A lightweight Windows system tray app that lets you use a Steam Controller as a standard gamepad — without Steam running.

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.

• 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

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

• 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)

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/release -G "Visual Studio 18 2025"
cmake --build build/release --config Release --target SteamlessController

If you have Visual Studio 2022, replace "Visual Studio 18 2025" with "Visual Studio 17 2022".

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.

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