When Steamless Mode is active, the app disables the controller's built-in keyboard/mouse emulation (lizard mode) and exposes it as a virtual Xbox 360 controller via ViGEmBus, making it compatible with any game that supports XInput or the Xbox controller.

Features

System tray icon shows connection and mode status
Steamless Mode — disables lizard mode and exposes controller as Xbox 360 gamepad
Trackpad Mouse — use the right (or left) trackpad as a mouse cursor
Back Buttons for Clicking — map R4/R5 (or L4/L5) to left/right mouse click
Use Left Trackpad Instead — mirror all trackpad/back-button functionality to the left side for left-handed users
Start with Windows — launch automatically at login
Settings persist across restarts
Single-instance guard — safe to leave running

Requirements

To run

Windows 10 or later (64-bit)
ViGEmBus driver installed
Steam Controller (VID 0x28DE / PID 0x1302)
Steam closed (Steam claims the controller when running)

To build

Visual Studio 2022 with the Desktop development with C++ workload
CMake 3.20 or later (included with Visual Studio, or install separately)
Windows SDK 10.0.22000 or later (installed via Visual Studio Installer)

Building

git clone https://github.com/your-username/SteamlessController.git
cd SteamlessController
cmake -B build
cmake --build build --target SteamlessController

The executable will be at build\Debug\SteamlessController.exe.

For a release build:

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --config Release --target SteamlessController

CMake Targets

Target	Description
`SteamlessController`	Main system tray application
`SteamProbe`	Console diagnostic tool — dumps raw HID report bytes as you interact with the controller. Useful for protocol research.
`RawControllerProbe`	Checks whether `Windows.Gaming.Input.RawGameController` can enumerate the Steam Controller (requires WinRT).

How it works

The Steam Controller exposes a vendor HID collection (usage page 0xFF00) that carries all game input in a 54-byte report (ID 0x42) at ~60 Hz. By default the firmware runs in lizard mode, emulating a keyboard and mouse so the controller works without drivers.

SteamlessController sends HID feature reports to disable lizard mode, then reads the raw input reports and translates them into a virtual Xbox 360 controller via ViGEmBus. A background heartbeat re-sends the disable command every 800 ms to keep lizard mode off.

The full input report layout is documented in src/steam/SteamController.h.

Third-party

ViGEmClient — MIT License, built from source as a static library