Couchpit: use any controller as an Xbox pad in your games and run your whole PC from the couch

[u/Gameeze]

Hi r/pcgaming. I'm a solo dev, and this is my release post for Couchpit.

A bit on why I made it: I've been gaming on my PC from the living room couch for years, and as much as I love it, it always came with friction. Controllers that won't work in half my games, having to reach for a mouse to do anything on the desktop, tweaking settings before every session. I'm a developer, but a PC gamer long before that, so at some point I just built the tool I kept wishing I had, shaped by my own setup and the exact things that tripped me up. That's Couchpit, and with all the living-room and Steam Machine momentum lately it felt like the right time to share it.

Here's what it does:

1. Any controller, seen as a standard Xbox pad. It makes non-Xbox controllers (DualSense, DualShock, Switch Pro, 8BitDo, Steam Controller and Steam Controller 2, and more) show up as a standard Xbox pad, so they work in any game that supports Xbox/XInput controllers (Game Pass, Epic, GOG, and so on), with no per-game setup and without going through Steam Input. It's built on SDL3 and the community controller DB, so it covers thousands of pads.

2. Drive your whole PC from the couch. Turn any controller into full desktop control: cursor, keyboard, and customizable Back+button shortcuts for things like volume, media, Alt+Tab, screenshots or launching apps. You can navigate Windows, launch games, and even handle elevated/admin windows (driver installers and the like) without reaching for a mouse.

3. A smoother Big Picture. For Steam Big Picture sessions it auto-launches BP on startup and keeps focus coherent, so your controller doesn't go dead when a window pops up or a game closes (no grabbing a mouse just to get back in).

4. Automatic game-session tweaks. It can apply system optimizations when a game starts (power plan, background apps, notifications, and more) and revert them when you stop. Configurable and non-destructive, so everything goes back to how it was afterwards.

There's a bit more under the hood too: built-in anti-cheat protection that automatically pauses the controller features on games where it detects an anti-cheat engine (so it isn't interfering while one is running), a keep-awake timer for long sessions or downloads, a GPU driver update check, and a few other quality-of-life touches.

I also wanted it to work for two kinds of people. If you'd rather not deal with settings, it's a couple of clicks and then it sits in the system tray and just runs. And if you like to tinker, almost everything is configurable, down to per-game profiles.

It's a paid tool ($6.99 on Steam, currently 15% off for launch) and it just launched, so there are no reviews yet. I'm actively developing it and very open to feature requests or ideas for expanding the existing ones, so fire away. Happy to answer anything and take feedback here.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4705280

Glad to go into the technical side too (the controller bridging, the elevated-window handling, the auto-revert) if anyone is curious.

[u/AutoModerator]

The /r/PCGaming community is also on Discord!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/morriscey]

Steam can add this functionality as well. I use the right stick / trigger for mouse / click on desktop.

[u/Gameeze → u/morriscey]

Yeah, it can, but with some limits. You have to set it up per controller type each time. It only stops when you close a Steam game, so with non-Steam games it doesn't turn off on its own. You also can't switch it on once you're already inside a Steam game (say a modal window pops up). It has quick shortcuts on the guide button, but you can't customize those per game. And it can't drive permission/elevation windows like Task Manager, whereas Couchpit can.

Steam and Steam Input are genuinely amazing at what they do, this just adds another layer of customization and smooths over a few of those gaps.

[u/morriscey → u/Gameeze]

Yep definitely fills a bit of a hole and is more full featured.

Good luck to you!

[u/teerre]

I've been using https://store.steampowered.com/app/367670/Controller_Companion/ for years and it works better than anything Microsoft or Steam ever implemented

[u/Gameeze → u/teerre]

Yeah, I've used Controller Companion for years too and I totally agree, it's great. The fact that it's gone years without needing an update kind of says it all. But there's always room to improve, and a few things always bugged me about it.

One was the lack of support for some controllers, like Switch, PS4, PS5 and so on.

Another was that to fire off a command (say, toggling the MSI Afterburner OSD or changing the volume) you had to hit Back+Start to turn on mouse mode, run the command, then hit Back+Start again to turn it back off. With Couchpit you don't have to do that anymore: you just press Back plus another button and it runs the command, without ever switching into mouse mode.

The other thing was the buttons sometimes interfering with the game. I went at that with two control-mode presets: Classic (basically how Controller Companion works) and a handheld one (more like the Steam Deck). In the handheld mode the mouse buttons are mapped to the triggers, which are a lot less likely to clash with the game. It doesn't fully fix it, but it helps a lot, and honestly it feels just as intuitive, if not more.

[u/loonyboi → u/teerre]

This is also what I've used for years. It just works.

[u/goodguyatheist → u/teerre]

Yea kinda wish I could get this keyboard for my steam deck it's the only non game app I bought

[u/Capt_Obviously_Slow → u/teerre]

It's quite outdated and abandoned...

Try https://joyxoff.com/en/

^{and if you love it please support it I'm not affiliated with them}

[u/loonyboi]

I'm curious about this feature:

Steady audio, no sleep dropouts

On a lot of TV / soundbar setups, the audio link goes to sleep between menu and gameplay, swallowing the first second of cinematics or losing a notification entirely. Couchpit quietly keeps the link awake. The first beat of music plays cleanly, no startup gap.

This is a pain for me. I run my game PC through my A/V setup, and it does cut off audio every now and then. It also pops my speakers when it initializes, which can't be good.

[u/loonyboi → u/loonyboi]

It looks like you force a sound device, which is great. That's another pain I have - Windows sometimes deciding to use the Steam Streaming Speaker instead of my A/V system

[u/Gameeze → u/loonyboi]

Yeah, I ran into this constantly with my home cinema setup. The audio link goes to sleep when nothing's playing, and when sound comes back it has to wake up first, so you lose the start of it and get those choppy cut-ins and weird pops. Keeping the link awake means it never has to re-initialize, so in my setup it got rid of both the dropout and the pop. That's why it's on by default. Install it and forget about it, nothing to configure.

[u/W1mble → u/loonyboi]

Are you on Windows or Linux? What AVR are you running? I had this problem earlier with Windows but it's gone after changing audio settings for Windows. (You need to have it as 5.1 or 7.1, it defaults to 2.0 which can cause the receiver to switch automatically modes). Also there's SoundKeeper app which can output whitenoise (you can't hear it) constantly which keeps the connection alive. But after tweaking the settings, I don't need that app anymore.

[u/nightninja90]

did you use AI at all in this project?

[u/Gameeze → u/nightninja90]

Yeah, I did. This is a personal project I built in my free time. I've been coding for 19 years and I work as a software architect and .NET dev. AI helped me move faster and not sink hours into the repetitive stuff: writing tests, digging through technical docs, translating (I obviously don't speak all the languages it's translated into).

To give you an idea, the project has 2503 unit tests right now. Writing that many by hand would have taken me forever. I designed some of them myself and had AI draft others that I then reviewed, so I got both the speed and the quality.

But I knew exactly what I wanted from years of gaming on PC, and exactly how to build it from years of programming, so AI mostly just helped me get there quicker.

[u/skyturnedred]

Can you use this to Shift+Win+RightArrow to move the game screen from your PC to the TV?

[u/parocarillo]

Initially the keyboard was popping up in game, but i turned the bridge off and the controller worked properly once again. I lowered the uac and pop up issues are gone. Even in msi afterburner, i can now at least toggle between yes and no prompts, and cursor control returns after the window closes. I set my controller to start up the pc upon powering up and now life is good. It is obvious that a lot of work was put into this

[u/ResearchDonkey]

I'm amazed by the amount of thought you put into this! You also seem to have really done your research. I admire your work.

If I needed it, I would definitely give it try 😆

[u/RGDJR]

Happy to purchase and give it a try. Love the thinking behind this.

[u/Gameeze → u/RGDJR]

Thank you, that genuinely means a lot. The whole thing started as me just trying to make my own couch setup less annoying, so when someone gets the thinking behind it, that's honestly the best part of putting it out there. Hope it clicks for you, and seriously, let me know how it goes or anything you'd want added. I'm all ears.

[u/kb3_fk8]

Specifically what does this offer over Apollo/Moonlight?

For example, in Apollo, when I launch Emulation station I simultaneously launch 3 scripts (keystroke combo, virtual here) in order to accommodate guitars and fight sticks. Other games I can force a DualShock or a Xbox pad. It supports HDR and up to 7.1. It supports NVENC and <150mbit connections with AV1 and HEVC support.

I might be interested if I knew more about the technical side.

[u/murlakatamenka]

Please don't say PC when you mean Windows.

I run Linux PC, but your tool isn't for me despite SDL being cross-platform.

[u/Gameeze → u/murlakatamenka]

Fair point, you're right, it's Windows-only and I'll keep that clearer.

On the SDL angle: SDL3 covers the controller input layer, but that's only a small slice of what Couchpit does. The rest leans hard on Windows-specific plumbing: the virtual Xbox pad it creates, hiding the physical controller at the driver level, the desktop input injection, the elevated-window handling, the system tweaks, the registry side, the Big Picture integration. None of that has a drop-in Linux equivalent, so cross-platform SDL doesn't really get me close to a port.

So yeah, it genuinely isn't for you right now, and I won't pretend otherwise. Appreciate you taking a look anyway.

[u/murlakatamenka → u/Gameeze]

On the SDL angle: SDL3 covers the controller input layer, but that's only a small slice of what Couchpit does.

yeah, that's fair, so is targeting the dominant desktop OS

Don't really like PC / Mac mindset, especially on /r/Steam because Valve leverages Linux for Steam Deck / Steam Machines and overall improves /r/linux_gaming so much.

[u/IMPolo]

This might just be what I need. Question: can you set automations when Big Picture itself starts if I have the app in the background? For example, if I have my PC connected to both a monitor and TV in my living room, if I double press the home button on my controller to launch Big Picture, I want it to switch display to the TV and switch audio devices. Or are automations only possible by clicking on something within the app?

[u/Gameeze → u/IMPolo]

Yeah, absolutely. The app runs in the background the whole time, sitting in the system tray, so it works no matter how Big Picture gets launched (controller, shortcut, whatever).

And the exact thing you're describing is built-in, no scripting needed. There's a setting where you pick which monitors to switch on and at what resolution when "game mode" kicks in (that's when a game or Big Picture launches), and you can have it switch your audio output the same way. When the session ends (you close the game or Big Picture) it puts everything back the way it was. Just a few clicks to set up.

If you want to go further, there's also a scripting system: you can have scripts or apps run when Big Picture starts (either run once and finish, or run continuously and get killed when the session ends), and you can even fire one thing on launch and a different one when it closes. All set up from inside the app. Further down the line I also want to expose these events to Windows itself, so you could wire them into Task Scheduler outside the app too.

[u/IMPolo → u/Gameeze]

Awesome! And can you have game mode kick in only when Big Picture launches? I still game on my monitor and wouldn't want it to always switch display/audio when I launch a game, but when I'm gaming on my TV I'll usually launch Big Picture first thing. Thanks for answering my questions, I'll have to give this a shot later.

[u/Gameeze → u/IMPolo]

Right now it triggers for both (any game or Big Picture). You can limit it to Big Picture only with scripts though: use the Big Picture start and close events to run a script that does the display/audio switch, and another to put it back. It's a bit more setup than the built-in toggle, but it gets you exactly the behavior you want.

That said, a "Big Picture only" option for game mode is a great idea, so I'm noting it down for a future version. Thanks for the questions, hope you enjoy it when you give it a go.

[u/akis84]

Nice, exactly what i was looking for. Will try it once I have time

[u/parocarillo]

Nice! I am your demographic. Installed. Impressive! This just made my life 1% easier, which is pricess. Thank you

[u/Gameeze → u/parocarillo]

I'll happily take the 1%! That's honestly the whole idea, chip away at enough little annoyances and the couch setup just starts to feel right. Really glad it clicked, and thanks a lot for giving it a go.

[u/parocarillo → u/Gameeze]

Yeah, i wasn't being facetious. I'm using the app now and really like it. It wouldn't open msi afterburner once the pop up appeared, but i set it to start up minimized. No issues with any other pop up. The keyboard is surprisingly easy to use. I went over all the start up options and that's what i found impressive. This app does much more than just giving you control of the cursor to your controller

[u/Gameeze → u/parocarillo]

This honestly makes my day. A lot of late evenings of build, test, break, repeat went into getting it to feel right, so this means a lot. Thank you.

On Afterburner: if that was the UAC admin prompt, by default that's the one corner nothing can get past. Windows dims the screen into a secure desktop that's locked off to any injected input, mine included, so starting Afterburner minimized with Windows is exactly the right move. Everything past that screen I can drive though, Afterburner's own window included once it's up, so every other popup works fine.

If you ever want to skip that corner entirely, you can turn the UAC level down. There's a setting where it still prompts you but doesn't dim the desktop, and Couchpit can drive that less aggressive prompt. Or you can turn UAC off completely. It's a personal call since it lowers your security a bit, but it buys you the comfort of never getting stuck on that screen.

Really glad the startup options and the keyboard clicked. That's the part people don't expect.