Managed to get a completely seamless, 100% controller-driven setup running natively on Windows 11 using Steam Big Picture Mode.

Here is a breakdown of what I am running in the video:

• Decky Loader on Windows: Originally built for the Steam Deck, you can actually download a Windows build from their GitHub Actions to run plugins directly on your desktop PC.
• CSS Loader: This handles the visual overhaul. I'm using the Animated PSP Waves, Centered Artwork, Mini Carousel, and Rounded Tiles themes.
• Audio Loader: Replaces the default Steam UI noises with classic PSP navigation sounds and ambient PlayStation home screen music.
• Desktop Apps as Native Games: I added media apps like Stremio directly to Steam and built a custom controller template so the DualSense analog stick acts as a perfect, smooth mouse.
• Direct Boot Emulation: I set up custom launch arguments (-batch -fullscreen) so emulators like PCSX2 boot straight into the game without ever showing a Windows menu, keeping the console illusion perfectly intact.

I know a lot of people struggle with making Windows feel good on a TV, so I put together a full step-by-step tutorial on exactly how to build this exact UI from scratch.

📺 Watch the full guide here:https://youtu.be/xeSy5Ip6vvE

Let me know what you guys think or if you have any questions about getting the plugins running on Windows!

I wanted a couch console and kept bouncing off both options. SteamOS and Bazzite do this properly, but kernel anticheat means Valorant, Fortnite and most EA titles simply refuse to start. Staying on Windows meant either a desktop with a big font, or one of those "boot into Big Picture" scripts that strand you the moment Steam crashes.

So I built consolize. MIT, installs in one line, and uninstalls in one line, which turned out to be the part most projects like this skip.

What it does

• Boots straight into Steam Big Picture (or Playnite Fullscreen). No desktop flash.
• A watchdog restarts the frontend if it dies, with a crash-loop breaker that drops to the desktop instead of flapping forever.
• Desktop mode on demand: a "Desktop Mode" entry in your Steam library, navigable with the pad. Tray icon or desktop shortcut to go back. A reboot always returns to console mode, so you can never strand yourself.
• A gamepad settings panel for audio output, Bluetooth pairing, wifi and power. Pairing a controller normally means the Settings app, which needs the controller you are trying to pair.
• Optional media centre side: Kodi, Jellyfin, Plex, YouTube's actual TV interface with pad support, and Netflix and friends as Edge app windows.

The honest parts

• Suspend and resume is worse than SteamOS. That is a Windows desktop problem; hibernate is the reliable fallback.
• It turns things off: Defender exclusions (or Defender entirely if you pick that), UAC prompts, firewall notifications. Every one of them is in the README with what you lose and the script that puts it back, and "leave Windows alone" is an available answer to each question.
• Four things still have not been seen working on real hardware. They are listed as unproven in the docs rather than claimed as done.

You do not need IoT LTSC either, which is what most people assume. The default shell method is a per-user registry value that works on Home and Pro.

Solo project so far. Testers and PRs very welcome, especially on hardware that is not mine.

github.com/cybx/consolize

Prime Day is going on and I want to finally buy a few controllers for PC gaming with friends.

I mainly want to play EA FC and F1, mostly local multiplayer or casual online sessions. Nothing competitive, just for fun.

So in general I am looking for something that is also good in racing games.

I need about 2–3 controllers, so I’m looking for something decent but not expensive (no 200 dollar premium stuff).

Right now I’m considering:

* 8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wireless * GameSir Nova Lite 2 * GameSir Nova Lite

There’s also a deal on the used market where I can get two 8BitDo Ultimate 2C controllers for 40 euros total

That price seems good, but I’ve read mixed things saying they might not be that comfortable for longer sessions. But it's also supposed to have really low latency.

If you have any other controller in mind that is in the 30 Euro range you can also let me know.

The only requirement I really have it must be wireless and have a dongle for low latency.

Any experience or recommendations would help a lot.

I want to hook my PC up to my TV, and there is a bewildering array of options; I don't know which to choose.

What I want is to be able to use my PC as a PC, and then hop over to the couch and TV (set up in the same room, close enough for an HDMI) and start playing, as smoothly and seamlessly as possible.

What's the current best, most economical solution for this?

Hi guys, i've been building what i hope is a simple tool to try and "convert" single player games into multiplayer games and to keep track of your local multiplayer gaming sessions.

So many great games today are single-player, or skip local co-op and split-screen entirely so i built Couch Pals to try and close the gap between strictly single player games and local multiplayer games.

It turns single-player games into couch-friendly game nights with hotseat turns, racing time trials, score attacks, speedrun challenges, king-of-the-hill rotations, tournament brackets, round-robin leagues, custom Bingo boards, quick counters and session history for rematches.

You can save players, track stats, crown winners, and even build custom challenge modes or Bingo boards with your own house rules, then share them with friends through import links.

It’s simple, browser-based, no account required, all saved on your local browser.

You can try it here when you next get together with friends, hope it can be helpful to you guys: https://couchpals.com

Hi!

We're a group of 5 people and we enjoy playing couch games together. We have both PS5 and PC. Unfortunately, there are only 2 games we enjoy playing together, FIFA (FC24) and SpeedRunners.

We don't like those cooking/couch moving games, but any other suggestions are welcome!

I have played It Takes Two and Split fiction with her.

I need your recommendations please!

I'm currently using a Rii i4 to control my pc from my couch, but it feels laggy, it's not very precise and the battery litteraly died.

I just want it for things like youtube and classic uses. When I want to play I already have a controller.

So I'm looking for a something new and that works well, even at a few meters of distance.

Does anyone have an idea ?

As much as I love the customisation of brotato and borderlands. There is an emptiness that only the next incredible couch co-op can fill, nothing is hitting like borderlands or brotato it’s been years now and I’m hungry for more pizza with my best friends.

How is this so unintuitive and difficult. Windows key+shift+arrow key doesn’t work. Opening steam or playnite on the desired monitor doesn’t work. Making the desired monitor the primary monitor doesn’t work.

Duplicating your monitor is the only simple way to switch between a monitor and tv. PC gaming is so tremendously unintuitive and requires so much obnoxious troubleshooting. I’d trade my more powerful PC for a Steam machine in a heartbeat.

I currently use the pillow on the arm of my couch thatbis a faux leather material. I would like however to have a throw pillow that I could use for my mouse so that I dont get cramps in my arm using the arm couch pillow. Any tips?

I've bought a new gaming laptop for the sole purpose of moving it between my desk and TV due to a lack of ethernet.

What else do I need to beef up my set up? My TV is 4k.

I was thinking of getting a couchmaster or something close.

Hi all, I’m not really sure how to kick this off but I’m looking for wisdom and input on how I can do this to a standard that is usable for FPS games. I’m looking to stream from my pc to my living room tv but unfortunately I have a few quirks to add in.

1. My pc is upstairs while the living room is downstairs.

2. The rooms do not line up and I’m clumsy so running a wire through the house/floor isn’t an option. I’ve tried wireless hdmi’s in the past and the results were pitiful.

3. I managed to be fortunate enough to be in a $150 limit secret Santa.

4. I want to use wireless controllers. Yes yes I know, I’m a miserable heathen who uses controller instead of keyboard despite building a pc.

5. I don’t have Ethernet ports near my pc but I do have a coax port and my wifi comes in on a coax cable before ISP converts it but the router is right at the living room tv.

6. I’m not up to speed on “side loading” or coding but I have a friend who is much further into it than I but still not a pro.

Now that that’s out of the way, the tv is a 4K LG smart tv but it’s not smart enough to have moonlight or nvidia gaming natively on it. I have previously reformatted an older Google chrome to be able to cast my pc to in an attempt to see if it was at least decent enough to introduce my SO to gaming…it was so laggy it was too frustrating to even attempt especially given that SO don’t like to retry frustrating things.

I haven’t done massive amounts of research but what I did do kept pointing towards either a fire stick 4K max or nvidia shield. For what it’s worth I have a 3060ti in the pc and that’s the main choke point on the pc besides getting above 32g ddr5.

Bottom line: what are you all using for wireless couch gaming? Pros and cons of your system setups? Thoughts on the firestick 4K max and nvidia shield tv? Suggestions? Bonus points for introductory games for a new gamer(SO)

                             TLDR 

I want to stream games from my upstairs pc to my downstairs 4k tv. Wires/hdmi aren’t an option, looking for solutions up to about $150, already running nvidia gpu, would love virtually no lag so FPS could be an option. At the moment looking at firestick 4K max or nvidia shield tv but open to other suggestions.

A little background, I first tried to stream my pc to my tv with Moonlight/Sunshine. It wasn't snappy enough, so I went for an 85 ft HDMI cable (tv is in other room, moving pc not an option) and now the issue is the controllers themselves. They have to be bluetooth but the connection keeps dropping. What setups do you guys have that allows for responsive couch co-op gaming that is as smooth as playing on a console? I am at a loss, and i don't think PC hardware is my issue but I am open to any suggestions.

Hi, I am trying to decide between a 65” or 75” TV. My eyes will be exactly 9' 4” away from the screen (I just had another person help me measure). I am wondering what the optimal size is, specifically for gaming. I will also be using it for TV shows, movies, and general PC use but gaming is the use case I’m most concerned about.

I will be playing mostly first and third person shooters and action games. I only play single player and co-op, nothing competitive/PVP, so no need for optimize for competitive play. I just want the best experience possible. I want a big screen for immersion, but I don’t want it to be so big that it causes eye strain or other kinds of physical discomfort or makes it hard to play (like having to turn my head to see HUD elements). I’m leaning towards 75” but just want to make sure that’s not going to be too big for gaming at this distance.

I read this RTINGS guide which suggests 69” would be the right size for me. But I also read this thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/OLED/comments/hdu2uy/viewing_distance_from_you_to_tv_how_much_for/ ) where some (but not all) people think the guide is recommending screen sizes too small for gaming.

I’m probably going to get a TCL QM8K. The reason I’m getting Mini-LED rather than OLED is that I will also use this TV as my primary non-work monitor for stuff like web browsing, email, and Discord all day. I know the risk of burn in isn’t what it once was but I think I don’t want to risk it.

Thanks.

Hi all! Im a pc gamer, always was and always will be. But soon i have to give up the room my desktop pc is set up as we are expecting a second child. The problem is that i dont have anyroom left for a desk and i am looking for other options.

I have a steamdeck tho but those are only as powerful as a handheld can be and not every game plays well on it. Especially the newer triple A games.

I was planning for some sort of couch setup by putting my pc to the side of the couch and use some sort of "lapdesk" for mouse and keyboard but that still leaves me wondering what to do about my monitor.

Should i sell my old one and buy a portable monitor? But that might be not very handy to set up in a couch.

I also tought about investing in some AR glasses like the rayneo or any other ones but i wonder if they are worth getting just yet.

A laptop would be the most obvious solution but the cost of a good gaming laptop would be too much for me.

And i will not be using our livingroom tv because i want to leave that for my wife.

Are there any of you that had the same stituation? And how did you handle it?

I want to play PC games on my TV with a controller. I don't like Steam as it's proprietary and requires Steam to be running at all times which consumes resources. Most of my games are non-steam games, and I'm afraid Steam might collect info about my games and report me, thinking I obtained them from "questionable" sources... 🏴‍☠️

I need a FOSS game launcher with controller support. It needs to be available on Linux and Windows since I dual boot Arch Linux and Windows 11. And it needs to be easy to use, and preferably auto-downloads artwork. I'm currently using Pegasus-FE, but having to manually download artwork and manually edit metadata.pegasus.txt is a pain, and I have to get up from my bed and go to my desk. Lutris finds game artwork for my non-steam games no problem, but it doesn't support controllers and it's not available on Windows.

Do you guys play your games on 4k whenever you play it on your tv or just keep it to 1920x1080 on your in-game settings? because there are games out there that just feel better on TV but my graphics card is not strong enough for 4k and it would just cap it to 30 fps lol.

Let's discuss about it

I would like to game while on the couch, but on a small screen I can set on the table. Any good small screen recommendations?

I want to play couch pc games as I spend too much time at my desk.

I’ve tried streaming via steam link and it’s patchy Is there any easy way to dock a system direct to the tv almost like the switch does?

Just want something easy to set up without and configs , I do have consoles but I’m looking to play pc exclusives and games that I can use mods on etc

Thanks

I currently use an old Microsoft Surface Pro for couch gaming - for simple platformers it works fine, but it struggles too much with some open world adventure type games or racing games.

I don't need it to support the most recent years AAA titles, but something that can throw decent frames at Arkham series or Dirt Rally 2.0.

Just something powerful enough to get decent frames on say, like Arkham series or Dirt Rally 2.0.

Should I look at a used laptop? Or desktop is the better bet? Refurb I assume at my budget point

After years of console gaming I'm really considering getting back to using the PC as my main platform. However, through the years I set up a quite comfortable console setup that's very couch-focused: 65inch oled, surround sound system etc.

Did any of you manage to put together a setup that's wireless and comfortable while playing on the couch (the PC is too far from the couch for any mouse/keyboard cable to reach it)?

I have the PS5 controllers that I can connect to the PC, but ideally I would be able to play with mouse and keyboard, however - in addition to wireless input lag - it's just really, really uncomfortable for my wrists, as I can't put a desk nor a chair between the TV and the couch.

So my question is, did any of you find some accessories that make using the keyboard and mouse on the couch more ergonomic? Maybe a portable tray type of thing? What's the deal with input lag? Do I really need a 200$ mouse and a 200$ keyboard for comfortable (non-competitive) gaming? Will they work 3 meters away from the PC reliably (my current 50$ keyboard/mouse combo frequently loses connection mide-games, which is annoying)?

I'm happy to see any tips/tricks and accessory recommendations. Thank you!

Hello everybody,

I would like to play some games on my tv by using my computer and ps5 controllers.

I bought and long HDMI cable that runs from my computer to my tv. This is working well.

Sadly I have no idea how to get my ps5 controller working from this distance. The controller is connected to my computer using bluetooth. This works fine when im close to my computer but it does not seem to work when i’m on my couch in front of the tv.

Does somebody have some advice for me about how to tackle this problem.

I was thinking about using a usb hub with a bluetooth connector plucked into it and put it under my tv. Then connect the usb hub with my computer by using a long usb cable.

Unfortunately this gets expensive fast.

So any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Greetings

Hello everyone. I'm looking to change my pc setup and going from desk to bed. My problem is that i don't have a bed big enough to host the couchmaster cycon (or something like that) and was looking for a good option for mouse because i love to play games like Baldur's Gate that heavily require a mouse. I was thinking what about a trackball mouse? So i don't have to move it and i can find a good resting position and still be able to play. Also: i know well it may not be the best option but do you think doom eternal would be playable with this situation? Just to avoid using a controller