cursor, until very recently. Though at this point I would really like to be able to use some of the in game tools for this but I don't think the SIAPI ones are even really hooked into the new gamepad configuration UI much at all, another reason I was recently choosing to opt into a regular Xbox template instead until DE forced me to stop. But Steam's input tools can make up for many failings, (could make up for a lot more if I could use xinput buttons in the same config too like I used to...) I more just want this keyboard and BPM-UI-exclusive mode issue fixed once and for all, though. But for me, I had actually fixed many of the issues with the SIAPI profile, using Xbox inputs for years, and all the fixes could not have been made today if they keep it like this.

As for the aiming thing, I know at some point they fixed aiming on pads because there was some kind of misconfiguration they had had in the analog sticks that was reading them more like an oval than a circle perhaps it was? I forget the specifics. But I dunno if that ever effected or was fixed on Steam Input.

In any case, I really think DE needs to sit down with some people and just take a look at this, part of why they made the UI flip flop in the first place was compatibility, then later, upcoming support for the mobile versions and stuff so the UI is all more unified, but this isn't very unifying when the game refuses to properly relinquish control to the keyboard/mouse.

---

On a more TL;DR level in hopes DE takes some notes, I'll make a shorter list of things to look at closer, I think some of the biggest priority on BPM/Deck they need to take into:

-Get the game just properly working on Deck, period, but big picture mode has been revamped and there's a lot more use case on desktop so it would be very nice to be working right on desktop PCs too. People should not have to run this game from desktop to run it properly at all, that's just jank. Also I'd add that if people on deck are doing this, it means the people that want to use Steam's big picture mode on PC may also be avoiding it because of jank as well when using pad (I know I had to a lot)

-Figure out why Steam's on screen keyboard refuses to summon on the game when the game is in desktop mode (unfortunately, I think this might be a Valve thing, they can be hard to wake up to issues sadly, though a lil less lately since they're trying to get BPM polished)

-Restore Xinput, KB/M and SIAPI inputs all working in harmony, having SIAPI enabled in any way should not shut off reading Xinput entirely. I used a lot of Xbox inputs to fix broken things in an old config for years when DE was not updating it, removing these makes repairing broken things WAY more difficult for the community, don't do it!

-Remove, or offer, a way to opt out of the Big Picture Mode exclusive UI that doesn't properly respond entirely to KB/M. I don't care if you remove it, or add an option, or even skip the UI and make a well publicized command line switch just PLEASE do it, it's been messing up some of my steam input stuff for years. This also makes the game lock into this mode using Steam Link as well and it's ruining the UX there as well.

-If you do get KB/M, Xinput and SIAPI all activated together as it should be, please also consider making mouse movement not change the UI, just button presses. This way people using Steam Input that own a Deck/Steam Controller/PS4/PS5/Switch controller, can take advantage of gyro aiming in the best way possible by assigning mouse to it to move it, but still using either Xinput or SIAPI buttons to fire, without the UI flip flopping visual style back and forth just because a mouse moved a millimeter

 

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by Drex83

[Nuanulla]

On 2023-08-30 at 2:01 AM, feralwolven said:

its  not a proton issue, and here is the workaround until DE fixes this https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3027980121

took me along time to figure this out so i must share it. 

Why would you post this here when there’s a better solution and simpler instruction on the second page?

[feralwolven]

On 2023-09-01 at 1:00 AM, Nuanulla said:

Why would you post this here when there’s a better solution and simpler instruction on the second page?

My bad i was shotgunning the response to some years old threads that were relevant. Didnt see this one had the solution i found. And those instructions are simpler yes, but i wanted to roll everything into one guide and many people ive encountered are new to steam with their steamdecks. 

[Nuanulla]

10 hours ago, feralwolven said:

My bad i was shotgunning the response to some years old threads that were relevant. Didnt see this one had the solution i found. And those instructions are simpler yes, but i wanted to roll everything into one guide and many people ive encountered are new to steam with their steamdecks. 

If you're so concerned about new Deck users and your "shotgunning the response", you still haven't bothered to rectify your guide's deficiencies after I quote-replied to you.

1. Warframe SIAPI IS NOT a broken integration. SIAPI was and is still an intentional decision. If anything, it is the layout's Steam Input Action Set that's deficient, not "broken" per se. You're misleading people on this point.

2. Stop quoting "-cluster:public -registry:Steam". This is a Windows solution, and one of if not the first sources of this solution (that I found) intended it for Windows users. It certainly works on Deck but is not ideal. You're making users waste space by generating an unnecessary second prefix while simultaneously losing all of their in-game settings.

If you aren't deleting your guide, you should instead, for the sake of primarily Steam forum users, 1) simplify and correct your guide; 2) link to ProtonDB; 3) link to this Warframe forum thread.

[Inari_28]

So new update makes this not work don't know why sadly im not very in the know on how to fix it so ):

[Kalidibus]

New update broke the workarounds. Super frustrating.

Edit: I spent some more time with the new control schemes and actually got it working better than I've ever had before, so overall I'm pretty happy. If anyone needs Gyro (and some other nice features like emotes / gear wheel menus on the trackpads) check out "Official SIAPI with Gyro v5" in the community controls.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Kalidibus

[Nuanulla]

I dunno what you guys are on about. If the new update broke the non-SIAPI workaround, there's something wrong on your end. Maybe the default Proton version changed for Warframe and your non-Steam game shortcut is no longer in sync in this regard. I'm still successfully playing Warframe on Deck with mouse and keyboard.

[Nuanulla]

Has anyone managed to redirect the shader cache path as well?

I'm playing around with this command, though it doesn't seem to work:

Quote

STEAM_COMPAT_SHADER_PATH="/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/shadercache/230410" STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH="/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/230410" %command% -cluster:public -registry:Steam

 

[Zeluno]

Late to the party here, but

This doesn't seem to be working for me. I'd love maybe a step-by-step video or guide with images of @Nuanulla's  method, if possible, but I understand if that is asking too much. Either way, when following the instructions outlined on page 2 of this thread/the linked Warframe thread, I'm simply not able to get WF to even launch. Could someone please help? Really miss playing with KBM. :(

Edited November 25, 2023 by Zeluno
missing @

[Nuanulla]

5 hours ago, Zeluno said:

Late to the party here, but

This doesn't seem to be working for me. I'd love maybe a step-by-step video or guide with images of @Nuanulla's  method, if possible, but I understand if that is asking too much. Either way, when following the instructions outlined on page 2 of this thread/the linked Warframe thread, I'm simply not able to get WF to even launch. Could someone please help? Really miss playing with KBM. :(

You probably forgot to force a proton version for the non-steam game shortcut.

[GothicRose_]

My L1 button broke and I don't know how and can't afford repairs rn (it's the Christmas season), I also just rather play with a keyboard and mouse too. I tried everything to get my keyboard and mouse to work on the game but nothing works. 

[Nuanulla]

On 12/10/2023 at 9:21 AM, GothicRose_ said:

My L1 button broke and I don't know how and can't afford repairs rn (it's the Christmas season), I also just rather play with a keyboard and mouse too. I tried everything to get my keyboard and mouse to work on the game but nothing works. 

I know you exaggerated the wording of your reply as such out of frustration. However, no one can help you with such little and vague information. If you can’t diagnose your issue for other people and not just for yourself to understand, I’d question how important this issue is to you.

And, given that all of our Steam Deck models are the same hardware-wise and that I’ve recently used a mouse and keyboard with Warframe (latest Warframe, Proton 8.0-4, latest stable SteamOS), there’s obviously something that you’ve missed.

Instructions in the past few pages are comprehensive. They will assuredly work unless either your Deck has another broken component or you have messed with your Deck software or settings beyond a threshold.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Nuanulla

[Cyandic35]

Place this on "Launch parameters": SteamDeck=0 %command%

 

Had to do this to local coop in BG3, tried with Warframe to see if ti works and it did.

[Nuanulla]

On 2024-02-04 at 11:56 AM, Cyandic35 said:

SteamDeck=0 %command%

if I could kiss you, i would. 

Still too bad that Warframe can't dynamically switch whether if Steam Deck is in desktop mode or if in-game input method changes. But this is still much better than I'd expected at all.

Edited February 11 by Nuanulla

[Drex83]

On 2024-02-11 at 5:36 AM, Nuanulla said:

if I could kiss you, i would. 

Still too bad that Warframe can't dynamically switch whether if Steam Deck is in desktop mode or if in-game input method changes. But this is still much better than I'd expected at all.

I wish I could get DE to listen to me on this front, I can tell you exactly why that's happening. As a long time Steam Input user I've been banging on about fixing this for years and just cannot get their ear.

I'll tell you exactly what the problem is, well a couple problems. The first one is in the August update this year, they put up a new Steam Input profile set. That set also forced regular Xinput not to work at the same time. This was a hugely bad move, as we can't use Xinput if we want to, and we can't repair broken steam input actions DE hasn't gotten to, which they didn't seem to think was a big deal, but case in point, this steam input profile hasn't been updated in probably 5 years, so yeah, it is a big deal. Last I checked, I still can't do archwing blink because of that broken profile, when it was actually better for the moment just to play with Xinput, now as a Stadia "Generic" controller user that needs Steam Input I'm not "allowed" to play in Xinput anymore, which is to be frank, crap. There's no good reason SIAPI or Xinput need to be on and not the other they've been mixed fine for years.

Now that being said, that newer issue aside, the big one is the old issue. The old issue is ages ago, they fully implemented Big Picture Mode integration. To the point that it's like a console. When the game starts in Big Picture Mode, it locked it into a "console style" mode. In this mode, the gamepad could do many, many, things. Keyboard and mouse could do not do much at all. This mode made the game UI a lot more console-centric. Making the keyboard auto pop from events in game like activating the password field, or it also had a bind to open chat in social zones that would do this.

Launching from desktop caused the opposite to happen. Eventually, they cleaned a lot of the gamepad input stuff up a few years ago, I dunno must be like 3-5 years ago now maybe? After that it was doing the nice little hot swap thing between controllers on PC like you expect on most modern games and is what it should be doing.... if you ran the game from the desktop... but not from BPM.

Launching the game via BPM, always, forces the game, to be in "console" mode. This mode is deprecated and shouldn't even exist anymore. The hot swapping mechanic should be cleaned up and setup to do all of this properly without hassle, there's no reason for the BPM exclusive mode to continue existing. However, this deprecated console style locked in mode made in circa 2014-2015, is still here, and still kicking. It's never been removed, even though it needs to be. Because they've left this in there, and as far as I know from any publicly documented things I've seen, there doesn't seem to be a way to override this with any kind of launch flag or anything, I'd be perfectly fine self fixing this if it were, but it's not.

Even if there's people out there that have some kind of required need for that mode, I'm sure they could put in a launch flag or something to force the UI the way you need it or whatever. But considering the popularity of the deck I'm shocked they haven't fixed this yet. But anyway, while big on knowing Steam and Steam Input and the features therein, I do not have a deck myself. But it is my understanding that the reason for so many deck problems is, that awful console mode style lock in thing from ancient big picture mode, is not only still being applied, but the way the deck handles everything, Warframe still sees the desktop as big picture mode doing that jank lock in too. Honestly, I've been beating on DE about removing that shlock for years and the issues it's causing, with the very popular I might add, Steam Deck, is yet another reason to take that exclusive control mode that's half broken out, I don't know why it even still exists.

 

----

So for the umpteenth time I've said it hoping to get DE's ear, I'm sure no one will see my plea for help here but I will say it anyway, here's what you should do to help everyone out with Steam Input/Deck & BPM as a check list:

-Just remove the big picture mode exclusive console mode, this doesn't seem to benefit anyone anymore, if you're that worried about it, add a command line parameter to bring it back. Theoretically, this would also fix many of the issues it has on Deck, but I can't confirm that, but I'm pretty sure a lot of deck's issues are because of the locked in nature of this and it also being locked in OS wide, furthermore deck users should really not be expected to launch the game from desktop to play it, that's just silly, and desktop mode also doesn't seem to work evading issues anymore for most people anyway, I think, again I don't have a deck, though but I've seen things around about that.

-Confirm the keyboard works: Upon removing the BPM exclusive mode, try to play the game from BPM using a controller, and see if you can get output out of the on screen keyboard, this is paramount for chat and login of course, if Steam Input is fully enabled, pressing Guide+Select/Back/Whatever your little button to the left of Guide typically is, should open the keyboard, of course for sure make sure people can login, very important obviously lol. As it currently stands, it is actually nice that some actions in game do automatically open the polished BPM input box, like the password one, but like I said prior, as long as this mode is locking people out of the ability to use keyboard/mouse properly as well it's a problem, the UI is doing actions exclusive to pad vs. PC controls and it's really just a bit janky, maybe there's a good balance that could be struck here if more time were put into it, but I don't know where you could go from there. Unfortunately much as I love Steam sometimes it's own jank is an issue, which has been part of the problem too since the new BPM popups for keyboard can glitch out and make the text box impossible to type in entirely. Though I would add that since you seem to be able to detect if it's running from BPM, maybe you could consider putting a note on the login screen about what the default on screen keyboard bind is for steam input, that could help people get the keyboard open that don't realize that's how you force it from anywhere.

-Disable the Steam Input and Xinput exclusivity. It didn't used to be this way and worked fine, there isn't a positive reason for this to stay this way, disallowing this makes it so anyone not using an official Xbox controller, can't properly play the game with raw Xinput even if we want to, and since the SIAPI profile is rarely updated and often times things get broke (and things are still broken in the current one I might add) we can't manually fix them, which is tbh, a major feature of what SIAPI should be able to do, is let players customize and fix things, but you're actively blocking us from fixing things by locking it to SIAPI or Xinput instead of allowing both, like prior to August '23.

-Make controller/PC controls hot swapping work with mouse as smoothly as you can: So the hot swapping controller thing on regular Windows desktop mode works pretty well the last few years mostly fine. However, the non-Xbox controllers that have gyro, could be using this for some sweet aiming. Steam Input can already handle this, fine, that goes for Nintendo, Playstation, Deck and Steam Controllers. You don't need to really 'implement' a gyro bind for these in SIAPI, people can choose to add it themselves. However, the best thing to attach gyro to, is mouse, and in the case of Steam Deck/Controllers, the touch pad attached to mouse is vastly superior aiming ability to using a stick as well. However, the usage of the regular gamepad buttons generally speaking, is also the best choice for people using a pad, whether they're using a gyro, or not. So that being said, the controller hot swapping is generally good though, but I would make sure that you are managing to get mouse to still smoothly work while keeping the rest of the gamepad glyphs and what not on screen and functional, as that is what pad people need, but gyro/touchpads are far superior attached to mouse, so you don't want the UI visual style bouncing every 2 seconds, you dig?

 

Edited February 16 by Drex83

[RADRED89]

Yes DE please fix. As someone who occasionally uses the guide button to open Windows Gamebar, this causes horrible problems ranging from random apps and desktop settings to change (volume up/down, alt tab, etc) and in the case of me zeroing out all actions in the "Guide Button Chord Layout" in controller settings for Steam for Warframe to then refuse to see the controller at all and my framerate to cut in half until I close and relaunch.

[Drex83]

On 2024-02-19 at 11:55 AM, RADRED89 said:

Yes DE please fix. As someone who occasionally uses the guide button to open Windows Gamebar, this causes horrible problems ranging from random apps and desktop settings to change (volume up/down, alt tab, etc) and in the case of me zeroing out all actions in the "Guide Button Chord Layout" in controller settings for Steam for Warframe to then refuse to see the controller at all and my framerate to cut in half until I close and relaunch.

That won't get fixed unless they start supporting regular xinput as well on the steam version again, which wasn't a problem before so I don't see why they don't fix it now. I wish they would.

Regardless though, I really enjoy Steam Input I just don't like being forced into it in certain cases. I really enjoy the advanced features for non-gaming directly too since I can alt tab out and control the desktop without the keyboard and mouse. But that's what you're running into. If a game is not in focus or steam doesn't realize it's running you're getting the desktop profile that's setup for handy browsing and discord-esque quick key strokes to bounce through messages. The chord one is for things that occur globally when holding guide which is very handy for alt-tabbing out to use the desktop, but yeah, can control volume, music track play/pause/next/prev track. I'm very fond of it since Microsoft never bothered to make gamepads do jack diddly on the desktop in windows myself. But I cannot deny steam has issues when it doesn't detect your game, which if it's not ran from steam, it can't.