I got The AOC Interactive PC Controller

StarTreker · November 26, 2025, 10:41pm

I hope that everyone is having a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Well, I've been gaming with my keypad and mouse for months now, but I'm still having some issues with my left hand, hitting wrong keys when playing, that sort of thing. I couldn't use a gaming controller right after the stroke, cause even when I was healing, I could only move my thumb a couple of times, till it got tired and stopped working.

Now that my left hand & fingers have gotten better, I decided I wanted to switch to a controller. The one I've had, is wired, has no vibration, haptic feedback, or hall effect sensors. I bought an AOC gaming controller with interactive screen. Has adjustable vibration levels, hall effect sensors, and haptic feedback, as well as a programmable macro's.

Just preliminary testing so far:

I charged up the controller, set language to English, then connected it up to my computer's bluetooth. While that went without a hitch, when loading up Steam, it didn't detect my controller. I had to install that USB dongle you see in the package, to an available USB port. I pressed the button on it, and it connected up instantly, then Steam could see it.

Once I achieved that goal, I loaded up Half Life 2, see what sort of trouble I could get into. I discovered a couple things I needed to adjust. I had to adjust the joystick sensitivity, cause it was far too sensitive, too quick for me! Then, I adjusted the movement response sensitivity between going from dead zone center, to full on across. I set a couple button mappings as well, cause I didn't like where they set them. Haptic feedbacks to full power too!

I then loaded up the Ravenholm level, a creepy house of horrors that is!

So far, the new controller is working out great. I love the customization I can do, re-mapping buttons, adjusting sensitivity, dead zone, haptic feedback, vibration levels. Thumb-sticks are precise, strong button clicks, triggers feel great, and even the D-pad is useful. No controller drift, which is a plus.

The zombies were getting unrully, had to put them down. Eating brains might be a delicacy in uncivilized 3rd world countries, but its not aloud here! They hang as a warning not to screw with me. LOL! Face with tears of joy

StarTreker · December 8, 2025, 1:34am

It took me years, but I also finally upgraded my setup, so that I was able to store my headphones, and my controller, on a nice wooden/metal stand. Much better then laying headphones down on the console, and putting the controller inside the console.

This also frees up room on the console, to store a dinner plate after eating. The stand comes to you in pieces, for simplifying shipping. While they include screws and an alan key, I prefered to use my LTT screwdriver, thank you screw hold magnet, ya simplified my installation life lol.

applecheeks37 · December 8, 2025, 4:45pm

I was unaware that AOC made controllers. I only mostly know them from monitors lol. How's the D-Pad on that? To me it looks a little unruly, but perhaps it's better actually using it than it looks.

It almost looks like a large trackpad like how the original steam controller had their dpad set up.

StarTreker · December 9, 2025, 2:49am

Good to see you apple cheeks! I love apple sauce BTW, with cinnamon added, its so good!

I too know them from making monitors as well, its good that they have branched off to the gaming world!

I've used several consoles that had D-pads on controllers, all of them could only do up/down, left/right, and all of them were mushy buttons. The D-Pad on the AOC controller feels like an 8 direction access, and has tactile clicks when pushed, not noisy, just tactile, not mushy.

Yes, both the Steam controller V1 & the now V2, appears to have trackpads on them. According to certain reviews on the Steam V2 controller, a lot of people say, they rather use a dedicated mouse, then the trackpad for mouse movement.

The AOC thumbsticks are precise as well, but please note, it does require games with full controller support, (Like Chernobylite) to get the full precision benefit. The triggers, bumpers, and the 4 main controller right side buttons, are nice tactile thock buttons, not mushy at all, nice strong tactile feel.

You do get more buttons with this controller, then you do the old Xbox controllers, so more buttons you can assign to tasks, and macro's, all of which can be set, & adjusted, via the screen menu, no additional software required. Please note however, Steam controller support, supports key-mapping themselves.

Additionally, the screen menu, allows you to adjust backlight and vibration levels too. There is official software for this, but like anything that isn't open source, proprietary to Windows only, which is why I like the screen menu that does most things.

One of the reasons why I love my new Keychron keyboard, is cause its an open source design, which is why I can use a web application, to configure it. No proprietary software is required.

All in all, the AOC controller meets my needs. I was really impressed, with how quickly I could connect it, once I figured out I needed the dongle. Each time I turn the controller back on, it auto re-connects, within 3-seconds, with a quick vibration & screen indicator as confirmation. I'm very happy with the controller.

As a last note:

I've used controllers before, that used mushy buttons, improper dead zone sticks, and creeky housing. This is a durable controller, no mushy buttons, no creaky housing, no improper stick dead zones, just a great out of the box experience.

Regarding dead zones, this scan be adjusted as well in the screen menu! And while it was perfectly fine out of the box, I noticed a very slight difference between left and right sticks, when going from 0, to up, on the right stick. All I did, was leave the stick in its center 0 position, entered the dead zone menu, and re-confirmed/applied its 0 position. After doing that, the right sticks perfectly matched the left stick.

My OCD was satisfied, when playing Chernobylite. I barely moved the right stick up, and it was barely moving my players view up, NICE! The quality is very much apparent with my AOC controller. Most generic controllers I've used, were utter garbage, when compared to the OEM controllers. I would go so far to say that the AOC, is better then OEM controllers.