I think the challenge is Valve is trying to create one-size-fits-all inputs with those trackpads. They have to work as joysticks and pointing devices, since Valve sells both console games and PC games on their platform.

As a PC gamer, I'm super-excited for this gamepad because it will beat the ever-loving-crap out of a joystick for games that depend on a pointing-device (strategy, RTS, no-aim-assist-FPS games). It might not measure up to a mouse, but it could still provide a "good-enough" experience unlike a thumbstick.

The nice thing is that a high-DPI trackpad can act as both a relative-input joystick (movement based on how far from center you are) and an absolute-input pointing device (movement based on absolute position in the device's input field).

Joysticks can do this, too, but their DPI is frequently nowhere even close to acceptable for this kind of work - they tend to be somewhere in the 200-400 DPI range, when your average mouse tends to be capable of input at several thousand DPI; if the touchpad resolution is good enough, then I think they're going to have a winner on their hands.

Problem with an absolute-input pointing device in this case is your thumb. In the world of ultra-high DPI touch input, your thumb is a veritable cudgel.

A gazillion text messages have been sent by thumbs hunting for keys. This won't be a perfect interface, but it will beat the ever-loving-crap of trying to use a joystick for a pointing-device's job.

and yet most competitive fps players play at 400 dpi

400 DPI on a 6"x6" input surface; that's very different from 400 DPI on a .5"x.5" input surface.

>> I think the challenge is Valve is trying to create one-size-fits-all inputs with those trackpads.

The problem is that you can't.

There are just too many different type of gamers having different requirements. Given Valve's lineage, their core audience are the FPS/PC type gaming crowd who are used to keyboards and mice. And this controller makes sense for that audience.

While I'm interested in the Steam Machines, I would never buy this controller for myself, because I'm into fighting games and old-school console type games. And even though the Steam Controller isn't for me, the great thing about Steam Machines is that they're still computers at heart, which means that I can probably use just about any other controller out there if it has USB connectivity and identifies it as a standard HID.

This will only work for casual SP FPS - at best. It certainly won't work for hard-core stuff like CS.

Keep in mind you can always just plug in a 360 controller, so if you have one of each, you can switch between the Steam and 360 controller depending on the game and your preference.

I'm glad they went a different route, it opens up more options for gamers and developers.

That's the big thing for me here. They're obviously trying to bridge the gap between PC gaming and console gaming, but they aren't doing it at the expense of existing control schemes - I have no doubt that you can use a bluetooth keyboard + mouse, or a Steam controller, or an Xbox 360 controller to play your games. The Steam controller doesn't have to solve every problem, because it isn't an exclusive input mode for the platform. If it works on 95% of the games, that's a huge win and good enough for most people.

The goal is to provide the some precision that a mouse can, not replicate sticks... If that were the case, they would have just put sticks on the thing.

You can trivially replicate joystick behavior with a touchpad - note how the controller has a raise "home" circle in the middle. This is almost certainly so that it can be used as a joystick, where the input is based on how far from center the thumb is, rather than the thumb's absolute position on the touchpad.

Albeit without any of the tactile value of the tension of an analog stick. [1] Nor an absolute, physically constrained, "max" position: where the stem of an analogue stick is pressed against the edge of its container. [2]

A trackpad seems like it will very easily allow your thumb to drift from a position of sending maximally-distant-from-center input to not registering any input. That's going to be a huge usability problem.

And making assumptions about what a user might have meant should a thumb just happen to slide off the edge of a trackpad is going to be problematic. [3]

[1] What would you call a 360 or dual shock controller with analog sticks that have no tension-to-center anymore? Broken.

[2] Think of how often you feel/hear that little analog stick "clack". Think of how often you're pressing against that physical boundary to ensure maximal-distance input. Each of those moments is an opportunity for a trackpad to present a problem. And those moments are awfully common. It's likely they're more common than not.

[3] did their thumb slide off, or did they raise it? did i slide off on accident or on purpose? etc

EDIT: cleaned up phrasing

I'm guessing that that's what the outer circle is for, right? Your thumb feels the ridge, and that section of the pad is interpreted as maximal-distance input.

I'm not convinced how well that ridge is going to work over the course of, say, an FPS or platformer game session. For a strategy game or lower-pressure situation it's quite likely just fine. But for action games... maybe?

But the lack of tension is going to be a bummer for action games regardless.

It's not as trivial as you might think.

We tried that relative-to-an-absolute scheme on our iPhone FPS and it was very confusing. The best scheme was a relative-to-a-relative center where the origin would "follow" the thumb, but then we had a full screen to do that.

The problem with a relative-to-an-absolute scheme (even one with the little raised circle) is you have no idea where the thumb is until you touch the control but then it's too late.

Not saying it can't be done, it's just a little bit tricky.

Presumably you won't ever raise your thumb from the circle, therefore never losing your place.

You'll need to hit the other buttons eventually

Well, this does have 6 triggers you can press without releasing either trackpad.

It looks like the trackpad has raised guide-circles to keep you centered.

Laptops all moved from nipples to trackpads a long time ago, surely if analog sticks could provide higher resolution then that wouldn't have happened, or there would have been a move back?

Not all. Lenovo still provides eraser nub-style pointers on many models. I personally find them to be more accurate at high speeds than a touchpad.

I actually have no idea how people can use touchpads. You need a huge one to be able to go corner-to-corner in one swipe and still have reasonable accuracy.

I hate touchpads. I use an external mouse with my Macbook. I have a Dell D830 with the nub pointer and it was so much easier to use, especially considering that you don't have to remove your hands from the keyboard and your finger doesn't need to cross 3 inches of space to move across the screen.

I've always been confused by this argument. I can reach my trackpad with my right thumb without moving any of my other fingers off of the home row. Is this an unusual amount of flexibility?

Maybe. I have long fingers and decent dexterity but find thumbing a trackpad way less accurate than using a trackpoint. This may be a matter of practice, but there's still more hand movement required even to get my thumb over the trackpad.

Not sure where that argument comes from -- it's certainly not one I've ever made. I personally really prefer the nub over touch pad, but it has nothing to do with not having to move my fingers away from the keyboard.

I mean, given the option of a physical mouse, I will always prefer that over both nub and track pad -- and the physical mouse requires the most movement away from the keyboard (of course, to avoid all three mouse input methods I use keyboard shortcuts when possible).

Anyway, my reasons for preferring the nub are:

* Less movement required on the actual input device. Just a slight tilt of the finger can move the mouse cursor from anywhere to anywhere else.

* Higher accuracy. This one may be subjective, only personal applicable, and/or biased, but I think the nub just makes it so much easier to navigate compared to the touch pad.

I don't get that argument either. My main case for the eraser-nub-mouse is that I don't have to physically move my finger over and over again. It goes like this, put finger in one corner, drag finger, reach end of touch surface, lift finger, put finger again on the opposite side, drag again... until you reach destination.

I don't think most people use trackpads with their thumbs.

This is one of those use cases that I'd be interested in seeing some research on. Personally, it depends a great deal on what I am doing, but I often use my thumbs to do minor navigations when within a document. Particularly because I have some RSI issues and using my thumb seems to less of an aggravation. Milage, I'm sure, varies, but I suspect that there is a subset of folks that at least use their thumbs a bit.

I find it very difficult to get the sort of control that I want with my thumbs.

But if you're using two finger scrolling this doesn't work so well. Also, while I can use my thumbs they aren't long enough for me to easily be able to access all corners of the trackpad with one thumb.

I've played 1000+ hours of Minecraft on my Thinkpad. That would be torture with a touchpad but it's a joy with the nub (which is basically a very small joystick). Why they went with touchpads over traditional dual-joystick input with community managed zero configuration mouse-keyboard emulation I really don't understand.

And I've played a fair amount of Minecraft on my MacBook. I find the trackpad to be quite nice. I've gotten to where I can play most FPS games and feel like I'm very close to where I would be if I were using a mouse.

Yeah but to be fair the lenovo track pad is bad compared to a macbook trackpad and they are made by the same manufacturer. So on the thinkpad it makes sense that people use the nub when the trackpad experience is pretty bad.

I was a nub user. Then I got a Macbook Pro. So far this is the only touchpad I can use. The IBM and Lenovo Thinkpads are the only nubs I can use also. Everything else feels terrible and unusable.

> Not all. Lenovo still provides eraser nub-style pointers on many models. I personally find them to be more accurate at high speeds than a touchpad.

I use the nub on my thinkpad, but only because Lenovo's touchpads are truly woeful.

As does HP and Dell

I'd have agreed with you once, but I broke the trackpad on a ThinkPad a couple of years ago and out of apathy i switched to the nipple mouse and I haven't looked back. It takes more practice but it has excellent precision and infinite movement. The trackpad remains broken and unplugged.

I've had several ThinkPads, and I've always disabled the trackpad in the BIOS as soon as I got a new one - it's totally unnecessary when you have the TrackPoint. It's so much faster and more precise. Like amalcon said, I have no idea how anyone can use a trackpad. Whenever I watch a friend use one, or use one myself, it's like the mouse is moving in slow motion compared to me using the TrackPoint. It does take some practice, but it's well worth the investment, just like how learning to touch type pays off in the long run.

Trackpoint is great, but I've been trying to move away from its use. I've found after frequent use, my finger tip gets irritated- I suspect mechanics similar to the development of a blister are at play- and they haven't been good for my hand overall. I've forced myself to use trackpads and mice now, because they are much lower impact on my hand. I can keep my hand completely relaxed when using a trackpad.

Have you tried changing the cap? I exclusively use the concave "soft rim" cap (http://support.lenovo.com/ContentResources/Migrated%20Assets...).

It helped, but did not solve.

How do you scroll? Do use scroll bars?

On thinkpads you can press the middle mouse button (below the spacebar) then press the trackpoint up or down.

I have always usually done this, but also remapped the trackpad to be entirely a "scrollpad"

> On thinkpads you can press the middle mouse button (below the spacebar) then press the trackpoint up or down.

Yep, and you can also click and release the middle mouse button, then separately mouse up or down. Interestingly, I have only been able to get either this OR the press then scroll behavior you described working on Windows (by toggling a setting), but in Linux you can have both enabled at the same time.

Bizarrely, Linux seems to support much of the trackpoint/trackpad stuff on thinkpads better than Windows does. I use to not be able to configure the trackpad how I wanted on Windows, but the Synaptics driver for Linux gave me plenty of possibilities.

Hold the middle button and use the nipple. It scrolls like a mousewheel.

I use the arrow keys.

Pretty good solution actually as well. Older ThinkPad keyboards have back and forward keys next to the arrows as well.

I have a T61 thinkpad, and love it. I use Linux on it solely. I have compiz bound to those forward and back arrows as cube_rotate_left and right. And I also run 8 desktops. Makes my world so much simpler in terms of organization of programs and flow.

Fellow T61er on Linux chiming in. A thousand MBAs couldn't tear me away.

Nice idea. So going to do that on my spare T61 later :)

Furthermore, it is a hell of a lot easier to play quake with a trackpoint than a trackpad.

I have to guess that these trackpads will act like joysticks for fpsen. Keep your finger on the left side to move left, etc. Maybe I'm wrong though.

I was assuming the opposite. Keyboard and Mouse is usually regarded as superior to joysticks for FPS so I assumed they were trying to bridge the gap and come up with something more mouse-like?

Yes, in fact it would solve the aiming issue, while using the left trackpad in "joystick mode" would better replicate a keyboard.

If it were me doing it, I would use the trackpad and the trackpad buttons. (I'm not sure, but I believe each trackpad is "pressable" and has multiple buttons, replicating a d-pad)

I would tap and drag for little and precise movements, swipe for fast movements, and press the button for default movement. With some training, it can become pretty natural.

You'll hopefully be able to choose based on preference, since choice seems to be the theme here.

Use an Apple trackpad and you'll never want to use the ThinkPad/Lenovo eraser nubs ever again.

I have, and I strongly prefer the TrackPoint--by a whole order of magnitude. I never have to keep my fingers off home row.

I do use a tiling window manager and bindings like Vrome/Vimperator, so my use case is probably atypical. My mouse usage is limited to when I deem it absolutely necessary; I hate physical/mental context switching, and bringing my hand from keyboard to TrackPad/mouse/whatever is a huge context switch.

But that's really a matter of where the trackpoint is, not the input on the device itself. It's a bit different while you're playing games.

I have always felt that the TrackPoint (on a HP Elitebook here) is difficult to access from the right or left index because of its place between G and H.

I would use it so much more if it was between H and J.

How do you stretch your finger towards the middle of the keyboard with no issue? Stretching just to type a letter is fine for me (think Y, H or B), but staying on the TrackPoint is hard.

I used an Apple one (one of the large ones) on a 2010 MBP. It was error prone and made my fingers numb after a while. Not only that, the full pad depression to click is awkward and configuring sensitivity for tap to click was never just right.

Possibly a shocking statement here but I went from a top end 2010 MBP to a 2009 T400 running windows 7 and am much happier as a whole, even though I have my head in UNIX machines a lot.

Strongly disagree. If you're just browsing or clicking on things, sure, the Apple trackpad is great. For playing games, the trackpoint is better. For coding or doing any sort of mixture of typing/pointing, the trackpoint is better.

Not my experience at all. Apple trackpads tire my fingertips, they become sore after extended usage.

My high end (new)ThinkPad has both an trackpad and a trackpoint, and i must say the trackpoint is more precise when tiny movements are required.

It's not the resolution, it's the feedback. Like I said, I'm skeptical, not dismissive.

Obligatory XKCD: http://xkcd.com/243/

Most popular does not mean best.

The one thing that frustrates me with the 360 joysticks is positioning my thumb not at an extreme but not at neutral either. This option seems like it will eliminate that entirely.

For that alone I'm very interested, obviously also the fact that they're trying to make things quite open.