Consider supporting Android’s "UsbManager" for controller support

[d9media]

First of all, thank you for building OpenNOW. I’ve been a long time user of GFN, it works perfectly for my needs, I have fiber and have very low latency to their Frankfurt data center. While being mainly on pc, I spent the last few weeks testing GeForce NOW with different controllers on Android, Google TV and macOS, and OpenNOW’s native Android development looks extremely promising.

One major Android problem is that controller support depends heavily on the device manufacturer’s kernel and input mappings. On my TCL Google TV, for example, Xbox force-feedback support is missing entirely. With an 8BitDo Ultimate 3‑Mode controller (81HB), Bluetooth input works but has no rumble. Its 2.4 GHz USB dongle is recognised, but Android maps the right trigger and right-stick axes incorrectly and exposes no vibration to GFN. My Pixel 10 pro supported rumble on the Series X controller in GeForce now, but it's not implemented in TCL's android kernel.

Interestingly, POW Games’ “Game Controller Test” app requests direct permission to access the USB dongle through Android’s USB-device dialog. After granting permission, it reads the same dongle correctly and can address all four vibration motors. This appears to bypass Android’s incomplete "InputDevice"/kernel handling entirely.
If GeForce now requested the same permissions, maybe more controllers could be fully supported.

Would an optional direct-USB controller backend be possible in OpenNow? Maybe we could involve POW Games UK? Their controller expertise seems huge.

Potentially:

• Request access through Android’s "UsbManager"
• Read the dongle’s raw input reports
• Normalise them before forwarding them as Xbox-style input to GFN
• Send decoded GFN rumble commands directly back to the dongle

This could provide consistent controller mapping and vibration across phones and Android TV devices, regardless of broken or incomplete manufacturer drivers. I sent the controllers (8BitDo Ultimate + Ultimate 2, Xbox series X) back and kept the ps5 controller. GeForce now will still load it as Xbox Controller so the mappings are off, but at least rumble works via Bluetooth on my Android TV.
With Android TV support under development, I think proper controller support could become a huge differentiator for OpenNOW.

Thanks again for the impressive work and for considering it. If you have any questions I can provide a few test I've done through ADB.

[zortos293]

Will look into it