Using Game Controllers over a Remote Desktop session
Well, it’s been over six years since I last wrote on this blog! The theme could do with updating, it’s screaming “2010” at me.
So, I work from home a fair bit. Be it evenings, weekends, or sometimes during regular work hours. The setup I have for that is much like any other game company: We have a secure VPN into our work network, and we’d use Remote Desktop to control our work PC. My home PC isn’t as beefy as my work PC, so it’s nice to have the power of my work PC when compiling code, or building game data. A PC build of our game runs fine over Remote Desktop, if you size the window down it is pretty decently playable.
We make our game for “the consoles” too, so we’re able to run on those via Remote Desktop, and the platform holders also provide viewing apps to see what’s going on, on said consoles. These work pretty great, and work over a Remote Desktop session. When I’m working at home, I generally don’t find anything lacking about my dev environment (and having no office interruptions is great!). Up until now though, I did have one gripe… Controllers. We can control the PC version of the game with a mouse, but with the console builds over Remote Desktop, you’re stuck with keyboard controls, or other facsimiles of a controller. Being able to use a controller over a Remote Desktop session would be great! I was surprised to find out that it’s possible, but Microsoft for some reason disallow it by default.
Here’s how to get it working…
