Capcom has announced it is dropping native DirectInput support for the PC version of Street Fighter V in its next update, opting instead of have use Steam’s native support for PS4 controllers and other devices instead.
The company announced that the next update, which will drop next Wednesday, February 27 will remove the game’s native support of the input method to “improve operation stability for DirectInput USB controllers used with the Steam version of the game.” That sounds a bit strange, since it means that, according to Capcom if you use a DirectInput device (which includes PS4 controllers and several kinds of arcade sticks, especially older ones), “launching Street Fighter V after applying the update will result in the loss of controller functionality. So it’ll be pretty stable in that it won’t work at all.
Instead, you’ll have to reconfigure your controller through Steam (the only way you can play SFV on PC). This involves following a few instructions outlined by Capcom:
1. Confirm that STREET FIGHTER V is not running.
2. Log in to your Steam client and select either “Steam” or “View” from the upper left corner. Then, go to “Settings” > “Controller.”
3. When the controller settings window displays, select “General Controller Settings,” looking to the bottom of the window for the detected controllers notification. Confirm it lists the name of your PC, as well as any USB controllers currently in use.
4. Fill in the check boxes for the settings that apply to the currently connected controller types.
You’ll also have to assign controllers inputs manually for your device one more time, though, with the way Steam’s support of these devices work, it should recognize them more consistently and without additional work, which means once you set a controller up, you shouldn’t have to do anything else. That said, switching to Steam may come with some compatibility issues, so your mileage on whether your arcade stick works after the update will vary.
Xinput controllers (most notably Xbox 360 and Xbox One controllers) will still work natively after the update.
This isn’t the worst solution the problem, but considering some of the issues I’ve had getting DirectInput controllers to work with games that don’t support them (like Dragon Ball FighterZ), this is likely going to lead to some headaches. It’s also going to lead to longer setup times any time a group of players all want to set up their own controllers, which means PS4 will likely be the tournament standard for the foreseeable future. On the surface, it’s also a bit confusing the PC version would be having issues with DirectInput controllers natively, since the only other version of the game is the PS4 one. Let’s hope they don’t remove DirectInput support for that version.
Source: Gameinformer