# HW News - Major Linux Vulnerability, Steam Machine Import, NZXT Safety Issue, 5800X3D Return

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Gamers Nexus
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFqsbiS9nxY
- **Дата:** 04.05.2026
- **Длительность:** 36:03
- **Просмотры:** 223,313
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/49713

## Описание

Sponsor: Thermaltake TR200 WS mATX Case on Amazon https://geni.us/bviRvG
In the news this week, the copy-fail Linux vulnerability makes big news, Valve has import records for "game consoles" (which might be the Steam Machine or Steam Frame), NZXT has a new "safety notice" about its power supplies, the 5800X3D is rumored to return for a 10-year anniversary of AM4, and NVIDIA preps its vault for the Palantir partnership to pursue, as far as we can tell anyway, taxpayer money. Additionally, we spend some time explaining Steam Input and the Steam Controller on Windows vs. Linux.

Our Fractal Pop 2 Vision case review! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYFO_xSeafc
Steam Controller tear-down & repairability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVRfie61QyE
Steam Controller review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfr4QN1Hvhs
9950X3D2 review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDpBuiu0ql8
4870X2 Prototype Tear-Down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spRqV2O9nRs
Watch our video about the router bans and bri

## Транскрипт

### Recap for the Week []

Hey everyone, welcome back to the hardware news recap of the week. In this one, the Steam Machine appears in import manifests. Maybe the assuming game console is Steam Machine here. Also, the Steam controller a followup with some information on Steam input. Further, uh, NZXT has more problems with safety again. This time, they switched the 12vt and the 3. 3 volt line to some of their cables for their power supplies. The 5800 X3D might be getting a 10-year anniversary re-release as a goated CPU. That's probably a warmly welcome thing for most people, assuming they don't go crazy with the price or something. Uh, and Nvidia and Palanteer are embarking on their new adventures together, pursuing taxpayer money. Let's get into it. Before that, this video is brought to you by Thermaltch and the TR200 WS Micro Chassis, a microATX stout case. It includes an optional five and a quarter bay for either a screened or five and a quarter drives. The case has a highly perforated side panel, a color accent front styled like other popular cases, can fit radiators and closed loop liquid coolers in the top up to 360 mm claimed support and a total of seven 120 mm fan mounting locations between the top, bottom, and rear of the case. Max CPU tower cooler clearance is claimed at 175 mm and GPU clearance at 365 mm. The chassis provides a portable, highly compatible box for your builds. Learn more at the link in the description

### Tons of Review Content Live [1:25]

below. First up, quick thing on the GN side. So, we've got a ton of hardware content on the channel. Wanted to bring your attention to it in case you haven't seen it cuz YouTube doesn't always serve this stuff to everybody. And I know there's it's kind of a feedback loop on YouTube where uh people just you find yourself in a targeted hole for some type of content and then it doesn't serve you the other stuff. So, if you haven't seen it, to make sure everyone's aware, we have a ton of reviews up. Uh, the Fractal Pop 2 Vision is up. That is a $90 case with 4120 mil fans in it. Mostly interesting because they're going for the budget market with it. So, we have in-depth testing on that as always. We also did the Steam Controller review which has some latency benchmarks. But more interestingly for me, I think was learning about the TMR sticks where uh Patrick and Andrew on the team worked together on an animation showing how TMR sticks work. So, even if you don't care about the controller, I mean, I get it. I'm a mouse and keyboard user, too. Um, but even if you don't care, that's worth looking at because it talks about how tunnel magneto resistant sticks work. And, uh, when we were working on it, because I haven't followed TMR sticks until recently when we learned about it for the Steam controller, uh, because we don't do a ton with controllers normally. When I was learning about it, we hit the part where we start learning about the, uh, quantum tunneling mechanics of how it works. And the reaction was, at least for me, was like, "Oh, we do that for gaming controllers. That's cool. " So anyway, really awesome animation. Check it out in that video. Uh, we also rebuilt two PCs that were well, we built two new PCs to replace systems that were burned down in house fires. And, uh, I got Rob Teller brought him out for that, formerly of height. That was a great piece because had some interview discussion in there. a lot of Q& A learning about the case manufacturing side of things. He's not part of height anymore, which that was kind of announced in that video. A lot of people can catch that, but that also meant he was able to share a lot of stuff and we had the full transparent breakdown of everything on the case manufacturer side. The 950 X3D2 review of course went up and then we had a tearown of the 4870X2 rare prototype or engineering sample. So, the rarity comes from it being an engineering sample. So, that's all the hardware stuff we've had lately. Ton of it. and actually a lot more hardware coverage than any other type of coverage on GN lately. Uh but a lot of people, you know, if it doesn't serve it to you, then you don't see it. So, I want to bring your attention to that. And then on GNCA, we have the PS5 face scanning requirement that we discussed if you want to look learn more about our descent into madness and the dystopia that we're in. All right, up first with

### NVIDIA x Palantir Targeting US Taxpayer Money [4:01]

the news. So, we spotted an Nvidia job listing that gives some hints as to the direction Nvidia is going with its partnership with military industrial and a side of surveillance company Palunteer. The job description calls for someone who has quote deep familiarity with federal missions, procurement processes, and organizational structures across civilian and defense agencies. End quote. Nvidia loves major defense contractor and surveillance company Palanteer so much that it previously even broke out the heart emojis for Palanteer at GTC. — Palanteer Palunteer. — Nvidia revealed more about its Palunteer relationship in a job listing that we spotted on LinkedIn. In the official job posting, Nvidia said it's seeking quote a skilled senior AI strategist to lead our strategic co-ell mission with Palunteer across the US federal government. This role will focus on driving the adoption of joint NVIDIA and Palanteer solutions across the federal ecosystem. End quote. The job description refers to Nvidia and Palanteer's joint solutions and go to market strategies multiple times. According to the post in the AI strategist would quote grow revenue and market share for Nvidia data center, edge and cloud platforms through joint NVIDIA and Palanteer solutions across the US federal government end quote. And they say the person would quote serve as the key point of contact for the NVIDIA Palunteer partnership within federal accounts aligning joint go to market strategies and identify new mission opportunities end quote. The job listing also said the future Nvidia employee would quote champion the value of NVIDIA accelerated computing combined with Palanter's platform to support critical federal missions including datadriven operations, AI enabled decision-making and mission analytics. End quote. Now, this is a pretty major development for Nvidia and it's among the most direct we've seen Nvidia be with its military and government ambitions. We've seen Nvidia easing towards this stuff recently. Jensen Juan, for example, has gotten increasingly bold with his opinions on matters relating to war that there's a reason we went to war. And I believe at the end of the war, Middle East will be more stable than before. And so if we were there, if we're considering it before, we should absolutely be considering it after. And so I'm 100% in on that. — We've followed Nvidia's partnership with Palunteer closely. We have a whole deep dive video on the GNCA channel, two of them actually. And this is the first time we've heard about Nvidia and Palencier collaborating on sales or go to market strategies for the federal government, both named functions in their job listing. Nvidia and Palanteer publicly announced their partnership last October. At the time, Nvidia said Palunteer would integrate its technologies into Palunteer's ontology platform. — We work with Palunteer to accelerate everything Palanteer does. — Since then, Palanteer and Nvidia have extended their partnership to accelerate data center construction and create reference architectures for AI data centers. So, Nvidia is clearly tripling down on working with Palunteer and the federal government as one of its top priorities right now. Palanteer has made billions from the US government. The company's software is widely used by many federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security. Palanteer even has a 10-year, $10 billion contract with the US Army. Additionally, Palanceer made millions from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE for building a surveillance platform known as Immigration OS. Immigration OS includes self-deportation tracking with near realtime visibility. Both quotes from their descriptors. As for Nvidia, here's kind of where we think they're going with this. Nvidia clearly sees the green in contracts federally, and it sort of strikes me at least as Nvidia's seeing the runway maybe run out for some of the AI investments in the private sector. like there's only so many Oracle and open AI type of IUS you can get to boost the perceived value of the company and government is one of the last remaining bastions for massive amounts of money with I guess comparatively little amount of new directions for Nvidia to go in. Uh and so that's kind of what it looks like to us at this stage. Nvidia is directly engaged with the US government. AMD government in different ways. we've talked about separately on the channel a couple times. Uh Intel is owned nearly 10% by the federal government and something like 4% by Nvidia. And so at this point, it's just we don't think it's really possible for us to cover these companies without talking about their owners and their partners just ever. I mean, we're always talking about the partners or the parent or subsidiaries of all these different companies in the space. It just so happens that now those include the federal government and sometimes each other, which is not great either. Obviously, everyone in the space can kind of do it their own way, but for us, we've always talked about how these companies interface and work with each other, and it just so happens that now they're casting a much wider net that happens to hit sort of like mainstream world topics in geopolitics. And I mean, we're not going to shy away from that because that's where they've decided to focus and that's relevant to each of these companies, too. So anyway

### NVIDIA Rumored to Use Intel for Feynman [9:03]

speaking of Intel and Nvidia, according to Digit Times, Nvidia is reportedly set to, as they say, partially utilize Intel's fabs to manufacture its Fainmen AI oriented GPUs, though it will still use TSMC for the bulk of the production. machine translated digitimes Taiwan wrote quote the GPU die will still be manufactured by TSMC while the IO die will partially utilize Intel's 18 anstrom process or 14 anstrom process which is scheduled for mass production in 2028 depending on the subsequent yield and the mass production status of the 14A process finally advanced packaging will be handled by Intel's EIB. It is understood that in terms of the final advanced packaging proportion, Intel will account for up to about 25% while TSMC will account for about 75%. End quote. Nvidia's road map has the fame and GPUs releasing in 2028. Officially, Digit Time says that Nvidia will use Intel to produce quote low volume, low-end, and non-core and quote products, which sounds fitting for Intel because at this point, they have a history of producing low-end products that sell at low volumes. Digit Times says Nvidia is doing this to comply with the Trump administration's domestic manufacturing push. Last year, the administration stated and then unstated and then stated again and then it kind of was in quantum limbo for a while that it would maybe levy 100% tariffs or maybe not, but then it did again on the chip makers that didn't manufacture in the US. To us, it seems like this is maybe Nvidia's way of preparing for that. As for when they would have started preparing, tough to exactly pinpoint it. Obviously, that policy changed a lot. Uh, and it seemed to change day-to-day for a while. But also, Nvidia does own part of Intel now. So, if they can make stuff with Intel, it's like they're completing the money circle. It's just it's a nice it's like a cashback rewards card or something like they're getting a 4% cash back every time they buy stuff through Intel. I mean, it's uh unique, I guess, to quote Jensen Juan when he was talking about AMD's deal previously. Responding to a comment on

### Intel Rumored to Cancel Gaming Celestial GPUs [11:07]

whether Intel's discrete consumer GPUs were dead from notable leaker Kepler_L2, fellow notable leaker JK responded, quote, "Celestial was canned long ago. Druid is up in the air. " End quote. The leakers are talking to the leakers publicly leaking the leaks to the leakers, which is really just peak 2026 news cycle. It's uh I guess it had to happen eventually. It's just a question of whether they can break containment. I guess that would be Twitter. I'm not really sure. Twitter user Pedru followed up to ask JKEin, quote, "No discrete GPU by late this year or Q1 of 2027. In December, Battle Mage will be 2 years old. " End quote. to which the leaker responded, quote, "No gaming GPUs. " End quote. Pedro asked in a followup, quote, "Do you mean to say Intel Arc is dead? " end quote. And the leaker responded, quote, "Arc is fine, but the XC3P installment was canceled. " End quote. This we can add some additional context to. So, a while ago, we covered the Intel XC3 architectural announcement, which was a laptop mobile focused announcement. And one of the things we asked Intel was, "Is this celestial or you what do you consider this from kind of a code name standpoint? " They said, "Not celestial. " They looked at it as a battle mage refinement, like a half step or a refresh basically. And they had other stuff they wanted to do with Celestial proper and basically didn't want to burn the name on something that didn't feel like the true full sort of step architecturally. So XC3 was not Celestial. XC3P was supposed to come in later and probably provide some of the desktop solutions, but XC3 as it was announced was not. They wanted to go for mobile SKUs for that. At least that's how it was kind of build to us when they first announced it. Now, basically what these rumors are saying is that the plans to go desktop at all with any of this are cancelled. So, I mean, we don't have that's the rumor. The rest of that was kind of news. It was Intel's official stance. Um, but uh either it is canceled or it's very severely delayed. Anyway, we covered that stuff previously if you want to learn about XC3 and XC3P. Uh, we've long maintained Intel should keep investing in its discrete GPU division, even if they aren't exactly the top sellers, because they're getting better and the company has greatly improved its drivers, which were the biggest problem for the cards for the longest time. Of course, again, it doesn't help that the company's video cards appear to be in a state of limbo after Nvidia invested $5 billion to acquire a roughly 4% stake in Intel in late 2025. But it remains true that Intel currently primarily occupies the sub $300 class and is one of the most compelling options for budget builders. The leakers are saying that Intel Arc isn't dead, just this rendition. But we sincerely hope that Intel keeps at it for the gaming side. Intel has shown interest in pursuing AI GPUs and workstation GPUs which would potentially pull some attention away from their gaming advancements where they've actually made a lot of serious ground. I mean just the driver development alone for ARC has been impressive where we did a revisit not too long ago and the speed with which Intel was addressing issues uh the length of the issues on the tracker. We averaged all that and it was trending really positive for them. So um to us like that's they shouldn't just throw that away. Hopefully they stick with the gaming side even if it's just maybe they skip a generation or a half generation. But Intel's really got to stay on the gas here cuz they're I competition I guess I like coopetition with Nvidia and competition with AMD but whatever that is that relationship they're not shipping stuff that normal people can afford and Intel's kind of the only one that was really making a serious go at sub $300. There's like kind of some stuff there, but not really. And um to lose Intel in that space would be a pretty major loss where now it's just AMD and Nvidia going back to their familial uh hey cousin, I'll be $50 below you. You think that's good? Yeah, that sounds good to me or whatever they got going on. So anyway, uh would hate to see Intel back out of DGPU for gaming, but the rumor right now at least

### Another NZXT Safety Issue [15:08]

is, you know, for Celestial, uh it looks like they are reducing their focus there or skipping it altogether based on what these guys are saying. Up next, NZXT has some safety issues. So, following NZXT's preliminary settlement agreement for its rental PC program that we talked about in a separate video, now they have a new problem, which is uh the company's in the news again for something more similar to the old NZXT H1 fire hazard that we covered a couple years ago and then dragged them kicking and screaming to a resolution for. NZXT posted a blog post titled quote important safety notice end quote relating to its C-1500 modular power supplies. The post specifically notes that the SATA power cables accompanying the US model power supplies were miswired with the 12volt and 3. 3 volt lines reversed. NZXE is quick to blame its supplier, but any manufacturer worth its branding should be doing its own quality control to check behind its suppliers. The whole point of the brand, in this case, NZXT, buying from a supplier, is that the brand is supposed to bring the trust part and some of the QC and the branding. If you just going to throw the supplier under the bus, you might as well just buy the AliExpress special version of the power supply instead or something. But anyway, once we get past them throwing the supplier under the bus, they do talk about what happened. NDXT says that the problem is quote isolated to units sold in the US market. End quote. But of course, this would also include any secondhand units that have moved around globally after originating from the US. NZXT says, quote, approximately 400 units may have reached customers. End quote. So, these were low volume. And it also provides information on checking affected units. Model PA5P1BBUS is known impacted with the serial number range starting 52258 Z0280 and then triple01 through the same thing but with 1500 instead of the 00001. If these are sequential and not randomized although 400 customers might be affected it sounds like they have another 1100 units or so. The most likely impact from this is either unpowered devices that appear to be broken but are just receiving insufficient voltage. So you might think it's broken but it's actually just not turning on or damage to devices sensitive to the specific voltage. As a positive, NZXT at least tells users to cut the cables in half to prevent reuse, which actually is a good recommendation. NZXT apologizes for the inconvenience, but not the mistake itself. And we'll note again that it was swift to throw the supplier under the bus rather than take accountability for its own failure to quality control its product. NZXT seems to once again have a pretty serious problem with accountability just in general. So the H1 fire hazard was bad the way they handled that. We had to get in touch with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and kind of kick things off with them to get an adequate resolution from NZXT. And you see that also with things like the rental PC scam in my opinion. And then you see it again with the power supplies. The only positive here is that NZXT is at least telling people about the power supplies. Um, but we're really not impressed at how quickly NZXT used its supplier as a shield and then apologized for the inconvenience, but not the actual up. So, yeah, everyone in this industry has suppliers. That's normal. It's the QC that matters and that's controlled by NZXT. Like, it's their responsibility. They put their sticker on the product. They specify the product. They order the product. They control the QC of the product. It's an NZXT problem, the supplier or not. Like, I get it. Yeah, supplier up sometimes. We've had it, too. But ultimately, if you pass it through QC and you ship it, that's still your problem as the brand. That's like the whole point of having the brand. So, uh, anyway, if you have one of these power supplies in the affected serial number range, you should immediately, uh, discard the affected cable. And I do agree with the recommendation to destroy it. I'm glad they made the recommendation because in this case, you know, it's not like a an RMA of a thing that works perfectly fine. They tell you to destroy it. This is miswired, so you should destroy it so that no one, you know, takes it out of the e-wways pile and uses it or something. Uh, and then you contact NZXT support to get a replacement for it. So anyway, NGXT still in the news. Up next

### AMD Rumored to Rerelease 5800X3D [19:34]

according to leaker HXL, AMD is planning to re-release its 5800 X3D goated CPU, the original X3D CPU, and the one that really changed things for AMD. They were already doing pretty well. Like they had started to establish themselves, particularly in the 2000 series with production benchmarks, but gaming, they weren't there yet. They were okay, but they weren't number one on the charts. and the 5800 XD changed that. HXL posted an alleged AMD slide for the 10-year anniversary of AM4, stating in Chinese on the slide that the 5800 X2 will be available in the second quarter of 2026, which is now. This might be a Computex launch in a couple weeks or something. The slide lists specs that are the same as the existing model. Boost maxes out at an advertised 4 and a half GHz. It runs 100 megabytes of combined L2 and L3 cache, has 105 watt TDP, and is still 8 core 16thread. All these specs from the slide match the original CPU. The 5800 XD even today remains competitive. So, a re-release actually serves a purpose beyond just like a collectible thing you put on a shelf or something like if you're on AM4 and you missed some of these X3D options, you know, because they kind of come in and out of existence. Um, if the price isn't stupid, then it might actually make sense to grab as a an upgrade option, especially because of the DDR memory pricing right now where going from a DDR4 platform, AM4 to DDR5 platform now more than ever, that is a really expensive jump. It used to be, you know, yeah, you buy the board, that's cost, you buy the memory, that's a cost. But memory was like a hundred bucks for pretty good memory, maybe 64 GB of it like a year ago, and that's not what it is now. So, this is good timing for it. If you're on M4, you can stretch the life of a DDR4 kit of memory a little longer and save a bunch of money by just going with a CPU swap. That's pretty good. So, uh hopefully the price isn't ridiculous. The CPU came out in 2022 originally and it was I think $450 when it launched. Very competitive instantaneously in gaming and that it was basically number one on like all the charts. Um and I remember testing it when it first came out. I think Shadow of the Tomb Raider or Far Cry, one of those two was one of the games where we saw like a really big impact from the extra cash. And then as more of the CPUs come out, you know, and we got deeper into testing them, just like it's the entire top third of the chart now is X3D CPUs. So, the AM4 5800 X3D definitely does deserve out of all the CPUs, uh, a special launch if they want to do it. Um, and it might actually be useful.

### Linux Copy Fail Vulnerability [22:20]

We'll see though on the pricing. All right, next one. The XINT or I'm going to go with XINT. I don't know how you're supposed to pronounce that. code research team posted a blog post about a new security vulnerability affecting Linux and they say it is affected uh for quote every major Linux distribution. The vulnerability is known as copy fail, which the blog post describes as a quote logic bug in the Linux kernel's cryptographic template. End quote. The post says that copy fail quote lets an unprivileged local user trigger a deterministic controlled four byte write into the page cache of any readable file on the system. a single 732 byt Python script can edit a set UID binary and obtain route on essentially all Linux distributions shipped since 2017. End quote. The blog post describes the vulnerability as being portable, tiny, and stealthy and having a crosscontainer impact. The post says that the vulnerability is a combination of changes made in 2011, 2015, and 2017, noting that this exploit has existed for almost 10 years going back to 2017 and being a combination of those three uh prior patches, but they say it hadn't been discovered until now. The security notice advises patching the kernel to

### Irtysh Russian-Chinese 32-Core CPU [23:35]

resolve the issue. Up next, ProHight spotted the Eddish 32 core 64thread CPU at Expo Electronica in Moscow. And uh we haven't seen this specific part before. The name appears to be in reference to a river that runs through Russia and through China. Uh this would be fitting though because as far as we understand it, it's a combination of a Russian and Chinese CPU solution. Perhaps the most surprising thing about it is that it's not based on x86 or ARM, but the Chinese long arc architecture. The Erdish C632 was the CPU at the event. The C632 reportedly runs a 32 core 64thread config. It was paired with AMD's RX960XT discrete GPU separately in the test system at the show. Proite said that the system ran The Witcher 3 from 22 to 32 FPS on ultra settings using the Proton translation layer, though we're not sure at what resolution. Maybe they disclosed it in Russian or something, but uh we didn't see it in the video capture. The Erdish line also has a higherend C664 variant which reportedly offers 64 cores and 128 threads. Up next, Valve. So

### Valve Import Records Might Show Steam Machine [24:41]

Valve launched its Steam controller in the past week and now the Steam machine is starting to show up maybe in import records for the US. So you Valve's got the machine, the frame which is its VR headset, and then the controller. Controller's out obviously because it's not filled with RAM. So that was easier. Uh, and then the other two they hit delays with because of the RAM and the storage problem. Sadly, it's Bradley on Twitter, who has a good track record with monitoring Valve product launches and leaks, noted that Valve is quote, "receiving a ton of game consoles these past couple weeks in their USA distribution warehouse. " End quote. He also posted a link to import records searching for Valve Corporation, including imports on April 23rd, 18th, and some in March for items with a cargo description of game console. Although obviously some of these other listings are even more exciting, we're assuming the cases of valve parts and industrial valves are sadly not related to valve with a capital V. The import records also show an entry for wireless PC controller, which likewise made the news ahead of the Steam Controller's launch and accurately forecast its arrival to the market just a few weeks later. User Joshua Keith responded to note that the deck typically restocks 7 to 10 days after the shipment shows up in records. The user wrote, quote, "I've been assuming they would hide steam machine shipments to look like deck shipments, but when they reliably restock the deck, it's not very hidden. " End quote. Now, the deck obviously complicates this because these could be more deck shipments, but uh the timing makes sense where if Valve entered production anytime around or after announcement, assuming they weren't waiting for memory, then they should have stuff stockpiled by now. That kind of time frame makes sense for the production life cycle. So, it lines up. uh just a question of if Valve continues to hold while waiting to figure out how it wants to price it based on the memory prices and uh if it had already bought memory or not. So anyway, that's kind of the rumors on that. Not a whole lot of concrete news, but there is some more discussion we could do on the Steam Controller. So, following up on the

### Steam Controller and Steam Input Explained [26:48]

Steam Controller review, some comments were asking about the extent to which the uh Steam Controller can work with or without the Steam client and Steam overlay for non Steam games specifically. The answer is it depends. And so, we've got a bit of a follow-up here for you on that. For full functionality, the controller needs to use Steam input via the client. We already talked about that in the review. It's in the review, but it's worth going into some more detail. Basically, we dug through a bunch of the common comments on Reddit, other people's articles, videos, things like that, compiled them, and tried to get together some answers with some additional testing on Steam input. So, controllers need some form of translation layer to interpret what the they are and uh apply the correct actions to the buttons as they're mapped. There are a few options. The most known probably is Xinput, which is ancient at this point. There's also game input and then there's Steam input among some others that we're not going to get into today, but these are the three that are kind of the most common. Steam input is a translation layer that sits between your gamepad and your software. If you hit B on your physical controller, Steam Input grabs that and does whatever you want to do with it. B, leftclick, some combination of keys, anything. Steam Input is designed for devices with a ton of extra buttons and weird inputs to remap like Steam controllers and their trackpads and all the extra buttons. Steam doesn't enable Steam input for most mainstream game pads by default. You can enable it manually, but it's mostly meant for more unique control devices. So, the Steam controller is kind of weird in that it acts like keyboards, mice, and a gamepad all at once. And that requires some special translation, especially within Windows to make sure you have that functionality. So, that's kind of where the Steam input requirement comes in for this. Now, we've been told that for years, Linux has had a kernel driver for the original Steam controller that enables basic Xbox style functions without Steam running. This remains true for the new controller. That's on the Linux side. Everything after this though applies to Windows. When you plug in an Xbox controller in Windows, it shows up as a gamepad and an XIninput device. It's not a mouse. It's not a keyboard. It's an X-input device gamepad. Xinput is the API that Microsoft introduced for the 360 controller. For Windows games released in the past 20 years, Xinput is essentially universal. When you plug in a Steam controller on Windows, it shows up as multiple mice and multiple keyboards, potentially plural. This is for a lot of reasons. It's not a mistake that they do this and also having the trackpads on there being a key really main feature of the Steam Controller that requires different care and handling it. Valve explained its decision to not use Xinput in a Digital Foundry interview. It would eliminate all the non-Xbox features, they said, like grip sensing and gyro controls. So the controller would need a cumbersome mode switch, Xbox mode, PlayStation mode, mouse mode, so forth. And they didn't want to go down that path. So instead, to function as a gamepad while also being detected as bison and keyboards, the Steam controller needs to operate through Steam input or another translation layer with one exception. Steam input is dependent on the Steam overlay. This means that non Steam games must be launched through Steam in order to get the overlay and enable controller functionality, which was true for the original Steam Controller as well. We mentioned this in the review, but this is kind of where we can expand on it and add several more paragraphs of depth on how it all works now that we've had time to dig into it some more. Back then though, with the original Steam Controller, users developed workarounds like starting up a virtual Xbox 360 controller and passing inputs through it. Here's the exception. The Steam Controller is directly compatible with SDL as opposed to XInput. So software that uses the SDL API may treat the controller as a gamepad outside of Steam. For example, Dolphin correctly recognizes the controller sticks and face buttons. SDL isn't as universal as XI Input, and full support for the new Steam Controller was only added in SDL3. As a translation layer, Steam Input can theoretically add a small amount of latency. Here's a quick AB test we ran to see how much it adds versus regular X input on an Xbox One controller. We saw a 0. 2 millisecond difference in this chart, which is not only negligible, it's within error, especially with a standard deviation of 3. 2 to 3. 3. Every Steam game or non Steam game added to your library can have a unique Steam input profile assigned. By default, the Steam input profile that gets used outside of games, so settings, controller, advanced settings, desktop layout, edit, is the, as they call it, official layout for Steam controller configs, the desktop configuration. End quote. Without the Steam client running, the controller operates in a stripped down lizard mode, actual name, with basic mouse and keyboard functions. This was true for the original as well. It's not reconfigurable, and it's not really how the controller is intended to be used. As a quick side note, we spoke with the Linux developer Antheus. I'm gonna do my best, man. Capanicis, and uh we spoke with him previously, and he considers the default Steam Input desktop profile, which is reconfigurable, to be an expansion of lizard mode. So, there may be some disagreement on the terminology. We're using it to refer to the Steam Controller's bakedin onboard functionality without Steam input. We've seen speculation online that Valve could make the controller operate as a gamepad out of the box by altering Lizard mode to use Microsoft's new game input API since Xinput isn't a practical option. We don't know enough about this to have an opinion yet though. Maybe we'll learn more as Valve talks about it. It's kind of up to them to clarify on that part. Our best kind of guess at it is that maybe Linux support is a factor here. Not familiar with the Linux sort of support matrix with these things. Um, but Steam OS may be a factor there for them. So maybe that's influencing it too. That though is just on the altering lizard mode and game input. Another complication is the concept of action sets. Action sets are profiles within profiles for Steam input. So in a Total War game, for example, you might want to use one set of binds on the campaign map, then hit a button to switch to another set of binds when you're on the battlefield. That default desktop configuration we just mentioned actually contains two action sets. There's desktop and gamepad. desktop uses the joysticks, trackpads, and triggers as mice, and the face buttons as keys, like a keyboard. It's possible to play games like this, but when you move a stick, you're really just moving a mouse cursor. When you hit B, you're really just hitting escape, and so on. Switching to the gamepad action set theoretically swaps to a normal controller layout, so B equals B. But we have yet to find any situation where this does anything on Windows. Under the hood, Steam input is dependent on the Steam overlay, as confirmed in a Valve interview with Digital Foundry, and it still functions if you toggle the visible Steam overlay off in Steam settings. We launched Cyberpunk 2077, the GOG standalone executable, Fortnite via Epic Games Launcher, and Minecraft for Windows via the Windows 11 store, and none of them accepted any controller inputs from the Gamepad action set when we launched them with Steam running, but not through Steam. So, the overlay wasn't active. No Steam overlay means no Steam input. No Steam input means no gamepad. Specifically on Windows, barring SDL3 titles. So, as you can see, there's a lot of complications and nuance here with gamepads and game controllers and how they work, especially in Windows. Launching games through Steam. So adding the game as a non Steam game within Steam and using Steam as the launcher allows the controller inputs to work correctly except with software that prevents the overlay from running on top of it, which apparently is a problem for the um Microsoft PC Game Pass. Valve stated to Digital Foundry that quote, "Some older Xbox Game Pass games are UWP and that's not supported at all and we're interested in working on those on a case-by case basis. " End quote. As existing workarounds like WP Hook don't fix the overlay issue. Basically, as we said in the review, you always need the Steam client to get 100% functionality. And on Windows, you need Steam input via the Steam overlay to make the controller useful at all. But the whole foundation of the Steam controller is Steam Input. and it does need Steam Input to function the way that they're marketing it and building it. It's a weird controller. It does some unique things and that's where Steam Input comes in uh to the picture. So, hope that explains how all that stuff works. Um it's a complicated subject. Maybe deserves a whole standalone video someday or something, but we wanted to just kind of do a quick follow-up here to answer those common questions we've seen around Reddit and other places. And hopefully that helps out with answering how it works. So, that is it for this one. Thanks for watching. As always, subscribe for more. You go to store. kx gamers. net to support us directly and patreon. com/gamersex. Check out our reviews or go over to GNCA and learn about how you're going to have to scan your face to play video games in some places. Now, that's it. Thanks for watching. We'll see you all next time.